I PASS IT FROM HAND TO HAND. A SUNDAY WITH THE DISCIPLES
Question: Sunday? Teaching?
Answer: We hold our courses on weekends. The teacher trainings are like this because they work during the weekdays, far from us, at different parts of the country.
Q: What do you pass from hand to hand?
A: My experiences with children. I have been teaching for decades, many different children in many different places.
Q: What does “many different” mean?
A: The teachers in training and high school and primary school pupils, the toddlers and babies. In many different countries in the world, on the basis of different needs.
Q: For example?
A: The needs of some societies are very different. And also, the needs of the families. Schools, methods, children, they all are diverse.
Q: Are you talking about the education of individuals or groups?
A: I always taught groups, sometimes very big ones, but my tuition was for individuals.
Q: Do you do this kind of “individual teaching” with your educators?
A: This is a very exciting challenge, different from any other before. I get to work with adults who could be highly trained musicians, performing artists, music teachers but with a little knowledge of child psychology. Or others with a little knowledge of music but excellent knowledge of teaching children challenged with difficult problems.
Q: Are they in the same group?
A: Yes, and I found out how wonderfully they complete each other, inspire each other. The groups forming a friendly community, their belonging to each other are very important to me.
Q: Why? As they will never meet after the course’s end.
A: I always come up with something so they could meet at ours. Anyone who has completed the 3 years becomes my ever guest to any of day of any other group’s session. They don’t need to book or log in, just come and join.
Q: From where do they learn about the dates?
A: From our website.
Q: Do they join a completely unknown group?
A: We are famous for our openness, our warm welcome. The news get around, they tell each other.
Q: do you form an open but confidential group?
A: Our sessions could not exist without this confidential bonding. When we compose our free movements to classical music, anybody could open up their feelings at any time. The movements could help to bring out secrets from deep down. but only in a safe surrounding.
Q: Where is this safe surrounding from?
A: The safety comes from the audience there, from everybody participating..
Q: Can’t there be anybody who is angry at you? Who is your enemy? Who envies you?
A: No, not even someone who is neutral. Nobody, who does not “collect with you”.
Q: What do they collect with you?
A: Everything what we do as well: understanding, acceptance, bravery, sympathy, and help… so virtues. And if someone does not collect, then scatters.
Q: And what if the dancer isn’t beautiful? Maybe gawky? If the dancer hesitantly moving? Or if she making faces?
A: We do not strive for aesthetic quality. Only for honesty. Our “performer” can do whatever: can be clumsy, ugly, gawky, lame.
Q: And what if it is ridiculous?
A: Even my children knew that bullying, laughing at, teasing are deadly sins, simply unacceptable. We would send the person away who did it. But I never even had to warn, my example was enough.
Q: What are the pedagogical tools you use to create a “mock-free”, safe environment around you? After all, our society is famous for teasing, telling each other’s mistakes and even going behind the other’s back.
A: I don’t have a pedagogical tool. I am the tool myself. The dissatisfied people have problems with themselves. But I like bumpkin and the legacy of my countryman ancestors. With my disciples, we improvised songs about my increasing wrinkles as I grew older. At first they kept count of the new ones around my eyes, but not that I am 80 years old, it would no longer be worth looking for new ones. They like me like this, with my wrinkled face. My song is mine too, as it is. It lives and thrives, time has not affected it. And my movements? Dear God, who would expect an opera ballet from me?
Q: So what happened on that memorable Sunday in May?
A: I was on my way to leave home, 8 in the morning, I turned back with my bags in my hand to get the ringing phone. My daughter said: “Hóvirág went into labour now, her child is arriving now. Pray, Mum!”
Q: Did you leave after this?
A: I got in my Fiat Panda car and sang all through the way. I love singing praying, this is a heritage from my cantor father and from my hometown, the church with three steeples in Szany.
Q: Did you tell the news to the participants?
A: Not yet. I waited with the news, waited for the inspiration of an angelic message: how do I tell what is so important to me to my educators?
Q: In a different way than to anybody else?
A: Yes, in a different way because here everybody is present with their whole soul.
Q: Why here?
A: Because they came because of me and they expect the truth from me.
Q: Don’t they expect the truth from you elsewhere?
A: Not sure if they are interested in my truth elsewhere. Not even in the church where I go every day. Or at the faculty where I was a member of for 18 years. I knew for sure that only the children would expect me to tell the truth, always and everywhere. In Boston, at the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, in Barcelona, Szombathely, Buda, Orgovány and in Szany…
Q: Did you know them closely?
A: There were close, frequent, long lasting acquaintances, and short encounters, sometimes even just day-long ones. But all of them would know that they were getting my truth. And they knew.
Q: Did you dance your true feelings about the birth or your great-grandchild
A: I did. I waited first to get used to the music, just as we always do, first with our songs, with our happy improvised circle games, with our name-singing then with our waiting becoming silent, into which the long-awaited music, the selected movement of a Handel concerto, arrived. Arrives once, then again and many times to our delight, just the same way as for the children. You can move the way would like, just no talking is allowed. This is how receiving music begins.
Q: And then? What happened after?
A: We all danced, on our own or with partner, just the way as we usually do. Handel called us to find him. Called once, twice, ten times.
Q: Still haven’t you spoken a word?
A: I didn’t say anything, I Just danced, near one or another, just I always do. This 2-minute part from the movement is enough to show my loving presence: I’m here and you are safe here.
Q: How do you know who needs encouragement?
A: Maybe I feel it on my skin. Or in my gut. In my body fluid. In my bloodstream where Handel’s composition arrives through its vibration. He tells me. After all, he gets it, along with the inspiration from which the composition is born, tip top, one note after another, ink, pen and the notes are flying onto the five-lined stave. The piece is ready.
Q: Yes, the concerto is done. But what about the other? The message you talk about?
A: The message, that is addressed to our emotions, that guides our actions, is kneaded into the notes like the yeast in the dough, the sourdough into the bread. You bite from it then chew it. You may not know the score, or how to play on instruments, you are a child. You are a grown-up who didn’t have a chance to learn music. So, what about you? Should you live your life without Handel’s concertos? Without the bread of their messages?
Q: Countless people live precious, noble life without Handel concertos.
A: The forms and harmonies of arts are given by the Infinite Intent, the messages as well. It gave us here a culture like this. For the Csangos a different one. For the Ethiopians again, a different one and different for the Navajos. The children in Szany didn’t start with Handel in their cradle. Me, Klári, who was born in Szany, received from all. Should I keep to myself?
Q: Do you pass it on in your dance?
A: My dance comes from my children students in my many decades long carrier. They knew what the adults no longer had known, or had hard time discovering: imagination, passion, urgency, intention, free will.
Q: Do you need all this for a solo dance?
A: Yes, you need all this, and certainly many others that my pen has little power to list. Everybody knows, the one who is chubby and shapeless, or stiff and unfit to dance, the one who is blind or deaf, or both, like my student, Anna, whom we can see dancing to Bach’s music in our move, the “Peace, golden flower”. That is, a person who is happy with many music. To whom, Handel may have sent, he sent and will send a message. And me, in my physical reality that is not fit to solo dance, they I am, 80 years old, I danced my feelings about the birth of my great-grandchild to my students.
Q: What did you say before?
A: “I’m going to dance a solo for you. The way we do with my children, and I will tell what it was about afterwards.” And then when I finished: “My granddaughter, Hóvirág, is giving birth right now to my second great-grandchild in Perugia. Right in these hours.”
Q: Didn’t they ask what emotions you danced about?
A: No, nobody asked about this. I guess, they figured it out. In such times, we are terribly worried about and care for the mother and the child. And we are over the moon, full of joy and gratitude for being able to be here. We hope, that the newly born soul would have great destiny.
Q: Could your students see these emotions in your moves?
A: Most certainly not. But because they love me, or at least accept me, they could feel it even after our few meetings. The joy of experience lit up on their faces and in their eyes.
Q: Was the day over after this?
A: Not at all! The rest was yet to come: they volunteered to dance solo for the next music, and we experienced some extraordinary dances.
Q: Don’t they volunteer for solos?
A: Adults in their first year never. Just after encouraging even in their third year. My children, of course, competed for solos, shout and climbing over each other, as we could see in one of movies, thanks to our beloved painter Jóska Pállay, who by chance filmed it. “Solo, please Miss Klári!” They would dance many, they loved showing their dances.
Q: Is an adult different?
A: The years of growing up takes away a lot of joy, happiness, from us. For example, the joy of showing ourselves. “I would like to…., be seen”, wrote Ady, but he was a poet. Teachers, dry-nurses, artists don’t keep this need to themselves. Neither do parents. That’s the reason why they make so many mistakes during raising their children. But not just.
Q: And because of other reasons?
A: Of course. But showing our emotions happily, that a concerto calls out, can create intimate moments.
Q: Even for someone who doesn’t understand music?
A: In these situations, you don’t need to understand music. What does knowledge mean in the sacred moment of approaching music? A different part of our brain works when we analyse a piece.
Q: Shouldn’t they even know the key of the concerto?
A: We are taught to be able to hear, recognise and create sounds, harmonies during our musical studies. We are taught carefully because these operations are conditional, a structure of reflexes. I did this every day with six-year olds in my music specialised classes in Szombathely, whit indescribable joy.
Q: Is it joyful for the teacher?
A: It’s joyful for the teacher and for the disciple. It’s an intellectual adventure to get into the world of knowledge. Same for recalling skills. Discovering the unknown? It’s a wonderful experience. It was for me, and even today it is. But to reach beautiful music just by your movements is a different kind of activity accompanied by different kind of emotions.
Q: Should these activities be learnt?
A: Yes, they should be. The attention, the pure attention is known to us, we know it by ourselves, I think already in our mother’s womb. Our genes carry. However, they divert us from this “knowledge” of ours.
Q: Divert? How?
A: Partly by obligatory tasks, partly by the constant sound stimuli. They teach us how to eat with a spoon, how to react to words. And we are surrounded by indifferent or bad music that we have to endure.
Q: So, the way of learning recommended by you is…?
A: Recalls something that was mine, really mine and was important to me: the paying attention out of joy.
Q: How does this recalling happen?
A: Through valuable sound. I don’t want to get into a debate what counts as valuable and why. The music, I bring to my students, is important, valuable to me because it is for my renewal. Just like the Handel concerto, I chose, to show the important events of my soul to my teachers.
Q: Did it become valuable to your teachers as well?
A: They received an experience by it.
Q: A lasting musical experience?
A: I don’t know how permanent experience they had listening to this Handel. My children sometimes recognised the music they composed movements to, much later. But the recognition is not the most important element of the experience. In this case, one could expect to remember the memory of the emotional astonishment, the one I danced in.
Q: Is it because it was a rare moment?
A: Without a doubt, it was a rare moment. My Spiritual helper’s, who is always ready to guide me, timing was excellent. I experienced his help countless times throughout my life. I feel, this time he wanted to push me forward to help my teacher students to unfold sooner and thoroughly their solos.
Q: Didn’t you think about dancing a solo for your students before?
A: I did, but I dismissed it. I dismiss everything that could encourage to imitate me.
Q: Do you dance with them in the groups?
A: Of course, I dance with them, just as I do with the children. But solo dances have different frame, different structure and ritual. We organise the solo from start to end. The attention is always on the dancer, or dancers if it’s a duet or a small group.
Q: Does everybody watch the solo?
A: Not just watch, we follow with our hearts.
Q: Do you ask for this “follow with your heart”?
A: I do. I show it with my example. Every solo is for me, any one of them can turn out to be cry for help. I’m always ready so I don’t miss it.
Q: And what happens at the end? Do you clap?
A: There’s no clapping among us, instead, we run to them, hug them, touch them. And ask them: what happened to you? Really? The recorder was ready with children. We recorded hundreds and hundreds of these stories.
Q: What if there wasn’t a story?
A: We still celebrated them. Words are good but not necessary all the time.
Q: Do you always have the “closing ritual”?
A: Always. The solo dance is a gift, we appreciate it.
Q: Even if it’s crummy, banal, meaningless?
A: There’s no solo dance that is banal. By the time I’m able to show my feelings, I reached my heart and everything comes from there. My intentions are sacred.
Q: Is this music education? After all, every musical performance should strive for perfection, flawlessness.
A: Indeed, and this aspiration determines the value of our music education. Also, the value of listening to music. Who would want to attend a trashy musical event? Both professionals and amateurs strive for the most beautiful sound. And hundreds of methods vying for the “most effective method to develop skill” recognition. Our joy of music, however, comes from a different dagger, has a different flower and has a different fruit. When Francesco d’Assisi Poveretto played the violin on 2 pieces of wood and the peasant of Umbria gathered around with amazement. The Mozart-evenings of Toscanini were celebrated events all around the world. Which would I choose?
Q: Should you choose?
A: Shouldn’t, should I? Could I kneel in front of Francesco for devotion? I could listen to Toscanini as well, in my soul, kneeling. Both turn to their God and make their sacrifices.