Visiting Dancers Want To Adopt N.Z. Baby

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30106, 15 April 1963, Page 2

Visiting Dancers Want To Adopt N.Z. Baby

, , Somewhere in New Zealand an unwanted baby may yet ’ v l** kt * or a^un<^ant l° v s’ security and a good home in New York. Not even the adoptive parents know who the baby is: perhaps it is not yet born. But, in the meantime, the visiting dancers, Nora Kovach and Istvan Rabovsky, have begun the search for a young New Zealander they can bring up as their own.

Sir Robert Kerridge says he will help us hud one, * Nora Kovach said when she arrived Christchurch yesterday. “New Zealand children are the best we’ve seen.” The Rabovskys know there will be many formalities to sort out when they return to New York. There may be plenty of obstacles to overcome, but the two dancers are firm believers in the axiom: where there’s a will there’s a way.

It was this kind of determination that led them to freedom from Communist domination in 1953, when they escaped to the West from the Budapest State Opera Ballet then in East Berlin.

The story of Nora Kovach and Istvan Rabovsky, the Hungarians who played together as children, sat next to each other at high school, trained at the same ballet school, reached star status as dancing partners and married, is well known. Part of Pattern

Now, after 10 years in the West, well-established professionally and as citizens of the United States, they look back on the terror of their night-tram journey from East

to West Berlin as part of the pattern in their life together. “We were very fortunate not to be caught, ,r Nora Kovach said. “But it was something we had to do; it was as if fate kept pushing us towards freedom.” Freedom is a word that still often comes into their conversation, and freedom has had much to do with their growth as artists. Both are convinced that they are much better performers—and critics agree—since their defection from the Communist bloc when near the top of their careers. “By travelling wherever we want to go, living and dancing in Paris, London, New York, we have learned so much” Istvan Rabovsky said.

“We can now combine our background training with other styles.”

In this environment the two dancers believe they have become stronger technically as well as artistically, though dancing for themselves brings heavy responsibility.

When in the Bolshoi Ballet or the Budapest State Opera Ballet, the dancers needed only to concentrate on their performances. There were no worries about costumes, music, choreography, for instance. On their own, they have to plan all these facets in a recital performance. “But we find it much more exciting this way,” Miss Kovach said.

In the last 10 years they have also danced as guest stars in some of the world’s best-known companies. New Group

When they return to New York they will form a new group, to be known as “Bihari.” Its 13 dancers and musicians, all of whom left Hungary after the 1956 revolution for the United States, will present folk dancing and stylised ballet with a gypsy orchestra. The group is already booked for an American and Canadian tour and will appear with the Ed. Sullivan television show in September.

They hope to bring the group to New Zealand within about three years. "When I adopt a baby I shall not give up dancing,” Nora Kovach said. “But I will see to it that I am not away from home for more than two months of the year. Then my mother, who lives with us in New York, will look after our child.” Nora Kovach and Istvan Rabovsky will give only two performances erf their recital programme in Christchurch, tomorrow and on Wednesday evenings.