​Dance Cycle from Transylvania, Northern Romania 
-- with Kálmán Dreisziger --

During the Renaissance a new, exciting and highly improvised couple dance fashion swept over Europe. The nobility danced it, townspeople copied them, and the peasants eventually danced it and filled it with life. Bruegel painted it, Dürer and deBry reproduced it in detail and preachers damned it. Wondrously these dances have survived until today in an out-of-the-way corner of Europe. Romanians, Hungarians and Roma in approximately 30 villages around the city of Cluj in Western Transylvania preserved and polished these traditions, developing them into the most complicated and elegant of couple dances. The Roma, as well as the Romanians and Hungarians, who live in Transylvania, dance an exciting dance cycle which includes couples dances and men's exhibition dances. In addition the Roma also have a fast improvised solo dance Çingerica with finger snaps and fast footwork. Both Helene and Kálmán have had the opportunity to research and dance these dances in Transylvania.

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