From the mountain - over the mountain

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Premier: 15 June 2017.

Creators: Zsolt Antal and László Péter
Artistic Director.

The show of the Harghita National Szekler Folk Ensemble entitled From the Mountain to the Mountain is one of the successful and valuable products of the company. Its premiere was on 13 May 2009. The show is one of those that have sprung from within. It was conceived and put together by two of the ensemble's outstanding solo dancers, Zsolt Antal and László Péter. Its peculiarity is that it presents and juxtaposes the sung and danced heritage of two neighbouring and largely related, yet so different, regions, Fylêk and Gyimes, giving the audience the opportunity to discover the many hidden commonalities that few people know about.
The show was too soon dropped from the company's offerings for its audience success and value, but it still hasn't wavered or fallen into obscurity. As one of the creators, Zsolt Antal, said at the time of its creation, "A lot of ideas came up while we were creating it, maybe even an idea for a show". Since then, the show has continued to mature, and the time has come for the Ensemble to take it out of its bag and, with many refinements, polish it up and put it back on stage.

Felcsík and Gyimes ... they are ours, we live here and proximity, familiarity, tends to make us forget the values that are still alive. The characteristics of the two neighbouring landscapes are clearly distinguishable at first sight, from the most striking, the costumes, to the structure and location of the settlements: while in Felcsík the houses are clustered on the plain of the Olt, in Gyimes they are mostly scattered in the narrow valleys of the mountain and in the streams. Although they are bound together on a human, individual level by good friendships or even kinship ties, the two communities consciously emphasise their differences (sometimes to the point of rejection).
But are they really so different? They are hard-working people, struggling day in, day out to make a living in the harsh conditions of nature, cultivating the scarce and scanty land, mowing steep fields for their livestock, carefully and sparingly dividing their possessions, and after work singing and sometimes dancing, with almost identical songs, overlapping dances and similar instruments: the melody of a fiddle or often just a flute is accompanied by a particular rhythm instrument, the percussion gardon.
The songs, melodies and dances of the two regions are juxtaposed in the programme, sometimes touching and sometimes intertwining. The dances of Felcsík include the hoe, the slow and fast tap, the cepper, the hand dance, the semi-solo and the verbunk, while the dances of Gyimes include the wheel and the hoe, the pair-walking and the lamenting, the slow and fast Hungarian, the semi-solo and the verbunk.
Meanwhile, elements of everyday life appear: behaviours, gestures, objects, perhaps as a memento for posterity, before modern inventions push them into oblivion. This is the case of the chill, of communicating from one dune to another before mobile phones. The scythe, the mowing, is also integrated into the show, as the rhythm of the scythe beating, the scythe cutting, becomes a melody. The ornamental elements are also everyday objects: a goat chopping wood, a chutzpah. It should be emphasised that the dancers do not appear on stage in costume, but in full, authentic costumes.

From the Mountain - Over the Mountain is a strong folklore show. Although it only presents material from two spatially and characteristically close regions, it does not exhaust it completely within the limits of a still enjoyable duration.
Many ensembles from the Carpathian Basin have performed dances from Chios and Gyimes, but it is immodest to say that the Harghita Ensemble is the most dedicated to presenting them, and its dancers are the most authentic. They move confidently, sincerely, from within, without frills, because they are their own. Most of them are born into it, raised in it, grown up in it, it's in their blood. They feel it, they feel it, because they have been involved in every aspect of the life of the community. Today they still go to the woods, to mow, to make hay, to take part in the daily life of the community. It is through their interpretation, through the performance of the Harghita Ensemble, that the public in Transylvania, in Hungary or anywhere else in the world can get to know this legacy in its most authentic form. At the same time, it can bring the two communities closer together, putting their similarities above their differences.

(RJ)