France Marolt Student Folk Dance Group

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Akademska folklorna skupina France Marolt

Kongresni trg 1, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://www.marolt.si

info@marolt.si

Phone386 (0) 1 251 4312, 386 (0) 40 725 128

Founded byStudent Organization of the University of Ljubljana (ŠOU Ljubljana)

The France Marolt Academic Folklore Group was established in 1948 in Ljubljana by France Marolt, an ethnomusicologist at the Institute of Ethnomusicology. Currently led by Mirko Ramovš, this biggest and one of the oldest Slovene folklore groups presents traditional dances from the wider Slovene area to national and international audiences and is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the European Prize for Folk Art and the Župančič Award of the City of Ljubljana.

History

France Marolt was in many ways the group's spiritual leader, while the musical direction was entrusted to Tončka Marolt and the direction of dance to the ethnochoreographer Marija Šuštar. In 1965 ethnomusicologist Mirko Ramovš became the group's artistic leader, who has significantly improved and upgraded the group's programme with new perspectives on the historical development of individual dances and their (historical and anthropological) meaning.

Repertoire

Mirko Ramovš has published several anthologies of Slovene folk dances and has conceived around 50 stage presentations of authentic Slovene folk dances. Amongst the 1,100 registered dances there are around 70 types of dance (with variations) and the France Marolt Group has performed the great majority of these, covering the five major parts of ethnic Slovenia: Koroška (Carinthia), Panonija (Pannonia), Primorska (the Littoral), Gorenjska (Upper Carnolia), and Bela Krajina (White Carniola). The group's musical arrangements are the work of ethnomusicologist Julijan Strajnar and Uroš Krek. Currently the group has over 120 members (90 dancers and 30 musicians).

Since 1998 the group has presented the traditions of Slovene dance in Spain, France, Belgium, Turkey, Germany, Korea, Portugal, Italy, Greece and recently also at the International Student Folk Festival in Macedonia, the Balkan Festival of Folk Songs and Dances at Ohrid and the Billingham International Folklore Festival, United Kingdom.

The group organises extremely well-received annual concerts, commonly held at Cankarjev dom, Cultural and Congress Centre, which besides presenting the group's annual work also raise the question of how to work in the field of folklore dance today.

External links

• France Marolt Academic Folklore Group website