As some of you mnight know from my previous post, we have been on a little journey in Hungary again and this time my wife and me attended the Köfeszt Festival in Kövágóörs. Yesterday was the closing day of the 4 day festival, that takes place every year at Pentecost.
However, the images shown in this post all where made on day 2 Saturday.
logo from https://www.kofeszt.hu/ image made by me.
Very first let us set the scene of Kövágóörs a small village north of the lake Balaton and very close to Révfülöp where I spent almost every summer from early childhood till now.
The Village is situated in the Káli Basin, a remarkable spot of land and a nature reservation for all kinds of animals.
It is really a small village. According to data from January first 2023 the village only counts 635 souls. This data is from the Hungarian wikipedia page of the village. https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%91v%C3%A1g%C3%B3%C3%B6rs
Of course I pinned the little spot on pinmapple.com!
I was documenting my wife's basket-weaving process and just went for a little stroll to get her a bottle of water from our car.
On my way I saw two figures in the distance wearing traditional Hungarian folklore gown. And of course I had to go a little closer to investigate.
A group of women and men were preparing at the corner of the street, I quickly looked up the festival program and found out that this group must be the dancers from Badacsonytördemic (pronounced: boddachontörrdemis) to perform the so called 'green branch walk' a game played typically after Easter and Pentecost. What it has been in reality back in the day? Probably something like a dating app as all women and men are forced to play the game that are of age but not yet married. Nowadays the dance was performed solely for demonstrational and festival purposes.
A gate is fomred with green branches and the men and women pass through it holding hands. They where singing traditional songs that are over 150 years old and have been taught from one generation to the other. Each village has their own chants so it very much can be that the same melody carries different lyrics just 25 miles away.
I wish I would have had my recorder with me to record the songs. Next year I will definitely take it!
Then the women and men are forming a circle and the search for your pair begins.
It is a mix of dancing and playing catch me if you can around the circle.
Unfortunately I was not able to concentrate much on the rules of the game but they eventually got the crowd involved and I was busy taking the pictures.
So here they come in a quick burst. Enjoy!
Now the boys an girls where standing and they each got to come out and call for their significant other who they want a kiss from.
Afterwards the same group took part in dance lessons and song teachings by the next performers.
They learned songs and dances from Gyimes region which is in todays Romania but has a population that speaks Hungarian as a mother tongue and Romanian as a second language.
A very special instrument is the so called Gordonka which can be compared to a Bass guitar where the strings are beaten with a drumstick.
From left to right:
Navratil Andrea, Gombai Tamás, Gera Attila
I hope you enjoyed these images from the Köfeszt festival. If you did so please feel free to share comment and like this post. Especially eager to hear your comments!
All the love!
Solymi