Folk dances. Be a part of it!

I've had a few people ask me where they can learn more about the traditional music of the Balkan region, so I decided to dedicate one post to this. Coincidentally, this week the University of Eötvös Loránd in Budapest prepared an event called Bölcsész Napok. Now, what's special about this is that there were also many performances there, which included traditional dances. As far as I know, there was salsa on Tuesday, as well as belly dance, and such. There was also a performance by Bohemian Betyars, a folk rock band from Budapest. Unfortunately, this time I didn't manage to catch them with my camera, but I'm looking forward to reviewing one of their shows soon.

© Viktória Jávorszky

Anyway, what I want to focus on here is the Macedonian group, which I'm also a member of. We performed twice on Thursday, actually. We give many thanks to Viktória, also a student of Macedonian language, who was kind enough to make some breathtaking photos of the event.
We would especially like to thank Agatics Krunoszláv (the link is to his homepage), who joined the Macedonian day, while playing on his accordion to our songs. Without him, our performance wouldn't have been even half as good. Thank you, Kićo! Check out the group's page as well: Zora Zenekar.

© Viktória Jávorszky

Now, what the University offers are some outstanding teachers, who are not afraid to bring new ideas into the mixes of classes. With the help of the teacher of Macedonian, Panda Stojanovska, last October we founded a dancing group, which focuses on Macedonian dances. Starting again from September, anyone can join. There will also be travels included, while participating in international folk dancing meetings and festivals. (In case you want to join, let me know, and I'll give you the contact address).

There was also a singing performance done by other students of Slavic languages, who also performed Makedonsko devojče, but with a few minor changes in the lyrics. The absolute delight was the Russian teacher, who was not only leading the group with his violin, but also stole the show with his amazing baritone.

Now, let's go back to the dancing places in Budapest. There are many. Some of them require membership, some entrance fee, and some are basically open to everyone. Of course, the 'cheaper' the participation is, the more amateur dancers there will be. So, the suggestion is to start with the open groups first, later on moving onto the more closed, experienced ones. I will only point out one of those that I've tried, but it's usually quite easy to find others. Most of the people who dance in these know at least a few more, and will be more than happy to help you out. Even in English.

Falkafolk Együttes (photo taken from their Facebook page)

My favourite one is Falkafolk Együttes and Balkan Táncház ('táncház' is a Hungarian word for these dance places. Literally, it means 'house of dances'). I've only been a few times, due to my tight schedule, but I absolutely loved it. They usually meet in Fővárosi Művelődési Ház (address is Fehérvári út 47, XI. district). You can get there easily by taking the tram 47.

The meetings are on Fridays, starting at 7 pm. The dances usually last until around 11 pm. The entrance fee is 700 Ft, but for this amount of dances it's completely worth it.

The dances include Greek, South Slavic dances (Serbian, Croatian, etc.), Macedonian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian, and Turkish.

As for the other places, there's still a huge amount of places that are yet to be explored. I can offer these two links: Tanchaz.hu and Folkradio.hu,  where you can search for places by weekdays (on the second one: at the end of the list there's a link named 'következő hét - it means next week). The addresses and the additional info can also be found there. So, if you try any of them and come to like it, let us know here. :)

© Viktória Jávorszky