The Hungarian Student, 1958 (2. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1958 / 5. szám
The Hungarian Student 5 Folk Dances Revived By REZSŐ VARJASI Director of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble T he HUNGARIAN STATE FOLK ENSEMBLE was founded in 1950, for the purpose of reviewing Hungarian folk art traditions and bringing them back to a people who had almost forgotten them. The Ensemble’s aim is to popularize folk art and to develop in the people the appreciation of folk traditions. Hungarian folklore, the treasury of song, music, and dance of the Hungarian people is very rich. This folklore expresses the joys and sorrows, everyday customs, and festive traditions of the peasantry and reflects the succession of social and cultural changes that have taken place in the course of the centuries. These rich and colorful expressions have awakened the interest of many foreign countries. To the majority of foreigners, however, Hungarian music meant the manneristic performances of the gypsy orchestras clad in Hussar uniform, and the false, unreal romanticism of the csíkos, the puszta, and the gulyás, considered for decades to be the acme of true Hungarian art. This was unfortunate, but it was even more unfortunate that the true art of the Hungarian people fell into oblivion. The people themselves began to forget their folklore, and the so-called folk art performed in cafés, restaurants, and on the concert stage differed very little from the programmes of spurious Hungarian folk culture performed abroad. These were years, bitter decades, when the art of the people found no home in its own fatherland, but was considered, at most, an exotic freak, performed by those still interested in it to satisfy their personal needs. The townspeople were wholly unfamiliar with the art of the people, and, consequently, they could neither appreciate nor enjoy it. Organization of Troupe In the early years of this century, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, and László Lajtha began to unearth the treasures of Hungarian folk music. Slowly, their movement spread to other aspects of folk art. Hundreds of amateur song and dance groups sprang up everywhere, and, all at once, hundreds of bright colors in an astounding variety began to proclaim the joy of life as expressed by the Hungarian people. The task before the State Folk Ensemble was a worthy, but far from easy one. We started selecting the members from village and factory dance groups. Our singers came from the best choruses and our art material from the traditions of popular orchestras. We traveled all over the country, leaving no region unsurveyed, to select from among thousands of amateur singers, dancers, and musicians, the best for our Ensemble. The pretty young girl who smiles from our posters announcing our guest performance abroad, is Teréz Horváth-Sarodi, a young peasant girl who joined our Ensemble in 1950. The dancer, Géza Léka, the “Grande Moustache,” worked on the railways at Ozd before we discovered him and asked him to join our Ensemble. The recruits brought with them old songs and dances, everything they knew. The art directors of our Ensemble, Imre Csenki, László Gulyás, and Miklós Rábai, set to work to turn these amateurs, mostly young people with no regular training in dancing, singing, or music, into accomplished artists. The members of the chorus, many of whom had never learned to read music, very quickly assimilated the great works of chorus culture, from the pre-classical master to the modern, from Palestrina to Kodály. Imre Csenki acquainted them with all the beauties of chorus singing, and they greatly appreciated the chorus art of Kodály and Bartok. These great works of art are now with dignity and authenticity performed by our chorus. Some of the qualities of the chorus, which have often received praise are the fullness of tone, the purity of intonation, the dramatic interpretation, and the depth of the feeling that it is able to achieve. Our dancer who in amateur groups danced but once or twice a week, now train for several hours every day. It was necessary for them to practice a great deal because they had not begun their dance training early, at the age of four or five years. A strong faith, youthful enthusiasm, and a tremendous will-power enabled them to reach their goal. The dancers were taught by Miklós Rábai. He created new movements for peasant dances. His task was to create dance numbers which, although they were genuine folk dances, were at the same time finished stage works. They roamed the country with a tape recorder and camera, spending weeks and months among the people, attending weddings and christening parties, seeking folk art themes, colors, customs, movements, and dance steps. Our orchestra was mainly recruited from among the older, more highly experienced folk musicians. Band-leaders of gypsy orchestras joined us, giving up leading positions and accepting roles of first or second violinists. It is to the credit of the orchestra’s art director, László Gulyás, the first violinist, Lajos Boross, and the orchestra itself that it was able to become fully integrated and has developed, both in its manner of playing and interpretation, a special folk orchestra tone. Costumes Our folk costumes (the wide skirt, fitted trousers, the women’s ornamented blouses and headdresses) have become an important element in our success abroad. Each homespun embroidery, almost every piece of clothing worn by the members of the Ensemble on stage, was designed in the folk-costume style of the village from where the dance was performed. However, we cannot always rely on the present traditions. There were villages in which we could not find a single trace of the costumes worn. In such a case, our designer, Gitta Maliász, was called up to reconstruct, on the basis of museum collections, the apparel of a particular region in a certain year. We also found that the heavy peasant costume, ten or twelve petticoats worn by the women, made dancing impossible. In such cases the female members of the ballet wear fewer petticoats, without, however, detracting from the style or beauty of the dance. On the other hand, there are cases where the many flaring skirts are indispensable to the rhythm and sway of the dance. Under these circumstances, our girls agree to carry the weight of the petticoats, and they whirl all the better for it. Public Encouragement To date, the public has encouraged us. Each performance has taken twice as long as planned, for the audience made us repeat every number. We gave encore after encore. In Budapest after the tickets were sold out, those who were unlucky and did not get one, broke through the cordon of ushers and occupied the aisles to see our performance. After Budapest came the Hungarian countryside. We traveled through the country and showed its people their own art in theatres, open-air stages, cultural clubs, and in barns quickly transformed into theatres. In one provincial town we were packing and getting ready to go home, when a little old woman came up to us. Her hands were filled with vases and figurines, paper flowers, ashtrays, a hundred cherished souvenirs of a long life. “These are yours, my dears,” she said. “I have never seen anything as beautiful as your performance.” In another small village we were supposed to give an open-air performance. The weather was cloudy, and as soon as we appeared on the stage, the rain began to fall. In one minute the Ensemble and the audience became a large cleaning and furnishing brigade. We cleaned out a big barn, put in benches, constructed a platform, and continued our performance. The first of our tours abroad was a prolonged one in Czechoslovakia; next Berlin, in the spring of 1952, then Moscow, Leningrad, Gorki, Yaroslavl, and then finally three months in China. (Continued on page 12.)
