Golden Festival

Slavs went down to Brooklyn this weekend to sing at the Golden Festival, New York's annual Slavic music and dancing bash. In years past it has been held in an elementary school building at the very tip-top of Manhattan--perfectly functional, but funky, and, as had become apparent by last year, too small for the thousands of hipsters, punks, grandmas, and other Balkan enthusiasts that populate the festival. So this year it moved to Brooklyn, to the Grand Prospect Hall. The venue is some kind of Victorian-themed conference center, the main room of which looked like an opera hall--pretty fancy digs for the Golden Festival! It was great, though--brightly lit, and not uncomfortably crowded as it has been in years past.

Slavs sang around 8 pm, to and audience of many of our recent alums, including almost everyone who graduated this past year--the best cheering squad anyone could want. We then had the rest of the night (until 2 am!) to dance our hearts out to ruchenitsas, and later to the raucous brass sounds of Slavic Soul Party and the What Cheer? Brigade. Also to eat cured meats, cheeses, and halva.

One of the highlights of the evening was making our way back to the home of Jenn, one of our alums from last year, on the subway at 3 am with so many other Golden Fest folks. Waiting for the train to come we started to sing--that's what slavs do when we are together, infallibly. We finished a song perfectly in time as the train pulled up, but quieted as we got in and sat down--I consider it tactless to sing when people have no way to escape. A man approached us from the other end of the car. "Will you guys sing another one?" he asked. "Nobody will mind!" So we did--we sang quite a few more. Bear in mind that almost all the people on the train were coming from the same place we were, so they quickly began to dance, Balkan-style, in a moving line snaking through the car. We started to sing "Oi Corna," and just as we were singing the last verse, "I waved goodbye to Ivan at the train station," the subway came to our stop, and we exited, waving and still singing, to delightful cheering. It was really magical--it certainly made my night.

Of course, by the next morning, a video someone had taken on their phone had made its way onto youtube--check it out here!