Csárdás Dance Company: A History

By Richard Graber

In Csárdás Dance Company, author Richard Graber provides an engaging twenty-year retrospective on the story of how an ethnic dance company served as a vehicle for preserving his cultural heritage through dance. Founding the dance company that would give birth to many unique experiences that would last him and others a lifetime, Graber shares what sparked his motivation, how the company began and later transitioned into a school, and why he eventually suspended operations.

Highlighting the most memorable experiences—and also the many individuals who helped the organization achieve success along the way—explore how Graber navigated the challenges of running a nonprofit organization in today’s economic climate, and discover how these experiences have helped an individual with a vision continue his work with nonprofit arts organizations today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483439464

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Csárdás

Dance Company

A HISTORY

RICHARD GRABER

Copyright © 2015 Richard Graber.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3947-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3946-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953828

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book made possible with the support of The Hungary Initiatives Foundation

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 11/30/2015

CONTENTS

Prologue: Zoli’s Story

Chapter 1: Richard’s Story

Chapter 2: Cleveland

Chapter 3: The Dances

Chapter 4: The Dancers

Chapter 5: The Youth Ensemble

Chapter 6: Csárdás as a Nonprofit

Epilogue: Zoli’s Story

Prologue

ZOLI’S STORY

O ne winter evening in 1998, seventeen-year-old Zoli Fekete was tired of being cooped up at home with his parents. He was also sick of working on college applications and the seemingly unnecessary homework for his final year of high school. He headed outside with the family dog for a walk. He had told his mother he would be right back and that he was just going around the block.

He hadn’t meant to lie. Really, he’d only intended to take his usual route. He would walk down W. Seventeenth Street, turn at Lorain Avenue, turn at Fulton, and then turn again at the busy Lorain Avenue. Then he would walk until he returned home on W. Seventeenth Street. This loop was so ingrained in Zoli’s feet, he rarely thought of going further. Yet he did feel restless—he never would have denied that. Zoli had lived in Cleveland his entire life and, by now, was more than ready to move on.

He was close to his parents and loved them, but they were grown-ups and had their own jobs, their own friends, and their own lives. They were also older than most people’s parents. They were part of a different generation altogether, so he didn’t feel like he could always relate to them. He especially couldn’t relate to always wanting to stay home and read or watch the same old movies. They never had the urge to go out and do something. Zoli felt this urge every night of his life, no matter how long the school day had been or how much homework still loomed in front of him.

If he had had siblings maybe things would have been different. He might have had someone who understood him. He would have had someone to walk with down to the baseball field and to play catch with in the snow. Then he could have gotten rid of his excess energy for the few minutes it took before he realized his fingers were freezing and he actually was a little tired. But he didn’t have a brother. He didn’t even have cousins. All of his extended family lived abroad in Hungary—a country he had never visited and never had much interest in visiting.

Hungary was as far away to Zoli as the North Pole. He had no idea what it was like there. His parents didn’t talk about it much, as they hadn’t lived there in decades and had left because of unpleasant political troubles. His parents didn’t talk very often to the family that lived there because the phone card rates were so steep.

They sometimes called home during holidays, speaking in Hungarian while pacing the floor and gesturing as though their family in Hungary could actually see them. Sometimes they put Zoli on the line. He’d speak the few, halting words he knew in Hungarian, such as szia, (hello or goodbye) bocs, (short for boscánat, meaning sorry) and köszönöm, (thank you). A grandparent or an aunt would respond with a few clean sentences in English, which were so crisp and perfect he could never get any sense of who they really were. He found the whole routine kind of silly.

That winter evening, Zoli wasn’t thinking about his extended family as he let the oak door close heavily behind him. He was only looking forward to his walk. He breathed in the sharp air and let Szuszi, his father’s German shepherd, strain at the lead in front of him. The walk around the block felt too short, as if it were only seconds long. Soon Zoli found himself back at his parents’ house on W. Seventeenth Street. The light inside that shone through the windows was yellow and calm. He had to keep walking. He couldn’t go home yet. He felt the call of adventure.

Zoli again walked down his familiar, suburban street. The trees were naked and dark above his head, breaking up the white, snow-filled clouds. It was four o’clock in the afternoon but was almost dark already. January’s early sunsets in Ohio had always filled Zoli with an aching sadness and a yearning for a different world where everything was bright and the days were long and easy. He had applied to colleges all over the country but had especially wanted to go to the Southwest or California. He didn’t know if his parents could afford the tuition—he’d have to see what kind of financial aid he was offered. His father had told him not to count on it and that he would really need a large financial aid package to make it worth his going. He felt that Zoli should just go to the community college in town. But for now, he could hope.

He moved through downtown and passed a local bakery without thinking twice about the creamy squares of Napoleons and Esterházy tortes in the window. He should also have noticed all the Nagyses, Vargases, and Lakatoses in his neighborhood, but he took these traditional Hungarian names for granted. The world of downtown Cleveland, Ohio, was all he’d ever known. He didn’t associate those names with his own last name—Fekete. He never considered how unusual it was to have so many ethnic Hungarians in one place. Cleveland used to house the largest Hungarian population outside of Hungary, but to Zoli, it was America. He didn’t realize how unusual his hometown was because he hadn’t yet left it yet.

Szuszi enjoyed the walk and pulled hard on the lead with head bowed and ears pointed to the white sky. Zoli was content to follow him past the storefronts, which had accented names most Americans weren’t able to pronounce. The names painted on the glass were only part of the scenery to Zoli. He walked for over two hours. He let Szuszi pull him along without really noticing where they were going. Soon he was no longer in Cleveland but in a neighboring suburb. He saw he was on Ridge Road, a street that was miles and miles from his home. When Szuszi stopped to do his business on the edge of a snowbank, Zoli snapped out of his trance. He realized he was several miles or more from home and had no idea how to get back.

He stood on Ridge Road for several minutes and tried not to panic. He looked around and saw yellow light spilling out onto the snow from a building. He was shocked to see he was standing in front of an enormous window of plate-glass. The words, American Ballroom Centre, were inscribed above it. There was a studio inside. It must have been a dance studio. The words dance studio came easily to Zoli’s mind,