The 43rd National Dance House Festival and Folk Arts Fair will take place between 5 and 7 April this year; the event will kick off on Friday at the Fonó Budai Zeneház and will continue over the weekend at the main venue, the Papp László Budapest Sportaréna.
At the event, visitors will have a chance to acquaint themselves with various dances across different age groups, engage in dance houses, enjoy stage performances, browse through the folk art fair, and participate in handicraft workshops.
The series of events is set to begin on Friday, 5 April, at the Fonó centre with a concert and opening dance house, followed by numerous programmes on Saturday and Sunday at the Sportaréna, showcasing the essence of folk music, folk dance, and folk art from the Carpathian Basin, as stated in the organizers’ statement.
The comprehensive festival of live folk art is organized by the Dance House Association. At the Papp László Budapest Sportaréna, the main arena will host successive dance houses and the folk art fair, as well as evening gala performances, while all other smaller rooms will be the venues of concurrent programmes.
The Dance House Festival on Saturday will begin with the ‘Little Ball’ at the Sportaréna, where the audience, alongside child dancers, will be invited to participate in the dances, as well as try their hand at traditional games and skill competitions. This will be followed by the programme section titled ‘Our Dance Traditions,’ featuring a series of dance houses and demonstrations, showcasing the folklore-rich regions of the Carpathian Basin and domestic nationalities.
In the Kodály Room, the programme titled ‘Expanding Horizons for Us Too!’ will showcase presentations by music schools and music classes. Participants will also be able to view the traveling exhibition dedicated to the memory of choreographer, dancer, director and dance pedagogue Jolán Foltin.
The Saturday evening gala is set to feature outstanding Hungarian folk dance ensembles,
heritage preservation groups, and folk artists from the beyond Hungary’s borders.
Among other programmes, on Sunday the ‘Dance of All Hungarians’ will be held, a grand event for Hungarian folk dancers and musicians living in the regions beyond the borders of the Carpathian Basin and in the Hungarian diaspora.
On Sunday, the concert and dance house by the Vujicsics ensemble, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, will kick off the evening. Subsequently, as part of the gala performance, singers and the ‘festival orchestra’ of the dance house gathering, alongside hundreds of dancers dressed in folk costumes, will evoke the atmosphere of ancient rural balls together with the audience. The weekend will conclude with an all-encompassing dance session in the arena.
The folk art fair will present traditional craftsmanship, as well as contemporary art inspired by it, with old and new objects displayed together.
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Sources: Hungarian Conservative/MTI
