Budapest

Fülszöveg

udapest has always been a crossroads, a place where empires have come and gone, where diverse cultures have intersected. Today, somé folks come to visit and stay a week. Others are sent by a parent company and leave upon completion of the contract. Still others, looking for a place to go, somehow end up here and find in Budapest a relatively low cost of living and an abundant markét for teaching English. For me, the reasons were none of the above. As a dancer, I had become fascinated with the syncopated rhythms, the improvisational boot-slapping and body-whacking, the strength in whirling the women around, the machismo of traditional Hungárián folk dancing. When I saw it for the first time, in America, I remember saying, "Hey that's how I dance, what's it called?" I was invited to come see the real thing, in Budapest and in Transylvania. In the fali of 1991, despite the slow march of consumerism, I witnessed a surviving ancient folk culture in Mezőség, Kalotaszeg and Székelyföld, in... Tovább

Fülszöveg

udapest has always been a crossroads, a place where empires have come and gone, where diverse cultures have intersected. Today, somé folks come to visit and stay a week. Others are sent by a parent company and leave upon completion of the contract. Still others, looking for a place to go, somehow end up here and find in Budapest a relatively low cost of living and an abundant markét for teaching English. For me, the reasons were none of the above. As a dancer, I had become fascinated with the syncopated rhythms, the improvisational boot-slapping and body-whacking, the strength in whirling the women around, the machismo of traditional Hungárián folk dancing. When I saw it for the first time, in America, I remember saying, "Hey that's how I dance, what's it called?" I was invited to come see the real thing, in Budapest and in Transylvania. In the fali of 1991, despite the slow march of consumerism, I witnessed a surviving ancient folk culture in Mezőség, Kalotaszeg and Székelyföld, in the small Hungárián villages of Transylvania. I began to visually record this folk lifestyle, the dance, the traditional musicians, the generosity of folks, and slowly developed a personal preservation of it all. My love affair with Budapest was beginning, though I didn't realize it at the time. As I periodically returned from my Transylvanian travels, Budapest seemed a gray, dark, rainy, cold and very solemn place. It was a glimpse behind the Iron Curtain, despite the fact that it had recendy been freed from almost 50 years of communist totalitarian rule. The people didn't seem to yet realize what they had accomplished with their drive to democracy. Today my unlikely objet d'amour has become part of me. I am in love with Budapest, and she loves me back. We have known each other for eleven years and have been living together for seven. We will probably never break up. Though I came back in 1995 to continue to explore and record my passión - the traditional Hungárián folk culture in Transylvania -1 have lived all this time mostly just off Andrassy ut, with its grand old homes and turn-of-the-century facades. I had never lived in a big city before. A child of the '60s, I blossomed out of the counter-culture folk music movement, a natural-living, chop-wood, carrywater type. Big cities to me were always places to visit, containers of culture, places to pass through, conduct business and leave - not places to live. This country vs. city tension has lived in me ever since my relocation, a stimulating contradiction that, üke so many "relationship problems," is a blessing in disguise. Vissza