Magyar Hírek, 1984 (37. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1984-10-13 / 21. szám
An evening PHOTOS: ISTVÁN VENCSELI.EI at Nádudvar The reason I like the new community centre of Nádudvar so much is that it does not stick out of the township, it melts into it. It provides a modest, singlestorey view from the outside, but houses three levels inside, and far more rooms— thanks to the ingenuity of the architectural design—than many uninviting, multi-storeyed concrete wonders. The other great virtue of the community centre is that it offers entertainment to everybody, from kindergarten children to senior citizens, from labourers to engineers. Take, for instance, Tibor Kropp and his family. When I walked into the room, where modern dancing was in progress, what caught my eye were not the figures of pretty females, but by Tibor Kropp, a turner of Co-operation for Maize and Industrial Crop Production (KITE). The ease with which he warmed-up contradicted his age, and bulk. It turned out that he used to take part in dancing competitions, and although he had given that up long ago, many of the movements were second nature to him. “Even if I can no longer dance competitively”, he said, stroking his ' huge belly, “I still like dancing, and we also need exercise. At least the family is together here.” His family, his wife, his 12 years old girl Csilla, and the 14 years old lad Jóska, like not only modern ways, they are also folkdancers. It looks though that the former is closer to their hearts, for Mrs. Kropp sighs, as she looks at her children: “They may, perhaps, still become a ball-room dancing couple, even if we couldn't, I think we succeeded in instilling this passion in them . ..” It is low cost passion and no doubt much fun. Twenty dancers spend their Thursday evenings here regularly, week after week, under the guidance of Sándor Gyöngyösi, their master, and pay a total of twenty forints a month for the privilege. That is the membership fee of the dancing club. Most of them are foundation members. They started the club long before the new community centre opened. The Kropps also used to dance originally in the old House of Culture, which has since been torn down. Now, once a week, they have one of the nicest rooms of the centre. “We carried on the same way earlier, but still we like this more”, Mrs. Kropp, a trained teacher, said. “The surroundings are much better here!” The Kropp family, and many others spend a considerable part of their leisure hours in these really charming surroundings. The day before, for instance, the family had attended a literary evening. The week before they tjok part in the opening of an exhibition of Nádudvar folk'-art, the head of the family unfortunately could not turn up since he was doing overtime. A KITE turner is kept pretty busy: there are some four-hundred member co-operatives in the association and these send machines, tools, and parts they cannot repair themselves to Nádudvar from all parts of the country. Yet he insists he could never be too busy to miss the choir rehearsals, which he attends with the missus once a week, on Mondays, and even more often before performances. “And what do the children do in the meantime?” “There is plenty for them too!” It is very important that the youngsters the toddlers and also the teen-agers acquired the habit of going to the community centre in a few short weeks. Mrs. Gabriella H. Lugosi, the pretty, young choirmistress, told me that since the new community centre had opened its doors it is not at all easy to drag home her husband, or even her two and a half years old baby. Father always plays skittles (there is a tastefully decorated beer hall complete with an automatic skittle alley in the lower ground floor, and the skittle club already has a membership of 120). The choir led by Gabriella consists of only twenty singers. “It’s small, but at least it’s mixed”, say the singers about themselves, and it is a mixed choir in more than one sense; Its made up of men and women, and boys and girls, workers and teachers, music students, and even others, who four years ago, when the choir was formed, could not even read music. They sing folk-songs as well as madrigals. The atmosphere is serious during rehearsals but there is fun before and after, and those, who have ever taken part in the banquets that close the season—the highlight of which is the traditional mutton stewed with paprika—bear witness that the members of the Nádudvar mixed choir do not deny themselves the pleasures of the belly. “Well, the atmosphere is intimate around here”, choir-mistress Gabriella insisted. “And it will be even more so.” It turns out that the choir sang a part of Bach’s Peasant Cantata at the opening ceremony of the new community centre. It was accompanied on a violin by Tivadar Hornicsár, the husband of the choirmistress. “Tivadar cannot escape after this. He also has to make music with us.” There are other family relationships here also. Ferenc Bauer, a secondary-school teacher for instance, accepted the position of animateur at Nádudvar, because the township also needed a paediatrician, and his wife was appointed for that post. The young couple was also given a three-roomed house. Antal Beke, a technician at the community centre returned to his birth-place from Budapest also for family reasons. He had worked for the Pannónia film studio for 15 years, but he longed to be together with his parents. Two of the staff of twenty are technicians. They work in alternating shifts, since the centre is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Indeed, the centre is open till midnight on weekends, when the disco is on. The nightclub is open until three in the morning, once a month in the entrance hall and the espresso café. But even the nightclub is an opportunity for family entertainment. The difference is, naturally, that the parents come here without children. Programmes, dancing, entertainment, music, subdued lights, —this is what the nightclub offers, and of course an opportunity for informal conversation, to the professional men and women. I take a rough “census”: how many people are at the centre on a quiet, warm, summer week-day, in the early evening? Twenty attend the modern dancing course. Some twenty people play indoor games, table-football and the like. About fifteen busy themselves with an electronic game. Play centre: again some twenty people play skittles, drinking coffee or beer, talking. The library: half a dozen people linger there. The exhibition room: attendance is similar. Entrance hall: ten-fifteen people thumb books, chat, or wait around. There are about one hundred of us here, in the middle of the silly season, when the theatre is empty, there is no ball, or other function. Even the co-operative farm has no meeting on in the conference room. Neither the folk-dancers, nor the students of the German course are here today, not even the members of the small mathematics circle, or the garden-fanciers ... It is a quiet, intimate evening at the Nádudvar community centre. LÄSZL0 GARAMI 29
