English information
Folklore ansemble SVETLOVAN, town of Bojkovice, the Czech Republic
(The town of Bojkovice is situated in the middle of Moravia near the Slovakia border)
The Folklore ensemble SVETLOVAN belongs to one of the oldest ensembles in Moravia. SVETLOVAN was founded under this name in 1953 but it had existed earlier as “Moravian-Slovakia club” so it belongs to the oldest folklore groups in the Zlin Region. In 2003 Svetlovan celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding. It is a reason why it can show off its rich and successful activity.
History of the ensemble is very rich, as for the success at Czech and foreign festivals and for the personalities who had led the ensemble during its existence. It is impossible to mention all of them, but it is necessary to remember at least two of them. These are an ethnographer Karel Pavlištík and a choreograph Jarmila Uherkova, who have done a lot of work for Svetlovan and without them, we are not able to imagine the history of the ensemble at all.
The aim of Svetlovan is effort of saving ethnical and culture traditions from its region for the future generation and holding them still alive among the local residents.
Svetlovan is mainly focused on processing materials for its repertory from two ethnical areas which are situated the nearest of the town of Bojkovice: “Moravian Kopanice” and “Luhacovicke Zalesi”.
The dancers of Svetlovan are accompanied by their own music which is named after its founder and the first leader “Jaroslav Pavlik´s dulcimer music”. Whereas the folklore group was named according to the castle “New Svetlov”, which was built in the 15th century and is the most dominant a historical building of the town Bojkovice.
Svetlovan with its cimbalom music enriches the cultural life mainly in the town Bojkovice and the nearest surroundings. It takes care of saving ethnical customs and traditions of its local region not only in its dancing figures, songs and performances but Svetlovan also organizes the enjoyable evenings for general public, the carnival tour over the whole Bojkovice and other customs. Svetlovan represents town of Bojkovice and the whole Zlin region on the various performances and folklore festivals in the Czech Republic and abroad, too (e.g. International folklore festival in Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece).
At the present SVETLOVAN has about 60 members who meet together once or twice a week. The highlight of last year for Svetlovan was obtaining the prestigious award “Laureate of Straznice 2006” (June 2006 - International Folklore Festival in Straznice, the biggest folklore festival in the Czech Republic) for its very nice dancing performance – the customary habit “Honění Kuruců”.
