Traditional music, dance subject of museum lecture
Courtesy photo Retired EWU professor Wayne Kraft (here pictured in the Transylvanian countryside) will talk about traditional music and dance in the digital age.
MOSES LAKE — The music and dance of traditional celebrations, and its place in (and challenge to) a connected world, will be the subject of a lecture at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.
“Music and Dance in Transylvania: A Challenge to the Digital Age” is part of the museum’s Fall Salon Series. Admission is free.
Wayne Kraft, professor emeritus of German at Eastern Washington University, is the speaker. Kraft will focus on the villages of modern Hungary, places he has visited since the mid-1980s, he said.
“Our digital age maintains some of the old cultural features, of course, but we tend to withdraw further and further from activities that are based in the community,” Kraft wrote.
That’s the opposite, he said, of what happens in the villages he visited. Most people in the town get together to celebrate, singing traditional songs and dancing traditional dances. “We probably lead healthier lives to the extent that we participate in cultural practices within a community, rather than standing back as spectators,” he wrote.
Kraft said he got to know village life in the early 1980s. “I suspect that this happened because it is very dynamic, and because it suited my temperament. The music is exquisite.”
Kraft said he received a Fulbright research grant to study in Hungary in 1986. “My Fulbright mentor accepted me into one of the dance groups he directed.”
Along with learning the dances himself, Kraft returned to Hungary for research, talking to the town residents and filming their celebrations. He will be showing some of his films during his lecture, he said. He will share some of what he has learned about “traditional and post-traditional cultures.”
He met his wife Ildiko Kalapacs while training with the Hungarian dance group, he said. Back in the Spokane area, Kraft and his wife founded the Erdely Hungarian Dance Ensemble in 1988; they were the dance group’s directors until about 2003. He’s also served as translator at other dance festivals.
Kraft said he retired from teaching in 2015, after a 47-year career.
The Salon Series is one of two lecture series sponsored by the museum. Both the afternoon Salon Series and the evening lectures feature topics of local and regional interest.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.