The Hungarian State Folk Ensemble is performing a series of three interrelated dance theater shows called Bartók Trilogy. The first part of the trilogy, titled "Treasures from North" appeared in 2006.
The artistic creators of the trilogy wish to present and justify the unity in which the various historical layers of culture - from older traditional folk art to contemporary art - thrive and cooperate with each other. Bartók's journey from folk music to contemporary music, from the collective to the individual served as an aesthetic and philosophical model of this series. Tradition is a living and progressive phenomenon; however, contemporary forms of art can only be understood as the paradox of change and continuity. Tradition can only exist if contemporary society incorporates it and if individuals integrate it as a part of their life.
Labyrinth, a sequel to the rather authentic "Treasures from North", the authors move towards contemporary abstraction. László Sáry, one of the most prominent figures of Hungarian contemporary music composed the theatrical music for the production, integrating Hungarian folk music with the diversity and eclecticism of European classical musical antecedents and today's contemporary music.
The production deconstructs and re-builds the language of dance. By combining movements based on folk dance and the modern instruments of today's dance theatre, a modern Hungarian dance language is created.
Labyrinth uses imagery (dance, design, costumes, lighting) and music simultaneously, while raising dancers and musicians above these. The acoustic and visual elements all serve the performing artist; artists who are "manifested through radical events in archaic vivacity" (Péter Balassa).
The rules of the outside world have been either abandoned or rejected, and are not valid in the fragmentary scenes even though these scenes might even resemble familiar situations. Reality, magic, dreams, vision, metamorphosis, death and rebirth, become interrelated and interchangeable. Here, at the periphery is where the journey starts and ends: reality and the new quality both begin and end at the edge of the labyrinth. Each new labyrinth opening up and leading from one into the other presents a new tasks, which, if resolved, only provides a passageway for moving on and keep building our multidimensional identity.
Therefore, it is the audience's task to finish the sentence at the end of the performance: „You are the..."
First Performance: 29. October 2008., Palace of Arts - Festival Theater, Budapest
