In New Disguise: Changes in Traditional Music and Dance Culture in Hungary, Slovenia and Around

In the project, the research team examines the contemporary use and presentation of Slovenian folk music and dance, especially in comparison with the Hungarian space. It examines how, in a given historical period, local and imported traditions intertwined, underwent internal transformations and together created new conditions for their (re)production. The aim of the project is to gain an insight into various transformations of (post)traditional music and dance practices, both in relation to the presentations of these practices on stage and in various media, and in relation to everyday and spontaneous - vernacular - forms of music and dance.

The focus of the project is on the activities of the folk revival movement in Slovenia. The first such folk music revival scene appeared in the late 1970s, but a significant increase in folk music revival performers was observed in the early 1990s. Slovenian folk revival musicians founded the umbrella association Folk Slovenija Cultural Society in 1996 and began to work in an institutionally organized way. For many groups, the Táncház movement and Hungarian groups were also a role model and they wanted to implement dance houses in Slovenia following their example. Although the dance houses in Slovenia did not reach the scale and importance as in Hungary, they had a significant impact on the Slovenian cultural space during a certain period. The study aims, among other things, to critically analyze the attempt to implement dance houses in Slovenia.