A Brief History of National Folk Music and Dance Ensembles

The first national folk ensemble was directed by Igor Moiseyev. It began in the 1930s in the USSR. During this time, the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) had existed for around 10 years. Moiseyev was sponsored by the Soviet government to create dances that depicted essentialized Soviet people. Because of communism, the government had to approve everything before it was published or produced.

Under Joseph Stalin, there was strong censorship and all art had to be both national and socialist. Dancers wore traditional costumes to stir nationalistic feelings. They representents peasants from pre-industrial times, when life was simpler and the folklore man (or woman) held the key to natural wisdom. The socialist message embedded in the ensembles was evident in the uniformity of the costumes and movement. Dancers represented the Soviet people: happy and hard-working communists, interested in the overall welfare of the society. Communism was about the group, not the individual.

Ensembles following Moiseyev’s model became popular around the world and not only in communist countries. However, in the USSR and Eastern bloc countries, governments gave substantial funding to these ensembles to promote national awareness among the citizens of their country, and to advertise how great the country was when the ensembles toured internationally.

In the 1950s, after Moiseyev’s ensemble came to the U.S. and Americans saw “real Russians.” This was during the Cold War, so anything communist or Russian was considered taboo. Since the U.S. was competing with the USSR in many other ways, the U.S. also wanted to have a folk dance ensemble. A national committee of dancers and choreographers was organized to select a folk ensemble to send abroad to represent the US, just like the Moiseyev ensemble was doing for the USSR. The problem was that the professional dancers and choreographers could not look beyond ballet and modern dance as true American art forms, and decided that these dance forms would best represent the U.S. So, the U.S. has never had a true national folk ensemble.