We end our week in Hungary with the iconic national folk dance — the Hungarian Csárdás.
The Hungarian Csárdás originated with the 18th century verbunkos, dances that were most often done as a form of recruitment for the military. The dance usually starts off slowly –a section called lassú–and ends very quickly with a section known as friss (“fresh”). Both men and women dance this so-called “Tango of the East,” though tradition dictates that only women wear a traditional red skirt that twirls as they dance. In class we try the Csárdás, though there’s no way we can do it as fantastically as the folks from Hungary do in this video. Woo-hoo 1975!
