The Intrepid Discoverer - Dancing at Dusk!
Hungarian folk music is coming to Caramoor today and my eastern European cells are dancing in anticipation! This afternoon’s program: "Dancing under the Tree of Life, with the Eletfa Hungarian Folk Band" is the third in this season’s Dancing at Dusk, series - a multi-cultural, multi-generational celebration of music and dance for families that will culminate on August 7th in a program of Caribbean Soul with La Troupe ZetwaI, and I find myself drawn in by what my good friend Robert Shapiro calls my “atavistic stirrings". I have to look up “atavistic" in order to discover that he is, in fact, correct.
Rumor has it that my great-grandparents on my father’s side were traveling musicians in eastern Europe, a fact (if it is indeed fact) that might partially explain why all I have to do is hear the first notes - the first hint of a melody - of almost any music rooted in eastern europe and I have to dance. The same goes for Caribbean music, but in that case my roots stem from….what else? the British punk rock of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Why? Because the Jamaican population in London at the time had a tremendous influence on the bands of that era and it was through listening to their music and appreciating the Jamaican influences within it that I had the urge to discover the origins. “Police and Thieves" on the first Clash album led me to Junior Murvin’s original reggae recording on the “Rockers" Soundtrack (the seminal reggae film soundtrack from 1979) and the rest was history. This foray into reggae led to ska, ska to soca, soca to calypso and onward to Africa, the format of my college radio show morphing accordingly as my taste broadened….a journey that never seems to end as La Troupe Zetwal (August 7th) will be my first experience of "traditional Haitian folklore dances with live drumming"… keeping me right where I like to be…firmly ensconsed in the not knowing, discovering…
But there is something else about these two types of music - Hungarian and Caribbean, that surpasses all individual reference points and connects them in the broadest sense, and that is their capacity to inspire joy.
Pure unadulterated, undiluted, joy!
When it comes to the music of Eastern Europe I know no better source than my friends Alice and Robert Shapiro, for whom this music is a way of life. They not only know the music inside and out, but the musicians, the dances, and where to go to hear it - the Golden Festival in Brooklyn, Balkan dance camps upstate - and it was because of this that I stopped by their home to play the Eletfa Hungarian Folk Band and seek further inspiration for tonight’s performance. Before I knew it we were dancing! “Get up!" they encouraged, “take our hands" and as we danced from living room to kitchen, kitchen to foyer and back again, they taught me the steps and told me what this music means to them: “When I hear it I must get up and move…I must dance" (clearly!), “It makes me happy…it makes me smile" (yes! I see that too!).
Dancing to Hungarian folk music with Robert and Alice. (photograph by Barbara Prisament)
"It fills your soul" Robert adds and I know what he means, but like all music that touches us, I prefer to think of it as a window…to a fullness that is always there, that is our birthright, but that we sometimes forget, until something directs us back. We sat down to listen to more music and it was what they each said next that brought me back to the essence of this summer long journey of intrepid discovering.
"When I hear it, it goes straight to my heart…it’s a knee jerk reaction…I must get up and dance, and when i do… I AM THAT"
She’s describing T.S. Eliot all over again, the experience I continue to seek and nurture:
"music heard so deeply/that it is not heard at all/but you are the music/while the music lasts" - T.S. Eliot
Then Robert cuts to the other part of the chase:
“Barbara, this music brings people together, people of all ages, and political and social backgrounds…it breaks down barriers. When this music plays people are able to enjoy together! They’re unfettered…there’s no judgement! Differences melt away and we’re just dancing and celebrating together…"
Echoes of Bob Marley, of “caribbean soul":
"One love, one heart, one destiny" - Bob Marley
Truth surfacing in two of it’s endless guises. Perhaps I’ll see you tonight beneath the “tree of life"- symbolic of the interconnectedness of all life on our planet - or on August 7th, and we’ll dance!…as one, at dusk!
