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FOLK DANCE
GROUP HRONKA
10th
ANNIVERSARY
"THROUGH
THE NATIVE COUNTRY"
Was the title for the
10th anniversary performance of the folk dance group Hronka from Banska
Bystrica held on December 3, 1994, in the State Opera Theater of Jozef
Gregor Tajovsky. The music was provided by guest appearance of the folk
music Valaska under the leadership of my friend primas Adriana Valaskova.
After opening remarks by
well-known radio personality Mr. Stefan Turna, whom I met many years
ago for the first time at the folk festivals in Vychodna and Detva, the
long awaited and well rehearsed program started. I have mentioned in the
Fall 1994 issue that I sang six songs at Detva's festival in summer of
1994 with Valaska folk music. Some of them I have discovered in my record
collection here in Burnaby and they are not very well known and sung in
Slovakia. They were also unknown to the musicians of Valaska. I was
surprised and pleased to hear my favorite song from Cierny Balog
"Vychodi slniecko spoza hory-The sun is rising from behind the
mountain" at the start of the performance together with others that I
sang at Detva.
The main emphasis of
Hronka is folklore of the Hron region, that are the villages around the
river Hron from Telgart to Hronsky Benadik and they also know and
did perform songs and dances from Zemplin, Saris, Spis, Liptov and
Detva.
The theater was packed to
the last seat, the performance was flawless and they had to repeat the
final dance three times as the audience didn't want to let them go. This
program was sponsored by many private companies and without their generous
help this performance wouldn't be possible. In about a middle through the
program Valaska played an instrumental song that sounded so beautiful it
has given me shivers, as I usually get when I hear Lucka
Stasikova from Vitaz beautiful voice and tears have come to my eyes for this was
such a beauty as I never heard before. I had no clue where it was from,
one thing I knew I never heard it before. So immediately after the
performance I asked my friend Adriana about the song. I was right, I had
never heard it before, and it was a song from wedding celebrations in the
village of Liptovska Kokava, near Liptovsky Hradok and the skanzen in
Pribylina where Adriana was doing last year academic research of the
wedding traditions of the village for her University final exams. The name
of the song is: "Pod oblockom piskaju-They are whistling
under the window." I also got the tape of her research and I listen to
it quite often. I have made video of the Hronka's performance and I also
taped it and I always play this song over and over again. It's funny to
fell in love with a song you her first time, but it happened.
Following the successful
performance, the members of Hronka and invited guests went to a
restaurant-disco club near by for dinner, celebration and some dancing.
There were two rooms to
dance. One played disco and in the other room there was a live folk music
band. The most amazing scene was that all the dancers moved from one room
to the other adjoining room when the disco stopped and the folk music
started and vice versa. It proved that these young people loved both the
folk and the disco and were able to enjoy them. At first when the disco
played I taught they will not folk dance at all as all of them seem to
enjoy the disco and rap so much. I was happy that I was wrong.
Soon I went to see the
artistic director and choreographer of Hronka, Dr.Milan Duris CSc. and
asked him few questions and this were his answers:
"Our folk dance and
singing ensemble Hronka has 45 active members including the musicians and
this year we are celebrating our tenth anniversary. We usually perform in
Banska Bystrica and we have performed many times at Horehronsky Folk
Festival in Helpa and in many other cities of middle Slovakia's
region, then in numerous health spas for local and foreign patients. In
August 1994 we absolved a tourney through the northern Italy in the
province De Como where we were performing in nine different cities with
just as many performances. Members of our group include students,
laborers, engineers, teachers and many other walks of life. Our activities
aren't supported by the government, but by private sponsors and through
their generosity we can exist as a folk dance ensemble. The tax laws have
changed recently and the private companies are able to give money to
different groups providing their products are advertised in the brochures,
banners, etc., and are able to write off these funds as advertising
expenses.
Situation and activities
and existence of our and many other folk dance ensembles in Slovakia is
currently very difficult and everything falls on insufficient basic funds.
There are lots of people of all ages interested in folklore despite that
Banska Bystrica itself has many folk ensembles in town and surrounding
areas.
My self I should be only
artistic director and choreographer. Besides that I am also acting manager
and organization manager, I take care of folk costumes in one word I do it
all. This is really very complicated and time consuming and it requires
lot of sacrifices and most of all understanding of my wife. My wife is
outstanding, because I feel if I did this being married to another woman I
am sure I would have received walking papers long ago. I do it all from
the love of Slovak folklore and I can say that I am slowly becoming a
fanatic and it is like drug, I can't live without."
The party continued till
the early hours of the morning. It was somewhat disturbed and saddened by
vandalism of numerous cars belonging to the folk musicians on the parking
lot, resulting in the loss of audio equipment and numerous other items.
Luckily my car, since it looked so bad and there wasn’t anything visible
on the seats, was spared. The mood wasn't the same after this
disturbance. Being really late, tired and another 20 miles of driving
through the mountains in front of us to hotel Jelenec at Stare Hory on
the way to Donovaly made us leave. It was terribly cold. I haven't been
drinking at all evening for fear of being caught by the police so upon the
arrival at the hotel I had few shots of really good Czech herbal liquor
called "Becherovka," naturally cooled in the trunk of my
borrowed Lada, Russian made car.
All
photographs are for sale
GO TO FOLKLORE GROUPS
Published in the
Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 3, No. 1, Spring 1995
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1995
3804 Yale
Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may not be copied, reproduced, republished,
or redistributed by any means including electronic, without the express
written permission of Vladimir
Linder. All rights reserved.
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