Daniela Stavělová: Červená růžičko, proč se nerozvíjíšj












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            * Zuzana Jurková
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            [Red Rose, Why Don't you Thrive. A carnival carol from Doudleby: dance, identity, status a


            Prague, The Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic + Asso
            Children's Creativity in Dance, 2008, 85 pages + DVD



            Even a fleeting glance at the comprehensive edition of "Folk dances of Bohemia, Moravia an

            which is published by the National Institute of Folk Culture in Strážnice, must make a str
            on interested parties. The ten volumes from the 1990s subdivided according to regions alwa

            video material from various localities of the region and text parts with descriptions of d
            transcriptions, choreographies, etc. Further - more recent - seven volumes deal with male 
            various forms of the verbuňk (originally, dance of recruits). (This is, of course, not sur

            this Moravian dance earned a UNESCO status as intangible heritage). The text parts have, i
            preceding series, even more detailed comments, including the history of dance, occasions f


            The reviewed volume might thus seem to be only another in the series of audio-visual mater
            music?and?dance traditions from our land, even some sort of poor relation. It deals with o
            three neighboring South Bohemian localities. It is not like that. It is about another type

            more or less new in our country. While the Strážnice edition records existing (and sometim
            no longer existing) dance tradition - and their goal is to describe HOW the phenomenon loo
            Stavělová asks mainly WHY it seems the way it seems. (In the text, however, she also decla

            objective of her six-year field work in Doudleby.) While in the earlier volumes the focus 
            on the visual part, here - from the logic of the approach - it is necessary to start with 
            in the ideal case - to combine the reading of it with the watching of the film on DVD. Suc

            format is, besides, the quite usual world standard of ethnomusicological and ethnochoreolo
            publications.


            In the text (which here is in Czech and English versions) the author presents the carol as
            historically petrified template filled with elements of a concrete culture. These create a
            structure - and it is to up to the author to interpret the whole and its individual elemen

            uses not only of the material, which she herself collected in the field, but of various fo
            description or recordings beginning at the end of the 19th century. She then analyses all 
            evaluated synchronically and diachronically, as elements of structure of the whole ritual.

            as a way of ventilation of community conflict and strengthening collective identity, and, 
            as "area of communication in which every individual person can highlight his position and 
            community."


            While watching the 35-minute film it hardly occurs to the viewer how difficult it is - wit
            documentary sequences, short testimonies of the participants and an accompanying commentar

            from many-hours-long material obtained during all-day following roundabout ways in three c
            well-arranged and understandable whole. This was definitely successful. On the accompanyin
            apart from the film, unused shots which are thematically organized into the appropriate ch

            independent photo gallery.

            It is undoubtedly a cause for rejoicing: ethnochoreology (the name of which was often used

            folkloristic events) has in this work a fine representative.

            Zuzana Jurková [ URL "LM-202.html "]