dc.description.abstract | Csángó people are a Hungarian minority living in Moldova, Eastern Romania. Their dances can be separated into three main categories: circle dances, couple dances and chain dances, although a mixture of the above forms is also present in the culture. In comparison to Hungarian dances from other regions, Csángó dances have the feature of building community, as many people can dance together at the same time as a unit. Csángó dances have become popular in the Hungarian Dance House movement in the 1990’s, thus more and more Csángó people travelled to Hungary to showcase their knowledge, and later on to teach the Hungarians their dances.
Nowadays Csángó dances are one of the most popular folk dances in the Hungarian Dance House movement. There are several dancing events that promote these dances, and Csángó dances appear on most of the important Hungarian folk dance events in Hungary. However, despite their popularity, Hungarians and Csángós do not perform the dances totally in the same way, even though the dances are considered to be simple and easy to acquire.
In my dissertation I will try to present the main features of Csángó folk dances from Romania as practiced in Hungary, and how people from within and outside the community comprehend those features of the dances. My goal is to see how the two groups of people relate to the dances, what do they find important when it comes to Csángó dances, and how they present these dances on folk dance events in Hungary. | en_US |