czardas

czardasCouples in traditional dress performing the czardas.

czardas, national dance of Hungary. A courting dance for couples, it begins with a slow section (lassu), followed by an exhilarating fast section (friss). The individual dancers carry themselves proudly and improvise on a simple fundamental step, their feet snapping inward and outward, the couples whirling. The music, often played by a Gypsy orchestra, is in 2/4 or 4/4 time with compelling, syncopated rhythms. The czardas developed in the 19th century from an earlier folk dance, the magyar kör. A ballroom dance adapted from the czardas is popular in eastern Europe. A theatrical czardas with complicated Slavic and Hungarian folk-dance steps appears in ballet, as in Léo Delibes’s Coppélia. Franz Liszt, in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, wrote music reminiscent of the czardas.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.