This interview was first published in Hungarian on 777.hu.

I first met József Salamon (a.k.a. Sala) as a member of the jury at the Pontozó folk dance festival held this year in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I found out that he has been the organizer of the famous Michigan Csipke Tábor (Csipke—meaning Lace—Camp), named after the Csipke Ensemble from Detroit, for the past 15 years. At this camp the best of the Hungarian American folk dance and folk music movement is showcased, along with some guest participants from the Carpathian Basin. Several people warned me about Sala, the artistic director of Csipke, before the interview: he is a tight-lipped Szekler; not sure if I can talk to him at all. When we found out that we practically grew up in the same town in Transylvania, Sala opened up and started to share his views on the folk-dance movement and camp as well as memories from his youth.

***

What was the original concept of Csipke Tábor: to teach Hungarian folk dance and folk music, or simply to have a good time or maybe both?

Both. After all, we organized it for ourselves. Our children and friends were also here. In the ’70s, Kálmán Magyar and his wife, Judit, began organizing the Symposium dance camp every two years, the last of which was in 2002. Eventually, Kálmán and his family moved back to Hungary, and there was no one to continue the dance camps. I discussed it with my wife, Andrea, and agreed that we should try to continue this tradition, but only if we find a suitable place. I know how important it is to have a location where there is freedom. There are rules everywhere…We looked at several places and liked this one. The owners are a family, they are friendly, and they really liked our ideas related to the camp. You can swim in the lake and there are no rules that would prevent us from having a good time. The first camp was held in mid-July in 2007, but in 2011 we moved it to the beginning of the summer, i.e. end of June, which is still not perfect, because the school year is not yet over everywhere, but at the same time, it’s not so hot and humid than later in the summer, and everyone can go for vacation afterwards.

Where do the participants come from, how big is the camp, and what age groups does it draw from?

This year’s camp is roughly the same as the previous ones, and the number of participants is also roughly the same: 160–170 people. It seems there is a ‘seed’. In the first camp, there were 80 of us: a couple of children, the rest adults. One year later, there were more. The news got out and we found ourselves turning it into a big family camp. More and more children arrived, so we had to take the children’s program more seriously. At first, we solved it on our own, but then we started inviting professionals from Hungary or Transylvania to work with the children. Since we don’t have a separate room for them, we rented a tent, which we bought this year, and we laid a floor underneath, so the children and the teenagers can dance there. There are handicrafts, flute and violin lessons, too, all happening simultaneously. The children we started with are now teenagers or young adults, and some of them are now teaching the younger ones. The number of teenagers is 30 to 40, which is a lot. There are also about 30 young children here, between the ages of 3 and 14, so half the camp consists of young people. The older ones, especially the Americans who like Hungarian folk dance, started leaving the camp a few years ago and they don’t tend to come back; maybe because these young people have taken over their space. That’s okay, the camp’s age structure is changing.

And is this change also happening in a geographical sense?

Yes. A lot of people used to come from California; some still come, but not as many. I think the majority now comes from the state of New Jersey. Many people arrive from the Csűrdöngölő dance group of New Brunswick. Almost all of the Tisza group from Washington, DC are also here. Lately, they have started coming from Chicago and Toronto too, but interestingly, no one comes from Cleveland, even though there is a serious Hungarian folk life in that city. We’d welcome them with love. It seems that they are too busy with scouting. In addition, they come from other places, for example from Montreal, Canada, but I also saw a car with a Kentucky license plate. I can’t even completely follow who comes from where, because not everyone is a close acquaintance anymore. Some people just want to try it, they come once and never again. Others are stuck here, and we also have regular visitors.

Back to the teens. Apart from the freedom factor mentioned and, of course, the love for folk music and dance, what else could be the reason why they are willing to be with their parents (and their age group)?

They’ve known each other since childhood and developed deep friendships. They are looking forward to coming to this camp all year. And when they arrive, they feel as if they met only yesterday, and they pick it up where it was left in the previous year. They are so used to it, that if their parents can’t come, they come on their own. The distances are so great that they cannot meet during the year, since everyone is busy with school and university, but they try to meet once a year here. And there aren’t many other folk-dance camps in North America. For the little ones, there is the Cifra camp in Canada—our sons also went there when they were young—; for the older ones, the Ti Ti Tábor in Washington state, and that’s all.

Your whole family is here. To what extent is this work or recreation for you?

This is a difficult question, because the camp takes a week out of our vacation, and we don’t get too much vacation together, apart from long weekends. We try to enjoy ourselves and rest here as well, but there is plenty to do during the camp. And of course, beforehand. When the camp is over, I give myself a month of rest, and then I start thinking about the next one. I discuss it with the Csipke group, we put together the program and then I start organizing it. When the program is final, the period of arranging the (work) visa applications, plane tickets, website updates, advertisements, etc. starts. In September, but by November of each year at the latest, we have to know who’ll be coming next year, because we have to gather all the information for the visa applications. If someone is new, everything is a little more difficult. I manage this all by myself, but right before the camp, several people get involved. Previously, all meals were provided by the campsite, but it was too much for them, so we agreed that we’d provide the dinner. The Csipke Ensemble members almost tore me apart for it, because this is a big job, but we have to understand: if we didn’t take it on, we’d have to find another place. In the past, the mother of one of the group members took on the cooking, but then she got tired of it; we currently have another good cook, Ildikó Gál, who helps a lot with her husband. They shop two or three weeks before the camp and prepare everything, and they come here every day and cook dinner for us, which by the way tastes completely different from what we get for lunch from the hosts. And when the teenagers are done dancing, they do the dishes. Everyone has something to do: some cut the melons, others wash the dishes, take out the trash or mop the floor.

This way, they probably feel more at home in the camp. Let’s move on to the invited instructors and musicians. Who came this year?

First, we choose a region as the main theme of the camp, then I try to invite teachers and bands accordingly. Since there are many talented dancers, I try to choose the ones that are close to my taste. This year we invited the Zagyva Band from Hungary. The adults are taught by Ignác Kádár (Náci) from Transylvania and Irén Deffend (Inci) from Budapest; they danced together in the National (formerly Budapest) Ensemble. I’ve chosen Náci because he is also a member of the band, and because the chosen dance material is from Bonchida and Felcsík where he’s originally from. His grandfather was the best dancer in the area, and he inherited his outstanding talent from him. The children are taught to dance by the couple Kristóf Fundák and Lili Fundák-Kaszai, from Hungary where they lead the Vadrózsa dance group. They are very talented with the children who have ‘rábaközi’ (originating from the Rábaköz region of Hungary) dance as the material to learn this year. Viola Kovács and Gábor Szanyó are two KCSP (Kőrösi Csoma Program) scholars from New Brunswick, New Jersey. They’ve just finished their tenure as scholars there and were about to return to Budapest, but we asked the Hungarian authorities to approve their stay for another week. They help out in the afternoons with teaching Învârtita, a Romanian dance from Kalotaszeg, Transylvania.

We also have musical instrument instructors at the camp. Music teacher Levente Fazakas, the director of the Transylvanian Heveder band—which is also the band of the Háromszék Dance Ensemble—has been coming for at least ten years, at first with the orchestra, then by himself, teaching violin to the advanced students. The children’s teacher is Kálmán Magyar Jr (‘Öcsi’), Kálmán Magyar Sr.’s son (the latter being the founder of the Hungarian folk dance movement in North America), assisted by his daughter, Csenge. Soma Salamon, who was born into a family of folk musicians and dancers and graduated from the Hungarian Academy of Music, also visited the Csipke Camp several times. He teaches flute, while his wife, Ágnes Enyedi teaches singing. Ágnes was born in Gyergyó in Transylvania and, as far as I know, one of her parents is from Bonchida, and therefore knows this material very well—we were lucky to have her. In addition, Sylvie Paquette, Jeszika Paulusz and Gabi Dobi are here from Canada, they do handicrafts in the afternoons. There were two stories put on as simple plays that were presented to the children; the band had a 50-minute concert, and today is the gala show, where everyone will present what they learned this year.

So you don’t teach, you ‘only’ organize and supervise?

We used to have a dance group, the Csipke, but we don’t dance and perform actively anymore, because we don’t have enough members. There aren’t enough girls and most of the boys have gone to university. We are not as fortunate as those in New Brunswick, where there are a hundred or so young people. Did you see what happened at Pontozó, right? I don’t even know how many dance groups performed there… And there is the Regös group (scout folk dancers) in Cleveland—we don’t have that in the Detroit area. After all, one of the reasons for organizing the camp was precisely this: if we can no longer maintain a dance group, at least we’ll have the camp, where they get enough folk art experiences for the whole year. This is where they keep in touch with each other, because, as I mentioned, there are not many Hungarian folk-dance camps or dance competitions in North America, so it’s important to have at least these. I hope that Pontozó, which was organized in New Brunswick after a three-year hiatus, will also continue. I heard that the Barozda dance group from Chicago will take it on next year. Organizing such an event is a long process.

What about the future of Csipke Tábor?

Next year it will probably still be here, because there is a demand for it. But in recent years, at the end of each camp, I always say: I won’t do it again. In any case, I won’t make a decision until I talk to the owners and see what the circumstances for the next year are. I always have a plan as to who to invite, but as mentioned, the program is finalized around October-November of the previous year. All I can say now is that it’s worth inviting someone who’s really willing to come, because then he will understand what’s going on here and will help to make it work well. So there are no guests of honor, the invitees also participate in the camp. Those invited so far have been happy to come. After the first camp, I also organized a three-to-four-week American tour for the guest band, but I don’t do that anymore. This year they came for only one week. Of course, it’s more worthwhile for a band to stay for several weeks if they have already flown here, but that is just too much work for me. Also, touring at the beginning of summer is not the best idea as everybody is on vacation. Another very important factor is the organizing team of which I am the ‘face’, but they are doing very serious work here. I hope they will also be willing to continue next year, because without them, I can’t do it alone.

Let’s now talk about you. How did you get close to folk culture? And why did you come to America?

I came here to organize Csipke Camp. (laughs) I’ll be honest: I only got to know folk culture when I was 22. I had never danced before. I was born in Gyergyótölgyes (Tulgheș), a mixed Romanian and Hungarian village in Transylvania, Romania. I moved to Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfantu Gheorghe) at the age of 14. I graduated from the Mikes Kelemen high school in ’83. After I was discharged from the military, I accidentally ended up in a dance hall. Someone took me there, but I didn’t even know what it was. Árpád Könczei was teaching, he came up to me and asked if I wanted to dance. He added: he likes my mustache. I knew a couple of young people who danced in an amateur folk dance group called Studio, so I went to their rehearsals. I liked it. Good musicians played in the trade union band called Vadrózsák, such as István Papp (nickname: Gázsa); István Moldován-Horváth (nickname: Kuki), who is now with the Maros Ensemble in Marosvásárhely (Tirgu Mures) and Gáspár Álmos, who is now playing with the Duna Ensemble in Budapest. I was hired as a full-time dancer to spice up their music performance.

I was there until the regime change in 1989–90, when most of them moved to Hungary, including Könczei. An engineer from Kézdivásárhely (Târgu Secuiesc), Gyula Deák, who died recently, enthusiastically directed the Háromszék Dance Ensemble established by the town council at the time. I was with them for two years, then I joined the Maros Ensemble as a professional dancer. I was there for a couple of years when someone invited me to visit Chicago for two weeks. When I came to the U.S., in May ’99, they put a six-month stamp in my passport which could be extended for another six months. There were young people who danced in the area, and in the meantime Kálmán Magyar Sr. also organized tours, invited the Ökrös Band, they were the best. They had a U.S. tour in September of that year and the tour organizer invited me to teach some dances before the concert. I met my wife then and there.

Was it then that you decided to stay in America permanently?

Not yet, but in the summer of 2000, we went to Kálmán Magyar’s camp because the Üsztürü Band was invited, and then I made the decision to stay permanently. We got married in the fall of that year and I moved here to Detroit. Andrea was born to Hungarian parents and grew up here. I went to the Catholic church in Detroit and asked the Franciscans if we could rehearse on their stage in the basement. They said yes, and our rehearsals became more regular, the Csipke Ensemble was formed, and the foundation of this folk dance community was created. It worked for quite a while. When we started the camp, the dance group was still active. It gradually stopped, but the camp remained.

Your two sons are already born into Csipke, right? Or are their lives already about something else?

The older one will be twenty-two in August, the younger one will be twenty in July. Yes, that’s what they grew up with, we always had folk music played on the radio, in the car, everywhere. When someone organized tours, the bands always stayed with us, and of course there was always live music. The boys learned to live in noise, they also love it, but they’re not as crazy about it as we were and are. Their lives are about something else. They went to school in the U.S., where they only speak English. We tried to speak Hungarian with them as often as possible, and they also learned the violin so what they learn in the camp, they can practice at home. Unfortunately, there are no art schools here like at home, where several children go together and play music together. But at least something stuck with them…

Do they have personal experience of Hungary or Transylvania? You apparently have intense professional connections everywhere…

They have little connection to Transylvania. They’ve been there, my mother still lives there, but unfortunately, she’s not in the best of health, so I couldn’t leave the children with her in the summers, and I couldn’t stay longer either. My wife doesn’t have any relatives in Hungary to whom we could send the children to in the summer to practice the language, as quite a few people do. Both of our kids have been there, because the older one likes to travel and has gone several times, and now he is thinking of going to Corvinus University to do his master’s degree there after completing his economics degree in the U.S. The younger one has just been there for ten months, he learned to play the folk violin with a private teacher and went to dance with the Fundák family. They both like to be in Hungary, they like a lot of things there, but they don’t fancy that lifestyle that much. They were born here, America is their home. And since they were born here, I cannot imagine my life somewhere else. I have a lot of friends at home, but I rarely visit them. I went to the dance hall meeting in April in Budapest, and planned to go to the musician’s meeting in May in Gyimes, Transylvania, but I couldn’t make it. However, I managed to send my younger son; Soma, Zalán’s friend, also traveled there from Hungary. I couldn’t join him because of my work, it’s just too much of a time commitment. I am otherwise the co-owner of an air conditioning system control company. 

Kálmán Magyar Sr. said he had two parallel lives as a Hungarian American. Do you have that, too?

We both have American and Hungarian lives, but maybe his life was better balanced, ours not so much: more American business, than Hungarian private and folk life. There aren’t as many Hungarians around me as there were during Kálmán’s time in New York or New Jersey. The old immigrants around him had lost their homeland, so they had to create a new one for themselves: a Hungarian community here. It’s different for us. We don’t have to create it as it’s there in Hungary after all, isn’t it? A bit far, but within reach. So here we are only trying to nurture our Hungarian identity and popularize folk culture. By the way, those American participants who have no Hungarian origin or connections come to the camp because of Hungarian folk dance. Some come every year, I think, from Minneapolis; they also have a Hungarian dance group, just like the Tisza Ensemble in Washington, DC that is run by non-Hungarians. These are great examples. They do it as they can; not always well, but they do it. Many Hungarians could follow their example; especially those who do nothing but criticize. You know how it is…

Let me ask you again: how do you see the future of this camp? My experience is: if you don’t plan consciously, it won’t happen by itself…

Well, yes, there is also a need for a person or group to take it over at some point. But the truth is, you cannot organize such an event through a democratic process. If everyone has a say, it won’t work. Someone has to decide which way to go. And if we always vote on everything, we won’t get anywhere. So there has to be someone who has an idea, and the others trust him and follow him. We need such a person for the future, which is why it’s difficult to hand it over. Someone who is willing to work and doesn’t complain. Someone who pulls others along. I haven’t seen that person yet, but you never know, there are miracles. I have already heard such an uproar among young people claiming that they will take it over and do it better. My response to this is: ‘Fine, do better than me, but you’re already wrong. If you make a competition out of it already at the beginning, then it won’t turn out well.’

Read more Diaspora interviews: