Thursday, May 5, 2022
Fly Bird, Fly: The Hungarian Dance House Story
Simon Broughton gives the lowdown on his new documentary about Hungary’s folk revival and its most famous practitioners
As part of this year’s Songlines Encounters Festival, I’m delighted we have a documentary I’ve made about the Hungarian folk revival. It’s the first public screening of Fly Bird, Fly in the UK and comes with a performance from Muzsikás, Hungary’s best-known folk band, playing in London with their new singer, Hanga Kascó, for the very first time.
The so-called táncház (dance house) movement is well-known in Hungary, but less-known abroad. It started in the 1970s and was about learning peasant music and dance from the villages, but playing it in the city in a young, urban environment.
In the former Eastern Bloc, the Hungarian dance house movement was something unique. In a world where everything was organised by the state from top down, here was a grassroots movement driven by enthusiasts from the bottom up. Hungary, at that time, was the most liberal of the Warsaw Pact countries and that’s why this phenomenon was able to take place. Made with close colleagues in Hungary, this film tells what I think is a remarkable story starting in the 1970s, but continuing right up to the present with all the key names participating.
Although the táncház movement might not be known internationally, Muzsikás has become the best-known group playing the music abroad. An intriguing story in the film is their role in the political changes of 1989. Playing traditional songs, they didn’t have to present the lyrics for approval before a concert. So Muzsikas combined lyrics from different songs to get a message across. ‘Cold Winds are Blowing’ was one example. ‘Cold winds blowing from the east’ – implying Russia – ‘I envy the bird its flight, while I am chained hand and foot.’ “Rock musicians kept calling to ask how we got those lyrics through,” says Muzsikás’ Dániel Hamar. “We just said they were folk songs and no-one checked.” Another traditional song, ‘The Unwelcome Guest’ is directed at someone who has stayed too long at a wedding party. ‘You have drunk your fill and had a good time. Perhaps it’s time to leave now.’ Everyone understood to whom this message was directed.
The title of the documentary, Fly Bird, Fly, is taken from another Muzsikás song with a metaphorical meaning, one which I suspect they’ll perform at the concert. Their new singer Hanga Kacsó won a TV folk talent competition in 2014 which was itself a legacy of the dance house movement. “As a child I grew up listening to Muzsikás,” she says. “I belong to the generation that got to know the táncház as an existing movement. So I never knew a world without it.”
In a strange twist, the flourishing of the music in Budapest and other cities is now helping revive the music in rural Transylvania where life is inevitably changing.
See Fly Bird, Fly: The Hungarian Dance House Story and Muzsikás at the Songlines Encounters Festival on Sunday May 22 at Kings Place, London. Click here for more details.
