Csűrdöngölő Kulturális Egyesület is regional cultural public benefit association located in the center of Hungary. The main objective for GME to preserve folk heritage and provide folk art activities to keep traditions live. We believe traditions must be kept as a whole and revived in its old manner. For this reason, all our public events include authentic storytelling, folk music, folk dance and handicraft activities.
What kind of activities do you organise?
Folktale festival: The biggest event every year is the only folktale festival in Hungary called: Hetedhét Hatvan Népmesefesztivál (www.nepmesefesztival.hu) The 4 days festival is organized in beginning of June every Year, where visitors can enjoy various folk performances inspired by Hungarian folktales. There is a constant storytelling activity and professional presentations about storytelling. There has been storytellers and performers from the following countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania. The festival hosts ~30 storytellers every Year and the ~2000 visitors. The festival main objective is to raise awareness of the oral storytelling and the Hungarian folk tales.
Memorable traditional days: In the course of every calendar year we organise family events (~10 every Year for the last 5 Years) to raise awareness about the memorable days (carnival, Easter, St. George, St. Nicolas, etc.) In all these events one of our storyteller tells folktales to our visitors, who can then play traditional games, listen to folk music and folkdance and create some crafts. These events take place in our own facility called the Csűrdöngölő event house. (www.csurdongolo.hu) When requested we also take these events to other locations.
Storytelling workshops: In the past 2 Years we have organised and facilitated more then 20 storytelling workshops. These are gatherings where usually from a few to 10-15 storytellers gathers and tells their stories. We also facilitate regularly storytelling events in Jaszbereny which is called the "Birinyi Mesekör"
Building relationship with traditionalist storytellers: We are regularly visiting and also inviting traditionalist storytellers who still learned their stories from their predecessors not from books. We also video-record them and collect and pass on their stories.
Teaching, coaching and mentoring: We are also investing time to teach younger generations about storytelling. We regularly visit kindergartens to tell tales to children. We have held 100+ elementary school lectures in the past 2 years about storytelling and old traditions. We are regularly coaching and mentoring young storytellers to improve their skills. We organise and regularly play a role as jury in storytelling competitions. We held several summer camps for children about storytelling and Hungarian heritage
Storytelling theater: In the last year we started to experiment to tell stories as an amateur theater performance as in normal circumstances our storytelling performances use no costume or tool.
