The Hungarian Cultural Center in New York could play an important role in the event, said the centre?s director Ágnes Fülemile.
The Hungarian government approved the country?s participation at the festival in August of last year and Fülemile expressed hope that the necessary domestic funding ? to be paired with a similar amount from the event?s hosts ? would soon become available.
The two-week festival, which overlaps the Independence Day holiday, typically draws more than a million people.
The Smithsonian Institution calls the festival ?an exercise in cultural democracy, in which cultural practitioners speak for themselves, with each other, and to the public?.
?The festival encourages visitors to participate?to learn, sing, dance, eat traditional foods, and converse with people presented in the festival program.?
Fülemile, who was named the head of the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York last year, is an ethnographer with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences? Ethnography Research Institute. She studied art history, history and ethnography at Budapest?s Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), getting her Ph.D. in 1997.
Between 1990 and 2006, Fülemile was a regular lecturer at University of California?s Education Abroad Program at ELTE and at the Study Abroad Program of CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) at Budapest?s Corvinus University. She taught at Indiana University Bloomington in 2006-2009.
In 1992-1993, with a Fulbright grant, she spent half a year at the Anthropology Department of the University of California Berkeley and another half a year at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York.
The Hungarian Cultural Center in New York moved out of its rented building in March and the Balassi Institute, which oversees Hungarian cultural institutes abroad, decided to adopt a cheaper model for a cultural institute, one used by other countries as well.
Fülemile acknowledged that the lack of an independent base made it difficult for the cultural institute to establish its own profile, but noted that the resulting cost savings could be ploughed back into a richer offering of programmes.
She said the Hungarian consulate in New York as well as institutions and churches linked to Hungarian communities in the United States could provide venues for the centre?s programmes.
Among the events on or planned for the center?s programmes are classical music concerts by Péter Balatoni, Gergely Ittzés and Csaba Onczay; folk and world music performances by Szilvia Bodnár, Messi, Kálmán Balogh, Muzsikás, Magos, Tükrös and Ferenc Kiss; shows of modern dance and folk dance by Ferenc Fehér, the Dezső Fitos Troupe and 4forDance; a puppet show by the Vaskakas company of Győr; a theatre production by András Visky; an exhibition of graphic and animated art by István Orosz; displays of ceramics and porcelain by Mária Petrás and Zsolnay; and other exhibitions based on materials from the Hungarian National Museum, the Skanzen Open-Air Museum and the Cultural Heritage Protection office. Film screenings, scientific presentations, book launches, symposia, instruction for Hungarian language teachers, cooking demonstrations, wine-tastings and dance courses are also in the lineup.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
