Dance and the Táncház

Dance is the part of Hungarian folk culture that is still most widely practised as a living, social activity, and it is also the part with the clearest revival story. This chapter describes the main dance types, the villages whose dance became famous, and the dance-house (táncház) movement that began in the 1970s and spread abroad. If you ever learned a few Hungarian folk steps as a child, as the author did, much of this will be familiar; if not, it should still be clear. Names, dates and listings are from general knowledge and flagged for checking.

The Dance Types

Group dances, such as circle dances and women's dances with a regional character, also have a long history. The details of steps, music and manner differ between regions and even villages (see Chapter 1).

Szék and the Transylvanian Villages

Some of the richest surviving dance traditions were found in Transylvania, now part of Romania, in the villages of the Mezőség and the Kalotaszeg area, among others. Szék (Sic in Romanian) is especially famous for its dance, music and costume (check the name and the place), and became a central reference for revivalists. Transylvania is therefore included here, as the outline stated, because the tradition cannot be told without it (see Chapter 1). Questions of nation and border are not taken up in this chapter.

The Táncház Movement

In the early 1970s young Hungarian musicians and dancers in Budapest, partly inspired by the collecting work of Bartók and Kodály (see Hungarian Music) and by the village dance still seen in Transylvania, began to organise social evenings where people learned dances directly from musicians and teachers. The name táncház means "dance house" (check the dates, the founders and the first venue; names often given include Béla Halmos and Ferenc Sebő).

• The method. A teacher breaks a dance into steps, a live band plays the village tune, and the whole room joins in. Dancers and musicians learn from each other. The approach is sometimes called the "táncház method" (check) and has been used in teaching.
• Why it mattered. It moved folk dance from the stage and the museum into a living social setting, and made it fashionable among young people in the 1970s and 1980s (check how political the movement was at the time).
• Recognition. The táncház method was added to UNESCO's register of good safeguarding practices (check the exact register and year).
• Spread. Dance houses spread across Hungary and to Hungarian communities in Romania, North America and Britain, including Scotland's Hungarian community, where occasional events are held (check what is currently run).

What a Dance House Is Like

A typical evening starts with a beginners' lesson, followed by a few hours of open dancing to a live band, often with violin, viola, double bass and sometimes cimbalom (see Chapter 8). The mood is informal. People of all ages dance, couples change, and a good dancer may improvise. Costume is not required and is often worn only on special occasions. The best way to get a sense of it is to watch recordings or, better, to go (check the listings).

Record, Revival, Stage

Dance shows the three categories of Chapter 1 very clearly:

• Record: film and notation of village dance, from collectors and from the later archives.
• Revival: the táncház, sincere and skilled, built on those records and on contact with older dancers.
• Stage version: professional ensembles, with choreography, costume and show structure designed for an audience (see Chapter 9 for the question of state ensembles).

Exercises