Leaders and Followers. Artistic Leaderships and Stage Presentations of Folk Dances in a Slovenian Folklore Ensemble

For almost seven decades, the Ljubljana-based France Marolt Students' Folk Dance Group has been a folk dance ensemble (Sln. folklorna skupina) which expressively reflects the policies of the folklore movement in Slovenia. The group, established in 1948 by France Marolt, an ethnomusicologist at the Institute of Ethnomusicology, is one of the biggest and oldest Slovenian folklore ensembles. Until 1972, the ensemble was closely linked with the research institute and its scholars. On the one hand, the ensemble was a leader of 'appropriate' folk-dance performances on the stage - an ideal to be followed by other folk dance groups from urban and rural environments. On the other hand, it was a nucleus from which many artistic leaders for other folk dance groups or ensembles originated. The France Marolt Students' Folk Dance Group, which has always operated as an amateur cultural association, was some sort of a surrogate for a professional folklore ensemble, which has never existed in Slovenia. The ensemble's stage performances throughout the seven decades are a true reflection of a cultural policy, and also provide historical insight into Slovenian ethnochoreology and its research interests.