Here is a quote from Zoltan Kodaly re-posted a few hours ago by folkMAGazin, a reminder about how getting to know our neighbors’ music being an important step in knowing our own. This applies to dancing as well, and all cultural treasures of the Carpathian Basin and beyond. It’s something that I didn’t find that important when I was 18 years old but now at the age of 52 realize how crucial it truly is! Translation: “What is Hungarian in music cannot even be determined without a thorough knowledge of the music of the surrounding peoples; otherwise we may fall into the gravest errors… Therefore, first and foremost, we need to become acquainted with our neighbors so that we may see the boundaries of our Hungarianness as clearly as possible. But it is also worthwhile to know them for their own sake. Every people has created its own distinctive forms of beauty; in each we find something that does not exist in others. Thus we can only be enriched by it. Finally, nothing characterizes a people as much as its language and its music. No one can say that we have come to know our neighbors sufficiently so far. Only good can come from striving to see and understand them better through their music as well.” (Zoltán Kodály: “Neighboring Peoples” [after 1942]) – István Pávai: Zoltán Kodály, the Ethnomusicologist (folkMAGazin 2008/3)