“What can be said about Tata in three minutes?” – With this question, János Kiss, the Kossuth Prize-winning dancer, addressed his fellow artists in front of the 93-year-old Ferenc Nowak Academic Chair in front of the Imre Macković Room at the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
Only one: the biggest!
Someone advised him. That's how the Kossuth Prize-winning ballet artist began his eulogy for Novak, then joked that he would take his seat with those words. Of course he didn't, but he interrupted his speech.
He listed his awards and merits, where he started, and how he founded the workshop from which the Hungarian Folk Dance School, which was the alma mater of many distinguished dance artists, was launched. He said he considered it a true honor for his master, his friend, to invite him to the memorial service.
There is a way back
Ferenc Nowak became a regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the second time. First in 1996, but in 2012 one of the plenary sessions was mired in scandal. It happened that the presidency of the academy did not allow reading the letter of critics of the leadership and the comments of one of the members who left. After that, in addition to visual artist Imre Buchta, photographer Peter Kornis and theater director Gabor Tomba, Ferenc Nowak also left. At the MMA General Assembly held on May 24, 2023, it decided, among other things, to elect twenty artists with the title of Artist of the Nation – in a special procedure – as ordinary members, including him.
What existed then no longer exists today
This was followed by Ferenc Nowak, who chaired his presentation The social role of dance in Sikan He gave an address. He said that Cezek was a wonderful village, then he told me that he had been in the Transylvanian settlement for the first time in 1958, and what he saw, experienced and experienced existed until the end of the 1970s, but was no longer there.
“The chair is currently being maintained by a Dutch man who fell in love with Peter Cornes’ book about the chair, which he bought in Amsterdam. He fell in love with the village looking at the pictures. So much so that he eventually visited and settled there. Today it is a European village, a tourist center with people flocking to it.” “.
He hanged himself in pain
When Ferenc Novak visited there for the first time, he understood what made the place magical. “The locals still wore full national dress. The martial system in which they lived went back centuries, but today's Sik is no longer recognizable as such.
The village was divided into three streets, which were separated from each other, but whose fronts met in the center of the settlement, where the tavern was also located. The local boys soon realized that one day they would be able to choose a wife from among the three or four girls who lived on the same street as them, and they became attached to them. While the three street children knew each other well, because they went everywhere together: to school, to church, and later to the bar.
Custom requires that they can only marry through street marriages. The girl from Forzószeg could not marry the boy from Felszeg. The end of domestic marriages often led to tragedies.
Ferenc Novak Romeo and Julia of Széki – Forrószegiek His dance play presents one of these tragedies.
According to the story, the boy from Felszeg and the girl from Forzószeg fall in love. But the girl's brother does not tolerate that they became lovers. Novak explains that at that time the lover did not intend for there to be a sexual relationship between the boy and the girl. In the story, the girl's brother concocts a deadly trick.
So he took a white shirt, bled it, showed it to his sister, and told her that it belonged to his mistress who had died. The boy from Velszig found out and ran to tell the girl she was alive, but by the time he arrived, his mistress had hanged herself in pain.
They did not need to buy salt
It was also revealed during the show that the village dates back to ancient times, and that even the Romans extracted salt in its surroundings, as the legendary artist said. “Later, the village was also mentioned in King Istvan's charter under the name Szeg. Then Lianos Hunyadi had the right to dispose of the salt mine, which now no longer exists. There is still a lake with salt water used by the Szeklers. The poor do not need to buy salt Rather, they salt their food with it.”
Ferenc Novak elegantly closed his seat at the Academy: “Dear Academy, there are 27 seconds left, you have kept time.”
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