Charlotte Shields-Rossi | a&e editor

The dancers glided across the stage in unison, mastering the intricate and fast footwork. The musicians played their instruments in perfect harmony. The singers harmonized in foreign languages. No, these are not artists that make their living off of the performance, these are college students.

The Tamburitzans are a group of college students who perform folk dance and music. The goal of the group is to preserve and celebrate international cultural heritage. In exchange for their hard work, the students get scholarships to their respective universities.

Nathaniel Parsons, Duquesne student and member of the group, plays the bass and cello. He tells viewers to expect an immersive experience.

“Every act feels like you are at a community center. It feels like you are at a wedding or village dance,” Parsons said.

The Tamburitzans performed a 90-minute show at South Park Amphitheater on Friday – one of the many free events of the Allegheny County Summer Concert Series.

Hundreds of attendees gathered, setting up blankets and lawn chairs, waiting for the performance to begin. They grabbed food and fresh lemonade from food trucks and pop ups. As the sun went down the performers took the stage, smiling ear to ear as they began the Croatian part of the act. All members played the same instrument, a prim, a 50 cm string instrument, the smallest in the show. The men wore bright red pants and the women matching lipstick.

Alyssa Bushunow is a third generation Tamburitzan who met her husband while performing. She also likes to say she has a “future Tamburizan” when referring to her daughter. Now the executive director of the organization, Bushunow said their mission is clear: Scholarship, performance and tradition. She said she believes the organization helps busy college students get in touch with their creative side.

“You can be a pharmacist but also a Tamburitzan,” she said.

The 90-minute show packs folk music and dance from seven countries: Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Ireland and Bulgaria. The organization likes to boast that the performance has no intermission.

The performers have about nine different costumes with over 10 different parts. The costumes are high quality traditional pieces from the counties they represent. Many had handkerchiefs, bells, detailed stitching and headpieces.

In the early days of the Tamburitzans, many of the attendees were Eastern European immigrants trying to find community in the United States. A few years later, there was a dip in viewership because of cultural practices dying out. But in recent years, there has been a boom in attendance. Bushunow credits 23andMe for the resurgence. More and more people are using DNA websites to find out their cultural heritage. When they learn about this newfound cultural identity, they try to get in touch with their roots by attending shows similar to The Tamburitzans.

The attendees in the show switched from first-generation immigrants trying to preserve their heritage into people exploring the heritage they didn’t previously know about.

Recently the organization has begun adding Irish and Middle Eastern folk dances, Turkey as one of the cultures represented. They make sure that they accurately represent the cultures when sharing their song and dance.

“The world is continuing to become more flat, so we want to increase the amount of cultures represented,” Bushunow said.

The show highlights the history behind the dances. Before every set you learn the region, culture and story of each dance. The dances almost always have a story such as a wedding feast in Croatia or a pub dance in Ireland, which attendees are invited to sing along to.

Charles Jeffery Cubelic, a Duquesne senior business student, is a triple threat. He not only dances and sings, but also plays the base. He loves the diverse cultures represented.

“Tonight you can expect to take a trip around the world,” Cubelic said.

But he also loves the Tamburizans for a more personal reason. Both his grandparents and parents were members of the group, meeting their respective partners while performing.

“It’s heavily tied to family, I enjoy doing it, it’s different,” he said.

The group spends long hours traveling, performing and practicing with one another making them very close knit, or as they like to say “we are a tamily.”

The Tamburitzans have seen a lot of change in the past eight decades. They have expanded the countries represented, increased the number of performers, saw a dip and then resurgence in attendance. Yet the mission stays the same: preserving cultural practices in an artistic and tasteful way.

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu