On the weekend of April 27-29, the Ronto-bonto, (Little Rascals dancegroup), was in for a real treat, when they participated at the HetlepesFestival of San Francisco.

The children and their parents, a party of twenty-eight, have reached the Bay area on Friday arternoon. After stopping at the American Legion, greeting our hosts, and checking out the nicely decorated hall, we have made ourselves comfortable in our nearby motel rooms.

All those interested in learning Mezosegi dances from Olah Jancsika and Mariann, went back for the workshop and tanchaz. The wonderful live music was provided by Jomoka, the fabulous tanchaz band from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast at Denny´s, the kid´s group enjoyed a short but exciting site-seeing tour, in San Francisco. The Hungarian folkdance concert was planned to commence at 6 pm, on Saturday, at the Woodside Priory School of the Hungarian Catholic Mission, in the picturesque Portola Valley.

Rehearsals at the auditorium took place between 4 and 6 pm. At 6 o´clock, eleven excited little dancers, neatly dressed in their beautiful folk costumes, with hats and red ribbons in place, eagerly awaited the time to step on stage and open the festival, a challenging task even for the most skilled professional performer. The Ronto-bonto group rose to the challenge and provided an excellent performance, to the great enjoyment of the audience.

In the second part of the concert, the Little Rascals have opened with the fun, playful clapping dance, then hurried off to change into their new, remarkably elaborate dresses from the Mezoseg region of Transylvania. The Mezosegi dance was also a great success. Pleased with their performance, children and parents drove to the American Legion´s hall, where the evening continued with tanchaz, dinner and socializing.

Sunday morning´s program was designed exclusively with the youg dancers in mind. It is no wonder then, that this part of the entire festival was most enjoyable for the children. In the kid´s folkdance teaching workshop, about forty children played and learned new dance steps, under the guidance of the talented teacher Istvan Zoltan Szabo (Kovacs). They got to follow live music from Jomoka, got familiarized with the folk instruments, and enjoyed a nice puppet show. Our hosts have organized a feast; there were great Hungarian foods and fresh homemade pastry to be sampled.

The festival continued with performances from the adult dance groups, but Ronto-bonto had to say good-bye to our hosts and friends, and be on its way home. By late Sunday afternoon, we all got back to the Hungarian Reformed Church of Reseda, where we took off from, with the memory of an exciting weekend to be cherished for years to come.

Hats off to the organizers, Magdi and Szilvi, who have done such an excellent job at orchestrating this festival to its last detail and carefully supervising its smooth flow, while in progress. It is our hope, that they will plan several such remarkable, memorable weekends in the future, that the Ronto-bonto will always be eager and happy to attend.