Malin students learn about Czech culture, dance thanks to Lost River senior
Dec. 7, 2023 / MALIN – Sabrina Taylor has danced the Beseda since she was a little girl. As members of the Malin Czech Lodge No. 222, her parents and siblings joined in community celebrations, dressing in traditional Czech dancing costumes and sharing the traditional dancing of the early Czech settlers who founded the town.
So it was a natural fit for the Lost River Junior/Senior High School student to use her senior project to teach Malin fourth-graders how to perform the traditional Czech folk dance while learning about their town’s Czech heritage. For more photos: Dancing the Beseda
Getting 14 fourth-graders to twirl, bow, and circle at the right time was no easy feat. Sabrina recruited several of her classmates – who received community service hours – to help her. They traveled to Malin twice a week, taking over the fourth-grade P.E. class to work on the dances.
Sabrina spent the classes moving between groups of students, demonstrating, correcting and, at times, laughing.
Lessons started in mid-October and culminated Dec. 1 with a performance in front of classmates, family, and friends. Taylor’s Lost River classmates dressed in traditional Czech costumes put together by Sabrina with the help of her family. The costumes will be given to the local Czech Lodge.
Lost River student Cabella Wright agreed to help Taylor and also got in touch with her own Czech heritage. She had never danced before but her great-great grandmother was Czech, and on performance day, Wright was able to wear a costume made by her great-grandmother when she was a 14-year-old girl.
During the last few months, Sabrina also learned more about her Czech ancestry on her father’s side – her father is three-quarters Czech; Taylor is three-eighths. Three of four of her great-grandparents are Czech – Mary (Spolek) Taylor was from the Dakota territory; Frank Elzner, one of the first Malin settlers came to Malin from a Czech settlement in Texas; and Marie (Hladikova) Elzner came from Czechoslovkia.
Senior projects are a rite of passage for soon-to-be high school graduates.
“They are a way for students to apply real world skills,” said Angie Wallin, principal at Lost River Junior/Senior High School. “They have to plan, coordinate with community members, and make scheduling arrangements. Sabrina was able to connect to one of her cultural passions of Czech dancing and share it with the broader community as well as experience teaching a new skill.”
Sabrina’s project ended in a music-filled gymnasium when the fourth-graders circled, twirled, and bowed – mostly in time – dancing the traditional Beseda.
“I think it went really well,” she said.
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