Having set Broadway on fire this year with over 20 New York performances, Gipsy Fire has arrived to Budapest, and along with it, the promise of flaming success. An amalgam of Roma dance and music from all over the world, Gipsy Fire celebrates the Millennium the Gipsy way: dancing and singing about the Roma past, present and future. Running under the title Magneten, the show ran 260 times in Germany, Switzerland and Austria during the early nineties, and produced by the world-renown artist Andre Heller. Last year Magneten toured the United States with the title ”Gipsy Caravan” with the support of the World Music Institute in New York.

A cultural Molotov cocktail, Gipsy Fire is a sort of Festival of Roma culture, a musical agenda of a long suffering minority, and a cultural bridge between several nations. Gipsy Fire also features Hungary’s renowned Roma cultural ensemble, Kalyi Jag, whose name has spread throughout the country and abroad ever since its establishment in 1978, and several Roma dance groups from India, Romania, Spain, Bulgaria, Pakistan, and Denmark participate.

“Gipsy Fire is a baby step toward decreasing discrimination, but it also plays a strategic role in a continuous struggle for friendship and a common future,” said Gusztav Varga, Kalyi Jag’s founder and president.

Kalyi Jag, founded over tow decades ago, is the most prominent representative of Roma culture in Hungary, being the first band on the continent to perform authentic gipsy songs in the original Roma mother tongue. In their development, the band traveled and performed at worker’s hostels, youth clubs, camps and culture houses. The bands breakthrough came in 1979, when the Hungarian Parliament awarded the prize “Young Masters of Folk Art” to the ensemble. Over the following two decades, Kalyi Jag has carved a niche for both at home and abroad as the masters of authentic Roma culture and folklore. Having toured the four corners of the globe, the band has enjoyed unparalleled success with the name Kalyi Jag having become synonymous with high-quality professional Roma folklore. In 1986, when half of the country was singing their songs, the band signed a contract with Hungaroton, a major Hungarian record company, to put out their first album which sold over 30,0000 copies. The four records that followed enjoyed immense popularity, becoming gold and platinum albums and immense popularity with audiences in Europe, North and South America, India, Japan, or Korea.

Gipsy Fire will tour Hungary between October 27 and November 20, performing not only in Budapest but also major Hungarian cities and smaller localities over the next two months. The show will be dedicated to the celebration of the Millennium and to the remembrance of victims of the Holocaust and the war in the Balkans.

“Gipsy Fire recalls to life the pilgrimage of Gypsies from India to Europe, a cultural wrap-up of our turbulent past and present,” Varga added.

The Erkel Theater in Budapest will show Gipsy Fire on October 27 and November 20, however, the show can be seen throughout the country. Show times are 19:00 for the Budapest Performances

Erkel T heater
VIII. Koztarsasag ter 30
Tel: 333-0540
Ticket price: HUF 1,200, 2,400, 3,500

Oct. 20 – Miskolc
Oct. 21 – Ozd
Oct. 24 – Mataszalka
Oct. 26 – Nagykallo
Oct. 27 – Budapest
Oct. 28 – Szeged
Oct. 29 – Tiszaujvaros
Oct. 30 – Bekescsaba
Nov. 3 – Eger
Nov. 6 – Kalocsa
Nov. 8 – Salgotarjan
Nov. 9 – Tatabanya
Nov. 12 – Kaposvar
Nov. 13 – Keszthely
Nov. 14 – Gyor
Nov. 25 – Pecs
Nov. 17 – Szekesfehervar
Nov. 18 – Zalaegerszeg
Nov. 19 – Szombathely
Nov. 20 - Budapest

For further information call Kalyi Jag Group: 06-1-351-3148.

10.25
Edith Balazs