![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Hungarian-State-Opera-.jpg\")
Hindus are urging Hungarian State Opera (HSO) (Magyar \u00c1llami Operah\u00e1z) to withdraw \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d ballet; scheduled for June 14-27, 2025 in Budapest; which they feel seriously trivializes Eastern religious and other traditions.<\/p>\n
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that taxpayer-supported HSO should not be in the business of callously promoting appropriation of traditions, elements and concepts of \u201cothers\u201d; and ridiculing entire communities.<\/p>\n
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that this deeply problematic ballet was just a blatant belittling of a rich civilization and exhibited 19th-century orientalist attitudes. He also urged HSO to apologize for such an inappropriate selection.<\/p>\n
HSO, \u201cthe only classical ballet company in Hungary\u201d, should have shown some maturity before selecting a ballet like \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d (The Temple Dancer), displaying Western caricaturing of Eastern heritage and abetting ethnic stereotyping; Rajan Zed noted.<\/p>\n
It was highly irresponsible for an institution like State supported HSO, to choose such a ballet, which had been blamed for patronizing flawed mishmash of orientalist stereotypes, dehumanizing cultural portrayal and misrepresentation, offensive and degrading elements, needless appropriation of cultural motifs, essentialism, shallow exoticism, caricaturing, etc. HSO could do better than this to serve its diverse stakeholders; Zed stated.<\/p>\n
Rajan Zed suggested HSO General Director Szilveszter \u00d3kov\u00e1cs, Ballet Director Tam\u00e1s Solymosi, and Artistic Director Andr\u00e1s Alm\u00e1si-T\u00f3th to re-evaluate their systems and procedures and send their executives for cultural sensitivity training so that such an inappropriate stuff did not slip through in the future.<\/p>\n
Moreover; Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Innovation led by J\u00e1nos Cs\u00e1k and Hungarian National Cultural Council should seriously rethink their relationship with HSO if it continued with ballets like \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d, which trivialized traditions of \u201cothers\u201d; Zed added.<\/p>\n
Like many others, Hindus also consider ballet as one of the revered art forms which offers richness and depth. But we are well into 21st century now, and outdated \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d, which was first presented in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1877, is long overdue for permanent retirement from the world stage; Rajan Zed points out.<\/p>\n
This two hours 55 minutes (with two intermissions) long \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d (choreographer Albert Mirzoyan and conductors G\u00e1bor Hontv\u00e1ri, M\u00e1t\u00e9 H\u00e1mori, Domonkos H\u00e9ja) is a classical ballet in three acts. HSO, which claims to be “striving for world class quality in all our productions”, was founded in 1884.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hindus are urging Hungarian State Opera (HSO) (Magyar \u00c1llami Operah\u00e1z) to withdraw \u201cLa Bayad\u00e8re\u201d ballet; scheduled for June 14-27, 2025 in Budapest; which they feel seriously trivializes Eastern religious and other traditions. Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that taxpayer-supported HSO should not be in the business of callously promoting appropriation of traditions, elements and concepts of \u201cothers\u201d; and ridiculing entire communities. Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that this deeply problematic ballet was just a blatant belittling of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":660878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47748],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660880,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660877\/revisions\/660880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}