CÍMLAP
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CONTENTS, PREFACE |
Contents
Preface
The Sin of Dancing
The Experience of a Foreigner
The Dance of the Heyducks
The Recruiting Dances
Existing Forms of the Recruiting Dance
Herdsmen's Dances
The Borica Dance
The Csárdás
Words to the Dance
Desecration of Feast Days
The Kállai Kettős
A Pillow Dance
Incidental Dances
Dances of the Craftsmen
A Peasant Ballet
Different forms of the Dance of Death
The Girl who was Danced to Death
Musical Instruments
The Gypsies
Preface
Over a hundred years ago August Ellrich, German genre painter of taste and
with a special interest in folk-lore wrote a book after travelling in
Hungary, "Die Ungarn wie sie sind" (Berlin, 1831), in which, speaking of
the Hungarian dance he says:
"... Steps, turns, movement, postures, all are arbitrary, left to the taste
and genius of the dancer. The dance does not consist of the regular well-
defined steps, one, two, three, four, of the minuet, nor is it the
monotonous rotation of the waltz, but an individual dance inspired by an
idea. People never appear more inane than when dancing the minuet or waltz
- and this is but natural. It would be impossible to see more animated
expressions than those on the faces of Hungarian dancers. This again is
natural, since the Hungarian dance is poetry, whereas the waltz and minuet
are mechanical. The mechanic can produce an automaton which dances the
minuet to perfection or waltzes incomparably, but he can never produce one
to dance in the Hungarian style or that can compose a melody."
...
...
Nor does this book aim at completeness, if by completeness we understand dealing with everything, even if sketchily, since the space permitted is somewhat restricted. Rather have we attempted to give an idea - by means of examples - of the historic atmosphere which permeates the Hungarian dancing tradition, of the psychological relationship between the Hungarian people and their dance, of the connection existing between traditional Hungarian music, popular poetry and literature on the one hand, and the dance on the other, and last but not least, of the link which despite all peculiar traditions, links the Hungarian dance with Western Europe.
The Hungarian dance is as characteristic of the nation as its language or music, - nor can it be separated from the latter. Even as the Hungarians absorbed certain western European elements into their language and music, so they assimilated western dancing elements, some of which have been better preserved by them than by the peoples from whom they originated.
The greatest supporters of Hungarian dancing traditions are the people of the villages. But since the most characteristic of Hungarian dances demand a special talent, these dances are not to be found everywhere. A good dancer is just as rare as a good singer or a good story-teller. A singer needs an ear for music in addition to a voice, and a dancer requires, besides legs and a feeling for tradition, also a flexible body, easy moving and expressive arms and hands, and the suitable accompanying facial power of expression, to say nothing of the necessary practise and of those innumerable external conditions which the Hungarian Dominican nun - whom we shall quote later - laid down four hundred years ago.
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