Fuchs Lívia: A tánc forradalmárai. Vendégszereplők 1898 és 1948 között. Bajor Gizi Színészmúzeum, Budapest 2004. március 19 - május 2. (Budapest, 2004)

Kísérlet a szintézisre

Summary

The. exhibition titled Revolutionaries in dance - and the related essay - might be called the first attempt at reconstructing, with the help of written and visual records, the remarkably ramified artistic process of the half century, during which Hungarian audiences first faced an entirely new dance movement, namely modern dance, and the simultaneous modernization of rigidified traditional ballet. The leading personalities and companies of the contemporary dance scene all chose Budapest as one of locations in their tours - some of them even performed in provincial venues -, so audiences could gain first-hand experience in the experiments which, in their

revolutionary way, effected a fundamental change in the concepts of theatrical dance.

In Hungarian-speaking regions, however, the spreading and the gradual acceptance of ballet — especially its form incorporating national dances — had hardly begun. The only venue of the ballet was the Opera House, opened in 1884, to which was added, in 1911, the Folksopera, whose repertoire included lighter, more spectacular musical pieces, so the representatives of classical ballet could now perform in these two theatres. Meanwhile, musical theatres, music halls, cabarets started to mushroom in the quickly developing capital city. The first wave of modern dance artists could only emerge in this boisterous and gaudy medium. This fact partly explains the controversial reception of these dancers’ performances, since they presented their dances as high art, and considered themselves serious and devoted creative and performing artists.

The first appearance of the representatives of modern dance raised such basic artistic questions as never had been put forward before. For instance, what is the body, and its function — or the function of its concealment