Children's folklore group Malá Jasénka

The children's folklore group Malá Jasénka from Vsetín were formed in 1955 as the reserve of the adult folklore group Jasénka. The leader of the children's group Ing. Alena Zdražilová has been managing the group since 1972. The dancing group keeps the traditions of the folklore from Horní Vsacko. In our programs folk customs connected with the natural calendar are echoed with events or stories based on the activities and performances from the life of the Wallachian people. Apart from dancers aged 4 - 14 years there are other members of the group, the musicians from the two cymbalo bands. At present about 70 children and teenagers attend the group.

The aim of the management of the group is to raise a young generation of musicians, growing up under the leadership of the front man ("primáš") and artistic manager of the group Jasénka Zdeněk Kašpar. Malá Jasénka is accompanied by the cymbalo band, whose front man ("primáš") is Jan Vaculín. In 2000 the band together with the cymbalo band Jasan released a CD. At present another children's cymbalo band is starting to perform publicly, the band is under the leadership of Lukáš Šuterik.

Malá Jasénka regularly takes part in folklore shows and celebrations, which have been held in Strážnice, Košice, Tvrdonice, Rožnov and other places. During its existence the group have successfully taken part in national parades in Kyjov and Kroměříž. The singers and dancers as well as the musicians from Malá Jasénka are well known also by audiences from abroad. The group has already visited Turkey, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Sicily and Estonia. Dynamic, playful, and colourful performance of children transmitting the Wallachian folklore meets with great understanding and warm domestic and international repercussion.

The foundation and first years of the group viewed by the founder Zdeňka Urbanová

The group was founded at the peripheral five-grade elementary school in Vsetín - Rokytnice in 1955. The children already had a significant supply of songs and dances acquired during the previous year. I was working at this school as a teacher and youth club leader and there we were singing and dancing, and we even preformed publicly. With enthusiasm the kids from the third to the fifth grade appreciated the foundation of an independent group of songs and dances. I myself took part in the group Jasénka at the Enterprise club of MEZ Vsetín.

In the same year we took part in the Competition of creativity of youth for the school year 1955 - 1956. The first series of songs and dances called "On the meadow" were made. It was a series of songs, boys´ games and frisky dances with a simple plot. We managed to put together a small band with one violin, contrabass, and accordion but we did not have our own costumes, we had to rent them. We won the competition. Encouraged by the successes we bought from the fund of the parents association the material for the costumes and the mothers started working on the sawing and the embroidery. Within two weeks the costumes were ready and the children could perform in them on the district parade of STM in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. There they earned appreciation.

These were the successes that cemented our team and encouraged the confidence in our own abilities. At that time there were many children's groups of songs and dances in Vsetín and surrounding area. One of them was in the nine-grade elementary school in Trávníky, where the pupils of Rokytnice school continued with their studies in the sixth grade. A long scramble for the kids from our group started. Finally it was solved by the patronage of the MEZ enterprise club, which enabled our Rokytnice children's group to use as a place for practice a nice area already used by the group Jasénka in the enterprise's club. This event gave name Malá Jasénka to the children's folklore group.

Every year the group got bigger. In 1957 the ensemble won third place in the district competition of STM in Uherské Hradiště with the series called "Picking up raspberries". In 1958 they won second prize in the district competition of STM in Zlín with the program called " Out at grass". In the competition of individuals our two dancers of "odzemek" (typical traditional dance) and two dancing couples won first place and went on to the central competition in Bratislava. There both the dancing couples won first prize and the "odzemek dancers" won second and third prize. In 1959 the group won first prize in the district competition of STM in Zlín with the program called "Come to be with us." The same prize was won by the soloists. In the central competition of STM in Prague in 1959 the group achieved the highest marks.

It was a great success for us. The newspapers and magazines wrote about us, photos of our dancers were on the front pages of magazines, postcards with our dancers were sold, in Strážnice people welcomed our dancers with banners, we performed on the radio, on TV, in the film "Golden mornings" and others, we received thank-you and congratulatory letters. Often we performed at various festivals and gatherings, regularly in Strážnice and in Rožnov. We can say that the group reached the top and started to reap the fruit of their efforts.

The year 1959 was the turning point in our artistic activities. It was necessary to start again with younger kids. The performance called "Welcoming the freshmen" symbolized the welcoming of the new members into the group. We managed to win in the district competition of STM in 1960 in Otrokovice five first prize: the whole group with freshmen and also the soloist couples. It turned out that our effort was not in vain. This dancing program brought first of all the winning of the national competition of STM in Prague the following year 1961. Even more, our group members were chosen to join the eight-day stay in the tent town in Rájecké Teplice, where the meeting with the president Antonín Novotný and members of the government took place.

For STM we prepared in 1962 a dancing scene with the book of Jan Kobzáň "About the bandits and the treasures", where the small reader immerses into the book so much that he does not take notice of the surroundings and in his imaginations the bandits with their bandit dance appear. This was the most difficult program the group has ever had.

This has been a brief account about the first ten years of existence of Malá Jasénka. With please and pride I can say that within the 45 years of its existence the group has never been ailing. At the right time it was taken over by capable and devoted people among whom belong Jiřina Sousedíková, Hana Slavíková, Věra Peroutová, and great reverence and admiration belongs to its current leader Ing. Alena Zdražilová who has already led the ensemble for 30 years. Under her leadership Malá Jasénka gained other excellent successes and represented the Wallachian region not only in our country but also abroad.

The founder of the folklore group Zdeňka Urbanová - Jarošková