The Croatian Folklore Group in Ulm – preserving national heritage of Croatia

Interview with Ms Matic, a teacher of the Croatian Folklore Group

Interview conducted by: Paula Schweinberger, ViLE e.V., Germany
Leadership of the group: Ms Michaela Babic

Paula: Ms Matic, when I saw your group dancing in 2008, I was impressed immediately. And so I am very happy that your leader Ms Babic arranged this meeting, so that I can learn more about your group.

Ms Matic: We are here in the meeting rooms of the St.Klara community in Ulm where we practice our dances and our music every Saturday; to come to this training our members are even willing to accept longer journeys. I myself am from Aalen.

Paula: Apparently you are highly motivated, when you undertake these trips to work there in your leisure time.

Ms Matic: The Croatian homeland of our ancestors means a lot to me. There are our roots. I want to contribute that the cultural richness of our country and our language won’t get lost or are simply alive in the memories of the older generation. It’s very important to us, that the families together with their children preserve and practice our common culture. An important part of it are our folk dances.

Paula: Yes it’s pretty lively here; children are running through the corridor, you can hear the sound of music coming from a room.

Ms Matic: We have three different groups of members from three up to sixty years old. Among them are many school children (even boys) who enjoy coming to the rehearsals together with their parents. The youngest child is three years old. The music we hear comes from different instruments. One of it you can see here on this table: it’s called Tambourice. Playing these instruments too wants intense practice.

By the way we don’t create new dances, we merely modify the choreography; which means that we rearrange the parts in different ways.

Paula: These tasks are pretty challenging. Who can support you?

Ms Matic: The Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs in Croatia offers workshops which give us a lot of inspiration.

Paula: What catches our eyes immediately in your performances, are your beautiful traditional costumes.

Ms Matic: These costumes are typical of the different Croatian landscapes where our people come from. In former times you could tell a person’s social position from it: whether she or he was poor or rich, single, married or widowed. We are especially proud of our colorful festive costumes which we wear here at church festivities and other special events.

Paula: Isn’t it difficult to get the material you need?

MS Matic: Materials such as linen, cotton, wool, embroidery threads and the precious threads for the gold embroidery we buy in Croatia. With the patterns we also go back to our tradition. We love our costumes and want to cherish and preserve them.

Paula: Ms Matic, do you have any wish for your future work?

Ms Matic: I hope and I am truly convinced that the future generations here in Germany too will preserve the cultural heritage of Croatia.