One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London, E16 1XL
Until 9 May 2010
Rita Parniczky and Xiang Zeng, fresh up-and coming Hungarian textile designers from Central Saint Martins, will be exhibiting their work at Grand Designs Live, which is the UK's busiest home show with over 105,000 visitors in 2009. The show will combine cutting-edge design products, interactivity and an eco-friendly message.
Rita's ethereal and shimmering woven textiles which resemble x-rays and glass or ice will be showcased alongside with Xiang's narrative led, illustrative textiles and wallpapers. To celebrate Pécs's title of the European Cultural Capital this year, Xiang will be producing an exciting new collection specifically based on Pécs.
“Life becomes almost interesting once one has learned to recognize people’s lies, and one starts to enjoy the comedy as people keep saying things other than they think and really want... That is how we arrive to the truth, and truth is synonymous with old age and death. But it doesn’t hurt any more.”
An intimate space, a live musician and two remarkable actors will be performing an adaptation of Embers on London’s fringe. Capturing the essence of Sándor Márai’s poetic and tantalizing
language, the story will embrace questions of fidelity, brotherhood, lust, revenge, virtue and love.
Produced by Arabella Wynne-Hughes and Edit Boros with support of Giant Olive Theatre Company, Embers will be staged in a cosy, 60 seat pub theatre in Kentish Town.
Born in Budapest, Arabella Wynne-Hughes, who is also directing the play, has been evolving the idea of Embers on stage since she first read the original book at the age of 16. Yearning to introduce this masterpiece with her own visions to London, she would like to generate the sensation that Embers once brought to her.
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» Monday Music Soirees - CANCELLED
Monday, 3 May 2010 7.00pm
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT IS UNFORTUNATELLY CANCELLED.
Gábor Farkas (piano) is a PhD student of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest and, has worked with conductors such as Ádám Fischer, Zoltán Kocsis and Tamás Vásáry, among others.
Gábor started his music studies at the age of five, and holds an MA degree in piano and teaching. He won the first prize, the audience award and the special award for the best interpretation of a work by Joseph Haydn at the “International Franz Liszt Competition” in Weimar in 2009.
His uplifting performance enchanted the audience throughout Europe and the world: during the past years he has performed in the concert halls of Budapest, Vienna, Baden bei Wien, Berlin, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Florence, Paris, Calgary, Sakata, Yuza and Tokyo .
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» A different look - Exhibition, Talk, Film
Tuesday, 4 May 2010 7.00pm
Hungarian Cultural Centre
As part of the events organized in line with 2010 being the European year of combating poverty and social exclusion we present a photo exhibition about Roma people in Hungary as they are rarely captured. The usual pictures in the subject are well-known clichés: children in worn out, dirty clothes playing in front of houses in terrible condition.
This time we are taking a different look: Our portraits celebrate Roma university students who, with the help of Romaversitas Foundation (that provides financial, educational and community support to the Roma) and perhaps against all odds, are now studying to become lawyers, doctors and architects.
These young people have an uplifting story to tell about their life plans and future. Some of the students will be present at the opening and they will talk about their own experiences, successes and challenges. The event will include the screening of the short film Cold Shower directed by Orsi Nagypál.
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» Hungarian Jazz Wednesday - The Roland Balogh Anglo-Hungarian Quartet
Wednesday, 5 May 2010 7.30pm
Hungarian Cultural Centre
The virtuoso young Roma guitarist, Roland Balogh was last year’s winner of the Gibson Jazz Guitar Competition at the Montreux International Jazz Festival. His fiery and brilliant playing places him among the rightful heirs of the great Django Reinhardt, although his style is thoroughly modern. He is a formidable performer both of mainstream jazz and fusion. During the gig he will be playing some of his own compositions, too, in the company of his equally virtuosic twin brother, pianist Zoltán Balogh, another great musical discovery of the past few years. Their interaction is best described as the highest degree of musical telepathy which is perhaps not so surprising in the case of identical twins.
In the British contingent we’ll have one of the finest electric bass players this country has ever produced, Laurence Cottle whose Jaco Pastorius-like stunning technique is featured in innumerable recording sessions. The last bass player with the Bill Bruford Band, his jazz credentials are impeccable, including Jim Mullen, Claire Martin, Jason Rebello and Tim Garland. Drummer Ian Thomas started playing at the age of 12. Without any formal music education or any bookings, he came to London and soon found himself in the prestigious National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He grew to be a fantastically versatile drummer and is now one of the most in-demand session-men in the country.
Free. For reservations, please call 020 72406162 or e-mail bookings@hungary.org.uk
The night before Roland Balogh will be playing with Laurence, Ian and pianist Jim Watson at one of London’s best jazz venues, the 606 Club in Chelsea. www.606club.co.uk
» Boundless Moment - Photography from Pécs: The oeuvre of János Szász
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Hungarian Cultural Centre
This collection is a truly special launch of the Cultural Centre’s focus for the upcoming season – Hungarian photography.
An unexpected find from Pécs is the personal collection of Dr János Szász who lived and worked as a productive, inspirational photographer for most of his life. The oeuvre was discovered due to the Pécs European Capital of Culture 2010 year, and represents the perhaps most important artistic discovery of the event. After finishing the University of Law with honours in 1948, he was not allowed to become a lawyer by the Communist regime due to his father’s army rank. Conditions of photographers like him were unique all over Eastern Europe. They set up small mobile laboratories in their kitchens or bathrooms and they performed everything from exposure to drying the hard copies. This technical experience generated a lot of deep, hands-on knowledge and innovation, leading to strong personal touches well noted in the works of Dr Szász. „Photography is a one-man-show”, he would say, stating that enlarging and printing were integral parts of the creative process. His most productive years span from 1960 to 1976 when commissioned by the city design office to record regional contemporary and rural architecture. His work has been acknowledged by many professional awards. His many achievements include a prize-winning photography book and the official Annual National Photographic Exhibition of Secondary Schools, which mobilised hundreds of young talents, an event still hosted annually in Pécs, with an award carrying his name.
Win with your interpretation of Dr. János Szász’s amazing photography. To find out more about the competition click >>> HERE.
A series of ten extraordinary Central European Classics will be launched by Penguin Press in May 2010 and two of the books are well known to Hungarian readers: György Faludy’s My Happy Days in Hell (1962) and Gyula Krúdy’s Life is a Dream (1931).
The series takes you on a journey travelling across the region and back through time, from the start of the century with its initial spirit of confidence and prosperity captured by Gyula Krúdy’s stories in Life is a Dream, through to a lost world beautifully evoked in Gregor von Rezzori’s The Snows of Yesteryear, to the terrible heart of the twentieth century in E. M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay.
The books are designed to showcase some of the remarkable writing from the region: including novels and short stories, from Karel Capek’s dystopian satire War with the Newts to Slawomir Mrozek’s short fables The Elephant, through memoirs such as György Faludy’s marvellous My Happy Days in Hell and essays, exemplified by Czeslaw Milosz’s Proud to be a Mammal, which includes his extraordinary account of life in Nazi-ruled Poland.
Central European Classics is designed to transform this wildly disparate group of authors – disparate in form, experience, political views – from their previous roles as guardians of an oppressed, violated or ruined culture into the more simple one of simply being great, fascinating writers.
The seminar will be from 2.00-5.00pm Saturday 15 May 2010 in the Wilkins Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, South Cloisters, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. If you wish to attend could by please reply to Navroz Chandan atn.chandan@ssees.ucl.ac.uk or tel. 0207 679 8752 by 13 May 2010.
UCL, Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre,
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG
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» The First in Six Hundred Years (Hatszáz év után az első)
Thursday, 20 May 2010 7.00pm
Hungarian Cultural Centre
Gábor Osgyáni’s documentary film is about János Horváth, a Roma man, who is living in Miskolc and is the first to gain a University degree, unprecedented in his family for 600 years. For some he is an artist, for others the saviour of poor Gipsy children, while some people know him simply as a plumber. The course of his life has taken some strange turns but it is always about doing something positive, about endurance and the basic philosophy of "being a good man". This is a man who puts all his time and energy into making the world a better place. The director andJános Horváth will attend the screening of the movie and will talk about his life and experiences and answer the questions from the audience. The conversation will be chaied by Thomas Acton proffesor of Romani Studies.
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