About FAC

What is FAC

FAC leadership

Services

Publications

FAC bylaws

Home

Publications

FolkNews sampler

Volume XXV, Number 1 • March 2004

Cyganka for a Month!

by Susan Worland

How lucky could I be? I got Charlie Pilzer’s email one morning last May: Would I be available to recreate my role as gypsy fiddler for the upcoming Washington, D.C., Christmas Revels, “Roads of the Roma”? The show, which would be similar to the Gypsy Revels premiered in Boston in 1997, would feature an authentic gypsy band from Budapest, Khanci Dos and-- they might want me to play a number or two with them, since their violin player would not be able to make the trip.

Well, believe it or not, I hesitated briefly, largely because rehearsals began the week before Thanksgiving, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be away from home for that long. But my husband, Michael, and I decided we could rendezvous for the holiday at his stepmother’s family farm near Hartford, and I sent off my enthusiastic reply.

I would be playing several numbers as well with the Ukrainian-born cimbalom virtuoso Alexander Fedoriouk, who plays now with the Cleveland-based ensemble Harmonia; the production also included the fiery and beautiful flamenco dancer Anna Menendez and a large troupe of stunning Indian dancers and musicians.

Khanci Dos (the name means “No Problem”) consists of Guszti, singer and director of the group; Peti, a singer and dancer; “guitar” Zsolt (who also sang and danced); “milkcan” Zsolt (ditto); “botolo” or “dancer” Zsolt (who also played milkcan); and pretty young Hajne, who sang and danced. And yes, they wanted me to play a czárdás with them in the finale.

It wasn’t easy. KD made it clear that they are not a “café band,” while I had very little experience playing to milkcan and vocal percussion. And that wasn’t the end of the cultural differences. Only “milkcan” Zsolt was comfortable in English, for one thing. Did they read music? I wouldn’t say they didn’t, but that was not how they communicated with me. Why, a day before the dress rehearsal, did they change to a different czárdás, without any explanation to me? And they were playing the new tune in c# minor, an unusual key; but I worked it out, practicing on my own.

The show’s spectacular finale began with Anna dancing to Spanish guitar, over which we began to hear tablas and the bells on the feet of the Indian dancer Prachi, who took over with her solo. Meanwhile the gypsy guitar started playing, and “botolo” Zsolt came out for his number. Towards the end of that solo, “guitar” Zsolt strummed four chords, my introduction to begin the czárdás. It was hard for me to differentiate those four chords from all the other chords I’d already been hearing, but at the dress rehearsal I counted four, started playing--and then realized the guitar had been out of tune when we practiced, and Zsolt was now playing in d minor, not c# minor! “d moll!” he called out to me. “d moll!” Alex laughed later, back in the dressing room. And the phrase “d moll” became our joke for the rest of the run. (“Where did you find a Starbucks?” “d moll!”)

In fact, backstage in the dressing room was where a lot of the real fun took place. Every night, and between shows on days of two performances, Alex, the three Zsolts, several of the Indian drummers, and I kept a musical vigil. We played songs from the show, we played Hungarian music I knew, we played Balkan gypsy tunes they taught me, we played Rumelaj and Erdelezi, and when Alex’s lovely fiancée, the singer Beata Begeniova, visited the second weekend, our repertoire expanded to include every Slovak gypsy song ever sung. On stage we may have been performing a shared cultural experience; but in the dressing room, we were living it--even to exchange of words and phrases between Romanes and Hindi, closely related languages.

The gypsies were incessant flirts (“Susan... you need dark man with passionate heart!”) but most of them had wives and children they missed dreadfully. They always had pictures to show anyone who wanted to look, and they were visibly melancholy on December 6, the feast of St. Nicholas, the day they would have given candy and other treats to their children back home. Their last stop in Washington was to a pawn shop to buy jewelry for their wives--where, so I heard, they also enjoyed haggling over the prices! My flight left about an hour later than theirs, from the same airport, so we had a final farewell just outside security. Alex and Beata had already left to drive back to Cleveland, and it was time for me to come home too, to enjoy my many happy memories and to celebrate Christmas with Michael.

Articles are copyrighted by the Folk Arts Center, and may not be reproduced without permission of FAC.