Pushing Cultural Boundaries to the Fringe

Location: Pécs
April 9, 2010
Adventure #12

Never do I feel more in my element than when I am wedged into a vermilion velvet theater seat waiting for the curtain to rise, teetering on a cafe stool while balancing a coffee in one hand and snapping with the other to honor a poet's recitation, or perching on my tiptoes in a smoky Budapest cellar trying to catch a glimpse of a rock band. Without a doubt, I am an arts and culture junkie. To satiate my cravings, I recently traveled to a town in Southern Hungary called Pécs to see the Fringe Festival, as I explained in my travel blog. This festival, which started in Edinburgh and now has iterations occur all over the world, provides performance space for amateur artists in all genres through a weekend-long event, thus bolstering the "fringe" of the artistic society.

At Hungary's Fringe Festival, my vanguard sidekick Zsofi and I performance hopped with some amazing and peculiar outcomes. The first show we saw - or tried to see - was of the latter variety. A modern dance troupe was putting on a show, but instead of a standard stage, their makeshift performance space abutted a large gallery window. They hung a black sheet over this window and cut multiple peepholes in the cloth. If you wanted to catch a glimpse of their frantic movements, you couldn't go inside and watch the performance unfold, but rather, you had to negotiate with the crowd for a chance to be a peeping Tom. Sick of waiting our turn, we switched to a more professional dance troupe's performance and caught the last half of their show. This riveting performance included a long choreographed fight scene between four couples, which involved lots of jumping, catching, and bodily movements I wouldn't dare attempt. I wish I could have seen it twice.

Next, Zsofi and I switched venues to catch some musical acts. Although Hungary is not known for cultivating talented gospel or soul singers, I still wanted to see a performance in the genre. It turned out to be as lackluster as I should have expected. The large group of 20 singers resembled a shy teenage church choir where no one will stand close to the microphone and no strong melodies are ever heard. After a soloist managed to downgrade Grace from Amazing to humdrum, we hopped across the hall to a decidedly different performance - a trio of pubescent punk rockers who pounded out incomprehensible songs and suffered from the if you can't sing, sing loudly disease.

Fortunately, we fled and ended up in a gem of a bar. In its entryway, a local pop artist recreated his modern-day version of the Sistine Chapel in a cartoon fresco (pictured). Instead of the iconic touching fingertips, it features clinking beer glasses, and in the place of the regular Michelangelo characters are Frank Zappa, DJs, break dancers and even the lead singer from Motorhead. We grabbed a table near the art and the stage and were treated to a beautiful folk singer who mesmerized us with soulful Roma songs from the region and traditional folk songs.

Next up, was my favorite show of the entire weekend: an energetic blues group. First, I must make a confession: there are three instruments that I believe to be the bees knees, and should one individual master all these instruments, I will be their bona fide groupie. They are: the bass (this love was fostered early on, as all my pre-college crushes played the bass), the saxophone (I still resent my band teacher for convincing me to play the flute in lieu of the tenor sax), and the harmonica. This blues band had a dashing blond front man who rocked classics like "The Thrill is Gone" with rare moxie for being a non-native English speaker, but, most importantly, he was a mad harp player. I sat in an enamored, toe-tapping state for their entire set, just waiting for the next harmonica solo. I haven't felt that present for an event in a long time - maybe I'll have to join that band's already large groupie pool. This performance also sparked what may be my next goal once I finish this blog: learning to play the harmonica.

As our last cultural stand of the weekend, Zsofi expanded my visual-art knowledge and introduced me to a fascinating modern Hungarian artist, Tivadar Csontvary. The painter, who suffered from schizophrenia, didn't start painting until he was 41, but in his short career, he created a surrealistic oeuvre of vivid landscape watercolors and portraits that are detailed to the point of eerie. He now tops my list of favorite Magyar artists.