Mrkni na to!

02. 10. 2009 | 539 přečtení

V posledním čísle jednoho nejmenovaného dvouměsíčníku irského původu vyšla rozsáhlá reportáž o letošní letní škole a o Praze z pera jedné z účastnic. Součástí jsou i fotografie nejen účastníků této akce, ale i různých pražských zákoutí. Dovolil jsem si článek přepsat a podělit se s vámi, čtenáři našich stránek, o tuto reportáž. Zaujala mě ještě z jiných důvodů: Autorka si zřejmě dala obrovskou práci s tím, aby se podívala na Prahu z různých úhlů a ve svém článku dokázala postihnout to nejzajímavější a nejcennější. A pak mě zaujala ještě jedna věc: Nepíše o nerudných hospodských, o okrádajících taxikářích, chválí pražskou dopravu - prostě po dlouhé době čtu o Praze z pohledu cizince a nejsou tam žádná negativa. A to mě potěšilo dvojnásob.
V.B.

Mrkni na to!

Kristýna Dubová

      When Carmen McRae sang, „You are so lovable, so livable, your beauty is just unforgivable, you´re made to Marcel at, and words to that effect,“ she didn´t exactly have Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, in mind. I never understood when people said that they „fell in love“ with a city, say, Paris, Berlin or Rome, as I am not a townie and tire quickly of noise and traffic. Prague though did it – I was smitten!
    For one week we rambled u pand down its sleek creamy-coloured cobblestone streets and alleys, craned our necks to better see the many historical buildings, sampled the local cuisine (like goulash with raw onion served inside a hollowed rye bread, yum!), panting in the relentless heat of the sun that didn´t really produce any clouds at any stage to speak of, rather, temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius. The warmth penetrated deeper than the skin and dried the very bones of the body. This period of hot weather though was not the norm for the month of August in the Czech Republic, it appears. Our adaptation was slowly – for days we rooted out jackets to take with us only to put them back in the wardrobe.
    I have no idea how on earth the students of the Bernard´s Summer School, 16-21 August, mainly Czechs, were able to keep up all week doing intermediate or advanced step dancing in the mornings. At the same time, there were music classes in tin whiste, uilleann pipes, guitar, bodhrán, box, fiddle and banjo.

     The afternoons then were taken by Gerard Butler, leading a sean nós class for two hours, followed by three hours of set dancing and steps for sets. How he managed the heat and galloping for five hours every day plus rehearsals for a performance is anyone´s guess. Maybe this is how – he said that he never enjoyed a sean nós and set dancing class as much because he could see the results immediately, how much people improved, came to relax those upper bodies and enjoy the dances. No inhibitions here of any kind! The students ventured out on the nights of dancing and simply did some sean nós, obviously without a fear of getting it wrong – fantastic!
    Unbelievably, all the students that had signed up for the classes at the beginning of the week showed up and danced every day, their stamina and will to learn so great that the hot conditions did not make them waver in their determination. For instance, they were mad about steps for sets, so some battering was taught to them by a very sweaty Ger Butler, and remained as keen as ever after nearly spending the whole afternoon on it. My word, whatever else you can say about the Bohemians, and some people from Poland, Belgium and Germany, they certainly impressed with keenness, seriousness and doggedness. A lot of them were young people, I guess because the school for most years of its existence (this was its ninth year) was offering mainly Irish step dancing. Ger´s classes went down very well, with much applause, and Tereza Bernardova, daughter of the organizer, told me that numbers were definitely up this year. Some students from other classes had said that next year they also want to try out the craic with the set dancing and sean nós! (Some of those dancing in the mornings did stay for the sean nós.) This was the second year that sean nós and fourth that set dancing were available. Next year, there might be special celebrations for the tenth year of running the summer school!
    They do take their “Irishness” seriously. There were three nights of concerts, a show and a dance during the week on top of everyday classes. Everyone got a certificate at the end of the classes and an opportunity to rehearse and perform their dances and music in at least one of the three public concerts, one being held at dance theatre. Everything was put on celluloid and the last night had all the trimmings of the Rose of Tralee festival. All was executed proficiently and professionally, including a translator for the non-Czech.
The Wednesday night concert and ceili was the one where everybody danced all the time, all sorts of different dances led by different teachers. There was ceili, set, step. American country and two-hands. Two different groups provided music on stage: a Czech Irish trad band called Shannon with two CD under their belt, and all the teachers of the summer school music classes. 

    On the closing night at a grand finale, where all the students and teachers displayed their stuff, including set dancing, a group came forward that had, wait for it, taken a class learning the Irish language as taught by a Czech! They recited a poem and then sang a song, Dulaman na binne bui, dulaman Gaelach and we all had to join in. The words were written on a banner that the class held up for the audience to see, so no excuses! We wouldn´t have been a bit surprised if a leprechaun had started serving up Guinness.
    Every step dance teacher plus Ger Butler came on the stage then to strut their stuff, and seemed to really enjoy what they were doing – it´s ever so nice to see them smiling. Most enjoyable and exciting was a Czech step dance troupe, Rinceoirí, performing from their show Swan legend, a well-choreographed piece that looked a lot like a game of chess, with the two kings as contenders, and one ending up being overthrown by the other – drama galore! They tour the Republic with great success, another offspring of Riverdance, Czech style. And no shortage of set dancing either, the class performed on two nights sets of their liking and also a half-set was danced as an exhibition with Ger Butler in it.
What brought the house down nearly on the night, was a dance piece by Čarodějky (Witches), a local group, not the least bit Irish, but dancing and singing a parody in workmen´s clothes of what seemed to be 1950s music and lyrics to infuse in listeners the great values communism, all together now, all equal, all working together, but was lost on us foreigners language-wise.

    The language, you see, doesn´t sound or look anything remotely Roman, and that´s no surprise, because, like German, it isn´t. Didn´t look German though, either, so we often looked at something, say the label of a can, and had absolutely no clue as to what it was. We weren´t able to derive a meaning from the root of the word, as it might be possible in Spanish or French sometimes. Poor Ger was put on the spot for the amusement of the whole class when asked to hand out certificates while calling out the names – tongue-twisting involuntary stand-up comedy.

    And apart from the dancing, there was this must-see city spread out below us, as we looked down from the balcony of our state-of-the-art apartment onto red rooftops, the Vltava River and green patches of woods, parks and reserves. Dogs were everywhere. I should have asked people to pass on their training methods, because these were the best behaved ones ever to be seen. Often without leads, they´d simply trot in unison behind their owners. No jumping, pulling, running wild or fighting. Wanna get rid of a fear of dogs? Prague´s dogs are the canine equivalent of a church choir behaving impeccably on Christmas Day.
     Prague also had its share of epic history. At different times throughout its 1100 year history, it was plundered by the Swedes, was part of the Habsburg empire, has seen its native language and culture nearly eradicated, went through two world wars, was occupied by Nazi Germany during WW2, had a long spell under a Warsaw pact communist regime, which suppressed a moment to humanize socialism in the sixties (the “Prague spring”), and after a soft “velvet” revolution, emerged after the split with Slovakia a strong capitalist democratic multi-ethnic locality – sixth place among Europe´s most visited cities. Its historical buildings are perfectly maintained. Art nouveau sits easily beside gothic, Romanesque and renaissance architecture, no exesores to be found. The only new bulding, the Dancing House, we so odd that it counts as just another work of art. You can literally wander around for hours and not see a single ugly out-of-place office building or skyscraper. No wonder it is called the Golden City.
   What you can´t find are traffic jams, although the city swells in the summer months due to the high influx of tourists, and the roads are not exactly highways. But the system of public transport allows free and frequent movement by tram, metro and bus for very little money. Hats off! We never bothered running after a metro – the next one was sure to be around the cotner. Everybody seemed so relaxed, no shoving and pushing anywhere, and at night we felt perfectly safe, even if we weren´t out in the small hours.
     In the old town square, every hour on the hour, massive flocks of tourists are shepherded to the astronomical clock to watch a spectacle that was invented there in medieval times. About five metres above ground a skeleton starts ringing the bell, and lo and behold, two small doors fling open to reveal the twelve apostles, each taking their turn to come forward and take a quick darting look at the crowds below. This show was so unique that the lords of the city wanted to keep it that way, so they blinded the inventor. Charming.
    Prague Castle, which towers over one part of the city and is illuminated at night, the wow-factor kind of illumination, is the largest in Europe and really comprises of a multitude of residences and a cathedral of great splendour. In several different courtyards there are stalls, exhibitions and craft displays. We watched a blacksmith at work for a while, hammering away with his fiery tools in the soaring midday heat , his body smeared with ash. It was easy to imagine how humans had done this trade for centuries – ah, the lost worlds of the past! But hey, what was that, a ringing of some description? And out he pulls his mobile phone to answer a call, and the spell was truly broken – no snubbing modern gadgets!
    Next up we visited a falconry with different birds of prey to see and hold! My God, I didn´t think I would end up in Prague with a hawk on my gloved hand. It wasn´t to the list of things to do and see before kicking the bucket, but nonetheless was a powerful experience feeling the weight and talons of the bird and its eyes – looking as if he couldn´t make up his mind whether to regard me as prey or predator. Yikes!
    Easier then was trip to one of the many parks in Prague. Huge, this one was. Hours could be spent happily moseying the winding paths, ending up at a lake with a swimming area. Just the ticket, after walking in the heat for so long. A sign saying something like nudisky (forgive my bad Czech) was exactly what you´re now thinking it was. Very liberal country this, no hang-ups.
    For a different kind of musical experience, one night we ventured to an underground jazz club. The stone vault overhead made the music bounce off it in a lazy fashion, almost cushioned it, and a great band played soulfully with lovely vocals that were merely like another instrument instead of overpowering the rest.
    And on a classical note, a cruise along the Vltava would remind us of Smetana, who composed the famous music to go with the river.
    Taking all that into account, I fully understood how this man from Shetlands, who was the fiddle teacher at the summer school, Alastair Edwards, ended up living in Prague. By the way, we met an Irish guy on the plane who was traveling there to look for work. He lived in Prague at some stage for one summer and apparently loved it so much that he chose to emigrate to the place.
    But there are more connections between the Czech Republic and Ireland, and one important link has been made to bring Irish music and dance here. The Prague summer school of Irish dancing and music would not exist if it weren´t for one man, whose love of Irish music inspired him so much that he went on to learn Irish dancing and on further to create and furnish the summer school – Václav Bernard, aided by his wife Lenka and daughters Markéta and Tereza, both lovely dancers in their own right. It was the Willie Clancy summer school, no less, that inspired the desire to bring Irish dancing and music to the Czech Republic. And what an awesome job they did. Irish people said, as they would, “Gee, they´d put you to shame, so they would!”

    Great job, Václav, I can´t but admire you for it. Full credits at the end of the film, please!
   Fancy a city break in the summer with lots of cultural input and dancing? Head to the Czech Republic to be sure.

Foto autorka článku