Counter Cultural Series Brings Underground to CEU

Legendary Hungarian alternative band, Balaton, performed to a full house last Wednesday night, March 10, in the CEU Auditorium, a concert hosted by CEU’s Center for Arts and Culture (CAC) as part of the ongoing Approaches to Counter Cultural Movements in East Central Europe guest lecture series organized by the Department of History, CAC, and CEU research center Pasts Inc.

In the early 1980s Balaton was a popular band in Budapest’s New Wave music scene. The band's lead singer and composer, Mihaly Vig, also became known for writing the soundtracks for several Bela Tarr movies. Unlike most bands of that era, Balaton remains active on the club and festival circuit today.

Wednesday night’s performance was an event CAC hosts weekly forCounter Cultural Movements, a popular guest lecture/seminar series headed by CE Medieval Studies professor Gabor Klaniczay and Department of History assistant professor Balazs Trencsenyi. Klaniczay, who was involved in Budapest’s underground cultural scene in the 1970s and 1980s, and Trencsenyi, an avid collector and fan of underground music in Central Europe during communism, teamed up last year to launch the first Counter Cultural series, which combines guest lecturers with a class seminar, along with weekly films and performances.

The seminar covers major sub-cultural trends and theories, as well as an overview of key developments in East-Central Europe from the 1960s to the post-communist transition. It focuses primarily on the alternative musical scene, and its links to other art branches, especially alternative theatre and performance art, film and literature.

Guest lecturers this semester have included Tamas St. Auby, a central figure in Budapest’s avant-garde art scene in the 1960s and 1970s, Michal Hvorecky, Slovak author, Lukasz Ronduda, curator of the Archive of Polish Experimental Film, and Anton Sheverdiaev, a specialist in Soviet-era underground art.

The series concludes tonight with a discussion by co-organizer Balazs Trencsenyi, who will speak on Hungary’s New Wave music scene. Starts 5:30 in the TIGY room.