The Garden of Fairies on Bartók’s roads

written by: Sz?l?si Bernadett-Katalin, 2nd-year student in the Hungarian-English group, Partium Christian University

The Garden of Fairies. They will be talking about Transylvania. Perhaps this will be an adaptation of the first volume of Móricz's trilogy? That is what came to my mind at first. But on the roads of Bartók? What could this mean? Bartók… folkdance, folksongs, folkmusic… How is it possible to merge these? In a way that I wouldn’t think of, but it surprised me in a good way, on the performance on the 15th of May 2025.

The title means ’The representation of Transylvania through Folk Dance, Folk Songs, and Folk Music.’ I am referring to an outstanding performance of dance theatre that leaves one’s heart skipping a beat. One’s heart admires the culture – the Transylvanian culture.

I found the beginning of the performance a little confusing because the music was similar to folk music, but the performers weren’t wearing folk costumes, and they weren’t dancing folk dances. That was also the case at the end of the performance. However, in the end, I realised that those parts represented the dance of nobility. The longest part of the performance was based on folk dances, including Hungarian and Romanian folk dances, as well as the dances of the gipsies. At least, these were the ones I recognised. The best part of the whole performance was that it represented a tiny part of the diverse ethnicities and how these merge into each other in great harmony and without discontinuity, with an emphasis on harmony.

During the performance, I was paying attention to the communication between men and women through dance, because, as it is known, dance is a form of nonverbal communication. I saw this most of all in the case of Hungarian dances (of course, because I know these the most), but not only, that the woman is playing with the man, she calls him multiple times and she is constantly teasing him, but she doesn’t let him too close to her because then she” escapes”. This play-along perfectly represents what love games are in folk culture. I observed men’s and women’s behaviour, which reminds us of how we should approach getting to know other people (at least how we should do this to maintain our dignity and not to harm our own or the other’s self-esteem). The woman is a sign through her beauty, her moves and her eyes; the man makes the first step (he asks her to dance with him), and then they show themselves off to each other – but in a good way and without crossing the line of discretion. They take an extensive look at each other but remain good-mannered. The man spins the woman around so he can take a look at her from every angle. Then he shows his physical strength through the typical men’s folk dance, sending a message towards her: ”Look at me, how strong of a man I am; I can take good care of you; I would be a good choice for you!” Of course, a little bit of ploy is needed because we are human and it is one of our needs to have fun. The man tries to take a glance under her skirt, but then she runs away. Now, it’s the man’s job to win her over again. I liked very much one of the gipsies’ dances in this sense. The typical movements of the woman's hips caught the man’s eye, and he tried to get close to her. He wanted to embrace her, but then she opened her arms, saying through this move politely but firmly and gracefully: ”We are not that close to each other yet!” That’s the essence of dance: saying things through moves that we couldn’t express through words.

For me, the performance suggested and made me think of the disagreements that are created between ethnicities, and the fact that even though there are some disagreements, living together affects interculturalism, as well as the relationship between different cultures. We are living on a land that is the meeting point of many ethnicities. So many special things have roots in these interactions, and these make our cultures richer and more colourful. These results of the interactions are excellent, just as they are, because they prompt us to consider the fact that we not only belong to specific ethnicities, but first and foremost, we are human beings.