 |
The method was on of eleven item inscribed on the list under a decision taken at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage at its sixth session in Bali, Indonesia, on November 22-29.
?The Táncház (?dance-house?) model of teaching folk dance and music combines traditional forms of acquisition with modern pedagogical and academic methods,? according to the committee.
?Participants acquire dance knowledge from experienced members or tradition bearers by direct observation and imitation, to the accompaniment of live music, while using their own individual level of creativity to develop their competence and dancing ability. The dancing is complemented by singing instruction, handicraft activities and ethnographic presentations. Anyone regardless of age, competence or prior exposure can become an active participant. The aim is to establish a value-based, community-building, entertaining yet educational form of recreational activity through the practice and transmission of intangible cultural heritage. Táncház methods are also utilized in art schools and all levels of education, and influence folk dance and music performance. An annual National Táncház Festival and Fair constitutes the largest meeting of bearers, mediators and enthusiasts, yet age or content-specific Táncház-es have developed, as well as workshops, camps, playhouses and handicraft clubs. Increasing numbers of publications popularize Táncház and assist in refining and transmitting its methodology, while folk dance and music resource centres enable the public to access archival recordings. The model is easily adaptable for the safeguarding and transmission of any community?s intangible cultural heritage through hands-on acquisition, thereby sustaining its diversity.?
Ferenc Novák, the 80-year-old Kossuth Prize-winning choreographer who established the first dance house in Budapest in 1972, together with Ferenc Sebő, Béla Halmos and György Martin, said the inscription was of ?enormous significance?, adding that it marked the dance-house method?s transformation into an ?acknowledged Hungaricum?.
The Busó, an end-of-winter festival in Mohács, southern Hungary, was inscribed on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009.
?The importance of intangible cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next,? according to UNESCO.
?Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.?
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / UNESCO
