COMING TO OUR THEATER DECEMBER 10, NOT TO BE MISSED - Hungarian State Folk Ensemble

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This show is coming on December 10th., not only to CVWPB  but also to the Kravis Center – same exact show J

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Traditional music and dance of Hungary come alive

The folk music and dance of Hungry lit up the Mainstage 

Theatre at UB’s Center for the Arts on Tuesday night as

 Budapest’s Hungarian State Folk Ensemble presented

 Hungarian Rhapsody, a delightful gypsy-themed journey

 through centuries of traditional Hungarian song and dance.

From the outset, one got the feeling of being transported to 

an authentic Hungarian village 

festival where the village folk – all of them excellent 

musicians, singers and dancers – 

performed traditional dances handed down for generations.

The ensemble, founded in 1951, is a multi-generational 

troupe of 25-plus dancers, an 

ensemble of six divinely talented musicians along with singer 

Agnes Enyedi, who acted as a 

thread weaving through the program; her dulcet voice 

singing 

a range of songs that often 

incited the dancers’ performances while eliciting applause from the audience.

The program in two acts began with the troupe in dances 

originating from northeastern 

Hungary.

In traditional costumes – men in hats, pants and long-sleeve 

shirts, and women in head 

scarves and long skirts that took on a bell shape when they 

twirled – the dancers moved 

quickly through familiar folk dance phrases that saw the 

men clapping and rigorously 

slapping their thighs and boots while the women spun and 

swayed, “whooping” their approval.

The dancing, like many folk dance forms, had similarities to 

Irish jigs and reels, Russian 

dances and others, and the remainder of the program 

featured dances that stemmed from 

that same movement language introduced at the start of the 

show along with several 

musical interludes.

The program’s first act ran through a series of Hungarian 

regional dances from the 

Renaissance period forward.

The dances included several czardas (couples) dances as well 

as all-male and all-female 

numbers with the dancers pulling double duty as singers and 

even sometimes as musicians 

for many of the numbers.

Highlighting the first act was the work “Girls From Moldva,” 

in which eight women sang 

while clasping one anthers’ waists and rapidly circling, 

stomping and shuffling their feet in a 

blur of movement; “Rhythmic Variations”, a rapid-fire solo 

by male dancer Mate Modos in 

spurs, who danced to the sounds of a jew’s harp wildly 

kicking up his legs, tap dancing and 

intensely clapping and slapping at his body.

A rip-roaring, high-spirited dance for the entire ensemble concluded the act.

The program’s second act brought more of the same with a 

succession of wonderfully 

choreographed and patterned dances that took full advantage 

of the dancers’ excellent 

timing and musicality.

Several of the dances featured the cast gathered round in an 

intimate setting singing while a 

few dancers took turns performing in solos, duets and trios.

Most memorable was a section called “Dreaming” in which 

Enyedi sang a song tinged with 

yearning accompanied by a hammered dulcimer player and 

five couples dancing slowly in 

the background.

Also of note was the all-female work “Gossip” and the men’s 

dance “Test of Skills,” in which 

the dancers showed off their skills using bottles, brooms and 

sticks that they spun like batons.

Great music and great dancing by one of the most polished 

traditional folk dance troupes I 

have seen, the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble oozed fun and 

proved they were the very definition of entertaining.