Heritage runs deep with dance troupe

Kimberley McGee

Friday, May 18, 2001 | 9:15 a.m.

Webster's New World College Dictionary defines "name" as a word by which an entity is designated and set apart from others.

A surname may hint at heritage; a nickname may hint at personality.

So what's a Tamburitzan?

"We are a colorful group, that's for sure," said Paul Stafura, managing director of Pennsylvania's Duquesne University Tamburitzans, a folk-dance ensemble.

The 40-member troupe will perform Saturday in the Nicholas J. Horn Theatre on the Community College of Southern Nevada's Cheyenne campus.

The two-hour program will combine dance and song from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, including Armenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia and Russia.

The troupe also plays traditional instruments such as the accordion, clarinet and guitar, as well as the more exotic bandura, tambura and gadulka folk instruments.

Its dances include the Sirakovy, a hat-switching game traditionally played by boys of Myava in western Slovakia; the Mominski Tantsi, a fast-paced women's dance to the beat of a goatskin drum from Shope, Bulgaria; and Vesela Polka from Bohemia, in which an older couple compete with a wilder, younger polka crowd.

Managing director of the troupe since 1988, Stafura hired world-renowned choreographers and arrangers to create authentic works.

"We are dying to show everybody this completely different style of entertainment," Stafura said. "It's a two-hour tour of Europe."

The group was founded in 1937 at Duquesne in Pittsburgh, where the Tamburitzans are headquartered. The group's name stems from the tamburitza, a Slavic string instrument similar to a mandolin.

Each member of the folk troupe attends Duquesne on a scholarship to hone their talents as folk dancers and musicians. For two months during the summer the group travels through Europe performing dances in the countries they study.

The show is overhauled each year to spotlight different countries or dances so that the touring troupe isn't old hat when it plays Boston, for instance, for the 65th consecutive year.

"People want to see what the Tamburitzans are going to do next," Stafura said.

The Tamburitzans have performed in Las Vegas since the '70s, but this year is different.

The troupe plans to put Las Vegas on the map -- the group's map, that is -- as one of its regular stops on its annual 80-city summer tour.

"We know a lot of people in Vegas that appreciate our unique brand of entertainment," Stafura said.

The group's mission has two purposes, Stafura said. The first is to perpetuate Eastern European cultures, and the second is to provide scholarships to talented performers.

"A tradition has been started and there's value to it," Stafura said. "We are looking into other people's roots, their cultures, with the Tamburitzans."

Stafura has been a member of the group since 1967.

As a young boy of Slovik heritage, Stafura's parents encouraged him to carry on the traditions of their culture.

Stafura continually won top honors at regional and national folk-dancing competitions. He received a scholarship to Duquesne in 1967. By his senior year in 1972, Stafura had traveled through Eastern Europe, South America, Greece, France and Hungary with the troupe.

"They (foreign audiences) loved us for the fact that somebody was paying attention to their culture," Stafura said. "They were thrilled somebody cared about them, what their culture was all about."