KERHONKSON, N.Y. — Each summer for about three decades, children of Ukrainian descent have converged on a wooded retreat here in the Catskills, the girls donning embroidered blouses, and the boys puffy Cossack pants, to learn the folk dances of their ancestors.


Think of it as a kind of Ukrainian Hogwarts. This retreat, the Roma Pryma Bohachevsky Ukrainian Dance Academy at the Soyuzivka resort, is secluded in an enchanting patch of forest purchased half a century ago by Ukrainian immigrants. Founded in the late 1970s, it hosts dozens of students each year; this summer had a record 31 new pupils. Many have come annually for their entire childhood and later bring their own children, forging a link with a country many of them can scarcely imagine and may never see.


So it is curious that among those most responsible for imparting this important bit of Ukrainian culture is Orlando Pagan, a son of Puerto Ricans who grew up in the Bronx.


Mr. Pagan, who has been involved with Ukrainian dance since the late 1980s, choreographs and teaches here. He is also heir to a small empire of Ukrainian dance schools in the New York area. His status in this niche of ethnic dance is all the more extraordinary, when you consider that many in the North American diaspora see their affiliation as a last preserve of culture and traditions that they believe have eroded in Ukraine over much of the last century.


“Our parents really encumbered us with this mission that we had to maintain our heritage because Ukraine was stripped of it,” said Tamara Lucyshyn, 46, whose teenage daughters attend the camp.


But as with most diasporas, early orthodoxy has made way for assimilation. The immigrants who fled Ukraine during World War II are disappearing, and knowledge of the language has begun to fade. Many in the younger generations have never been to Ukraine, and lately what it means to be Ukrainian is being recalibrated.


“Orlando is as Ukrainian as you can get,” said Roma Slobodian, 47, whose daughter has attended the camp for six years. “We couldn’t imagine this place without him.”


Mr. Pagan, 45, began dabbling in dance in grade school, albeit hesitantly. The machismo culture of the Bronx was not exactly tolerant of boys in tights, he said. His parents, he added, were not enthusiastic about the idea and were even more perplexed when he announced, at 19, that he would study Ukrainian folk dance.


Recruited by another Puerto Rican friend, he said, Mr. Pagan was immediately enraptured by the intense athleticism of the men and the equally powerful grace of “girls spinning across the floor at 100 miles per hour.”


Most important, he said, the dance was an escape from the poverty and helplessness of the Bronx, allowing him to prosper and set aside problems. And, he said, “It didn’t hurt that the girls were beautiful.”


Over the years he has been involved in other projects, including a stint singing in the boy band Freestone in the 1990s. He has also performed with the Bronx Dance Theater and appeared in a few Off Broadway productions. In 1999 Arthur Mitchell invited him to join the Dance Theater of Harlem, and for the next seven years he toured the world.


Throughout, he said, he almost always practiced Ukrainian dance on weekends and maintained strong ties to Ukrainians, marrying into their world in 2003. His wife, Larisa, is also a dancer and now works with him at the camp and New York schools.


Along the way, he gained the confidence of Roma Pryma Bohachevsky, the grande dame of Ukrainian folk dance in the region. Ms. Bohachevsky, a ballerina from Ukraine who immigrated in the 1950s, founded a network of Ukrainian dance schools in the New York area, as well as the camp here. She also created an elite Ukrainian dance ensemble called Syzokryli, which Mr. Pagan joined.


Typically accompanied by up-tempo traditional music, Ukrainian folk dance often combines jumps performed by men with more graceful movement for women. At the camp students learn the dances of different regions of Ukraine, some dating back centuries.