A new dance style known as the “Csárdás” swept through Hungary in the 19th century, a time when the countries of Europe were building the notion of a national identity and arrived later in Transylvania. As a new national dance, the Csárdás also went a long way towards homogenizing the dances of regions, and thus had a negative effect on the diversity of Hungarian dance. It is for this reason that remote regions are interesting. While the Csárdás ostensibly took over, wiping out the existing turning-style couple dances, in reality the elements and motifs of the more archaic dances merged with the new fashion, creating an interesting and no-less-diverse fusion of new and old. The Csíkszentdomokosi Csárdás, preserved to this day among the Szeklers of the Hargita Mountains, is a classic and beautiful example of this phenomenon.

Presented by Dénes Dreisziger and Gissella Santayana in 2010. View pdf here.