Dancers and musicians will be learning material from Ördöngösfüzes and Délalföld.
Ördöngösfüzes
The dances of the Mezőség are deservedly popular and almost indispensable elements of the dance houses. This region was home to hundreds of Hungarian, Romanian, and Saxon settlements, and due to its geographical location, it became a special meeting point for different cultures. The Mezőség’s Ördöngösfüzes dance and music repertory displays this diversity spectacularly. One reason is that in this region, and, thus, in the village itself, the Transylvanian traditions of the Renaissance and Baroque eras survived for a long time, while newer, bourgeois influences appeared only late and selectively. The centuries-long coexistence of the Hungarian, Romanian, Roma, and Saxon communities has created a closely intertwined dance and music culture, where the stylistic features are thoroughly melded together, and a real “bi- or multilingualism” is evident in both dance and music.
The village dance cycle naturally includes both solo men’s dances and couples dances, typical of the Central Transylvania.
The village dance cycle naturally includes both solo men’s dances typical of the Central Transylvanian region and couples dances. There are three main men’s dances in the village. Two belong to an older layer: The slower-paced ritka magyar (‘rare Hungarian’) and its faster counterpart, the sűrű magyar (‘dense Hungarian’), often referred to as “fogásolás” (that is, ‘intermittent’). Alongside these two older-style dances, there is a fast-tempoed, but relatively new, verbunk.
The couples dances of Füzes are at least as rich. The lassú and gyors csárdás (‘slow and fast csárdás’) fit nicely into the traditional dance inventory of Mezőség, but they still show local characteristics: One striking stylistic feature is that, instead of the many turns under the man’s arm, they favor turning as a couple as well as virtuoso slaps and figures. In addition to the couples dances just mentioned, newer dances have naturally been introduced over time, such as the hétlépes (‘seven-step’), of which a dynamic and characteristically local variant has developed. In any case, we should also highlight the virtuoso Gypsy csingerálás, danced to fast csárdás music with fast leg figures and slapping which make the dance so exciting.
Dél-Alföld
The dance world of the Dél-Alföld, the Southern Great Plain, is extremely rich and diverse. In the wider sense, this dance dialect lived and developed in the area of today’s Southern Great Plain and the historical counties associated with it—Bihar, Békés, Csongrád, Csanád, Arad, Temes and Torontál. However, the Dél-Alföld, as it has become known within the dance-house movement, more often refers more specifically to the villages in Csongrád County and the villages around Szeged.
The population of the region has always been multi-ethnic: After the Turkish occupation, Romanians, South Slavs, Slovaks, Germans, and a significant Roma community also settled here. This diversity is also strongly reflected in the local dance and music culture.
One of the most interesting old layers of the Dél-Alföld dance repertory is the family of jumping dances. These dances are known by several names, but the locals mostly refer to them as oláhos (‘Romanian’ or ‘Wallachian’) or mars (‘march’). These dances have survived a long time, mainly in the traditions of shepherds and, formerly, manorial servants. The name “oláhos” references both the characteristic melodies and other influence coming from Transylvania.
These can be solo, couples, or group dances. The most spectacular forms are the male solo dances which stand out for their virtuoso figures. The dances are characterized by jumps, heel-clicking, clapping, and various rhythmic slaps which are fit to the musical accompaniment. In both music and dance, we can observe the transition between the simpler forms of Transdanubia and the more developed dance styles of Transylvania.
The csárdás and the friss csárdás (‘fast csárdás’) were also popular in the area, of which the fast csárdás, also known as the frisses, became especially popular. In the latter, virtuoso footwork, slapping figures, and spectacular crossovers characterize the dance.