History of the Polish Csángó Festival (2024)

Gergely Sámsondi (reading time: eight minutes)

History

In the 1980s, a group of Poles got to know and love the Hungarian dance-house movement and formed their own, modelled on it, even adopting the Hungarian word "táncház” (dance-house). As they also attended dance camps in Transylvania and Moldva at Csángó peoples, they became fond of Hungarian music and dance, and in some Polish towns they formed companies that also required Csángó circle dances. Of course, the Polish táncház movement is looking for their old music and old musicians - for example, the tradition found in the North Carpathians can be compared with our Csángó culture, also from the Carpathians.

I met at a dance camp in 2008 two such enthusiastic Polish young people, Joanna Mieszkowicz (Asia) and Jakub Trojanek (Kuba) in Somoska (Bacau county, Romania, Csángóföld). We became friends and met occasionally in the following years. Folk music was always part of the programme. I showed them the best Csángó dance camp, the Serketánc in Sárospatak, and we also had fun at a ball in the ecovillage in Visnyeszéplak. My first experience of Csángó music in Poland was playing the violin in Biskupin in 2008 (an excellent initiative to be imitated in Hungary, a living international skansen, where all Polish students go for several days and get to know the traditions of different peoples in a very personal, close-up, trying out and making friends.)

Szépszerével’s táncház

In 2019, the music events in Poland became more regular, now with the Szépszerével ensemble playing Csángó music, thanks to a grant application from the National Cultural Fund (NKA), which was found and submitted by our friend András Boskó, a folk musician. (The financial situation of civil audiences and musicians is not sufficient in any country to live with our culture without centralised and redistributed money.) The Szépszerével ensemble is a two-piece group, Farkas Gyulai and Gergely Sámsondi. We both play the violin and the koboz, Farkas also sings and I play the cimbalom. Occasionally we also use flute and kaval.

So, in 2019, we made music in fifty places in five short term train trips that year. The programmes were organised by Joanna Mieszkowicz (Asia). (The overnight sleeper train connection is still excellent with Poland. Though takes a long detour and slow, it's not troublesome at night; the only drawback of the train is the widespread and uncomfortable, inhospitable, sometimes toxic air-conditioning, artificial ventilation, and windows that open little or not at all.) We visited first Krakow, the old and nearby capital, and then, moving northwards in turn, the other cities near Vistula: Warsaw, Torun and, by the sea, Gdansk. All these cities have a Polish audience that loves Csángó music. We have also held our own organised dance houses and have been repeatedly invited to Polish folk music festivals where we have had a small Csángó dance house, such as the EtnoKrakow/ Rozstaje/Crossroads Festival in Krakow, Mazurkas of the World (Wszystkie Mazurki Świata) in Warsaw and Song of Our Roots - Early Music Festival (Pieśń Naszych Korzeni - Festiwal Muzyki Dawnej w Jarosławiu) in Jarosław.

Back in Warsaw we met Attila Illés Pál (Hungarian Consul General in Gdansk since 2020), a member of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is also familiar with Csángó culture, and from then on he became a supporter and encourager in expanding our performances in Poland into a festival.

The festival series

From 2020 onwards, we have organised multi-day events, teaching Csángó music, singing and dancing during the day and organising a ball in the evening. This became the First Polish Csángó Festival (Festiwal Czango w Polsce). Since then, the main venue has been Torun, a small family town with a good and enthusiastic dance organisation, team and audience, and the 'day zero' of the festival is in nearby Gdansk.

We are now working on the preparations for the fifth festival in October 2024: on Thursday afternoon in Gdansk there would be an intensive course for talented and experienced dancers and advanced musicians on Moldvai-csángó and Gyimes themes. In the evening, according to the established "tradition", there will be an exhibition opening with a short programme and a dance evening.

On Friday morning in Torun we will set up the actual festival's exterior, we will prepare a yurt stage, we will set up tungsten lighting (without any LED or fluorescent tubes), we will decorate the main dance hall with large photos of Csángó landscapes and life pictures to create the atmosphere of the place. We will offer some quality Hungarian food and drinks, mainly for the musicians and special guests (there is a legal difficulty with the Hungarian buffet for the public).

From Friday afternoon, the Moldvai-csángó and Gyimes dance, singing and instrumental lessons (violin, flute, koboz, gardon and drum) will start, now also in a separate group for beginners. The daytime programme is mainly dedicated to the Csángó culture, but we also have a Polish or Ukrainian programme in honour of our beloved Polish friends who keep them. Afterwards, there is an exhibition opening and reception for special guests, followed by a stage show with a theme of Csángó music. Here we will present the most traditional performance style, highlighting the indigenous Csángó performers travelling with us. After the show, there will be a táncház (dance-house), where traditional folk music will alternate between Csángó and Polish folk music until 2 or 3 in the morning. We are also looking for the most traditional Polish musicians, and there will be no sound system. The stage is neither removed nor elevated from the audience, so the music can be heard from a traditional proximity. While at the concert we play with an old-fashioned instrumental set-up, during part of the táncház we set aside this rule in favour of playing with our Polish friends and a wide variety of instruments.

On Saturday (after some sleep), beginner and advanced Csángó classes will continue all day. The Saturday evening stage concert will focus on Polish folk music. Afterwards, dance until dawn and into the morning, again alternating Polish and Csángó dances and bands. After the church mass on Sunday, while packing up, the team from Hungary will leave in the rented minibus (so that everyone will be ready for work the next day, when we get home late in the evening). Those who stay, mainly Poles, will close the festival with another programme of boat trips, music and dancing.

Other features of our event are a traditional instrumental set-up, a relaxed old-fashioned tempo, environmental concerns, no air conditioning, healthy quality and local food, no advertising, no multi-company products, no fast food, no crystal sugar, no chemical supplements, no sweeteners, no energy drinks, etc.  For the invited musicians, we value authenticity in the táncház movement, "civil and Christian" values and behaviour appropriate to the festival, good-nice speech, little smoking.

Hosted by our artists

The Polish musicians are organised and selected by Asia, the Hungarians by Szépszerével. Asia, as a long-time member of the Polish dance-hall movement, knows everyone and is on good terms with everyone, which is why she is able to organise venues and dance-halls all over the country and invite excellent musicians to our festival.

Our past and present Hungarian performers and exhibitors: Mária Petrás (Moldva, vocals, ceramics exhibition), Alina Petrás (Moldva, vocals), Júlia Dávid (Marosvásárhely-Târgu Mures, painter), András Hodorog (Moldva, flute), Róbert Kerényi (Szigony orchestra, flute, founder of the Moldavian dance houses in Budapest with the Tatros orchestra), Luki Lukács István (Gyimes, violinist), Gyula Ádám (Csíkszereda, photographer), Vince Mészáros (Magyarhang orchestra, viola, bass, music teacher), Lídia Draskóczy (violin, music teacher), Előd Molnár (flute, dance teacher), Skopp Júlia (dance teacher), Bolya Dániel (flute), Gyulai Vajk (flute), Hegedűs Ágota (needle enamel artist and leather artist), Reiner Kata (felt artist)

Invited musicians from Poland: Agregandado (Torun), Jacek Halas, Kapela Maliszów, Witek Broda band, Kazimierz Nitkiewicz, Katarzyna Tucholska Lublin-Radom-Toruń band, Begebenheit band, Galicia Band (Polish-Ukrainian border), Mikhail Kachalov from Ukraine, Martin Niaga from Moldova, Skrzypkowie Dzielni, Kapela W Tan, Wolf Niklaus, Szerhij Ochrimchuk ensemble (Ukraine), Anton Korolev (Ukraine), Paweł Iwan z zespołem, Dominik Woltanski, Kapela Halasow, Józef Sowa z z zespołem Czeremosz, Piotr Jop, Folkwir, Kapela Chełmińska / Andrzej Skupniewicz, Orkiestra Dęta ze Złejwsi / Krzysztof Kędzierski Kapelmistrz, Marta Domachowska z z zespołem.

Division of labour

The festival is quite demanding for the team in Hungary. Besides teaching in different groups, performing on stage, dance music, we also do the preparation and dismantling together. Most of us travel by minibus, taking it in turns to drive, because the train can't hold all the stuff, anyway the night train is more comfortable, environmentally friendly and time-saving. The long car journeys and the overnight stays for the dance halls are exhausting. The fees are the same for Hungarian team members, but different for Polish musicians because of the different travel distances. On the Polish side, volunteers help in the organisation and running of the event; hot meals, photography, filming and other things are done by professionals. Assistance is also provided by the respective venues. We receive support mainly from the Wacław Felczak Foundation, but the months of organising work are essentially free of charge, with little income to pay for it.

Tervek

We want to keep the festival in the long term, year after year. Both in terms of Hungarian and Polish performers and Polish guests, it is good to have returning regulars and of course there are always new ones. This also helps to keep the event family friendly and environmentally friendly. The size is also important, the current daily number of about 100-150 guests at a time cannot be increased much because of the acoustic concerts, dance halls and the effectiveness of the teaching.

Our goal: To continue to make music for our friends, with our friends and hope for a better destiny for Hungary, Poland through art-night-dance-folk music, trusting that music, the dance house movement will restore people's worldview, well-being and form a better community.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) corrected by skg