Folk dance wows crowd at Slovak festival in Peters Township
Long before there were chainsaws, a woodsman wielded an ax.
It’s also a handy tool for folks other than lumberjacks. Shepherds of Slovakia used it to extricate the flock from brush or to chop up a fallen tree blocking a steep path.
Some of them must have had quite a bit of time on their hands as they watched those sheep graze, because they developed a repertoire of fancy footwork known as ax dances.
Juraj (pronounced YUR-eye) Adamik, a native of Slovakia’s capital city, Bratislava, performed with the Duquesne University Tamburitzans and he is now director of choreography for the Junior Tamburitzans of South Hills.
During the last weekend of September at, appropriately enough, the National Slovak Society’s annual Septemberfest in McMurray, Adamik juggled up to three of the wooden tools while leaping like an acrobat.
It was a receptive audience. Slovak ethnicity is quite common in the greater Pittsburgh area. According to the 2009 American Community Survey of the United States Census, there were approximately 801,000 people of Slovak heritage living in the United States. Of these, 43 percent reside in the northeastern states, with Pennsylvania ranking first among those with Slovak ancestors. A display at the museum of the National Slovak Society depicts Slovak folk hero Juro Janosik holding an ax.
When he’s not playing traditional Slovakian instruments or dancing, Adamik is literally trying to cure cancer.
At the beginning of an interview Adamik took a quick call updating him on the status of his laboratory samples. Having gotten his degree in biological sciences, he is now a post-doctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center.
How do these two pursuits dovetail? “As a researcher, it helps me relieve a bit of stress, and after a long day in the laboratory, relax,” he said.