Last October the House of Representatives voted in favour of the draft legislation to make 2025 the "Year of Children". The Háromszék Dance Theatre will also join the national project, which aims to promote the harmonious development of children, protect their rights and ensure their access to education, cultural, sports and leisure activities.
The presentation of performances for children is a key pillar of our programming policy. Our youngest audiences are the most sincere, grateful and critical, and we try to sensitise them to folk culture and the performing arts with high-quality programmes year after year.
This year we will perform our popular fairytale play, the musical "Lúdas Matyi", directed by Ferenc Novák, even more often and in even more places. In January we held four organised performances for schoolchildren in Sfântu Gheorghe, and in February children in Brasov, Tg. Secuiesc and Covasna will have the chance to meet Matyi, the goose and the arrogant Döbrögi couple.
In March Matyi will also visit the Gheorgheni Basin, holding performances in Ditrău, Remetea and Suseni. The theme of the fairy tale musical, based on the classic work by Fazekas Mihály, is eternal: the guilty will be punished, justice will prevail. Lúdas Matyi is a hero of the Hungarian people, a lovable character with a twisted mind, whose fate is followed with great interest by the younger generation. The educational character of the production is a fitting part of our conscious strategy to educate the public.
More about the performance: Lúdas Matyi
This year, the orchestra of the theatre will continue to organise regular Instrumental Demonstrations. During these sessions, children can get acquainted with different folk instruments, playing the violin, viola, double bass and cimbalom. In January our musician colleagues visited Ghelința, Cernat and Baraolt, but in the coming months we plan to organise these playful instrumental demonstrations in more municipalities.
In addition to the children's performances, we will also be treating our youngest audience members to a folklore show. The performance Tiszán innen, Dunán túl is a chamber version of the folklore performance "Home in the Homeland", and we perform it in several towns outside Sfântu Gheorghe, bringing the cultural experience to the homes of rural schoolchildren. In the framework of an organised student performance, our audience can wander around the Somogy countryside, Rimóc, the pastures of the Great Plain, Visk, Nagypalád and Szeghalom, admiring authentic folk costumes.
In addition to our own performances, we also host guest performances at our permanent venue, the Háromszék Dance Studio. In January the Bekecs Dance Theatre performed a children's production of Brave New World, in February, the Udvartér Theatre from Târgu Secuiesc will come to Sfântu Gheorghe with a musical fairy tale play entitled A kolozsvári bíró, and in March, we will host the Maros Artistic Ensemble.
In partnership with the House of Transylvanian Traditions Foundation and the Lajtha László Foundation, a youth dance workshop is also being launched in Sfântu Gheorghe, which will provide folk dance activities for students in grades V-VIII in our monthly folk dance houses. These sessions will include dance lessons, singing lessons, and the aim is to introduce our folk culture and heritage to the younger generation.
The Háromszék Dance Theatre has always considered it important to educate and train the next generation, to carry on our tradition and to sensitize the youngest generation to folk dance and folk music. This year we would like to make our programmes, performances and folk culture accessible to even more children, which is essential for the harmonious development of the younger generation.
