The mission of the festival is to promote culture, alongside talent and theater education.Continue reading
Artists from seven ensembles from five countries will perform at the 29th Szeged International Folk Dance Festival starting on Thursday in Szeged (southern Hungary).
The first large-scale summer folk dance festival was held in Szeged in 1966. Since the 1970s, the event has featured
international ensembles in even-numbered years and Hungarian ensembles both from Hungary and abroad in odd-numbered years.
The latter festival is named after György Martin, a folklorist who died in 1983.
However, the pandemic has disrupted the usual order of things, with the György Martin festival, which has been organized mainly for young people, returning to Szeged this year.
György Martin is an Erkel Prize-winning Hungarian dance historian, ethnographer, music folklorist, and the founder of internationally renowned Hungarian dance research. Photo via Facebook/Hédi Sztanó
The festival will host foreign companies as well, the ones that would have performed at the event in 2020, which was cancelled at the last minute due to the Covid epidemic. They will be joined by three local companies: the Szeged Dance Ensemble, the Tiszavirág Folk Dance Association, and the Délikert Folk Dance Ensemble.
Dugonics Square. Photo via szegedtourism.hu
The festival starts on Thursday with the traditional music and costume parade in the city center, followed by the opening ceremony on Dugonics Square.
After that, a folklore evening will take place in the Little Theater, where the bands will present their shows.
On Friday, the foreign ensembles will visit four cultural centers, where they will perform for one hour each. On Saturday, a festival gala will be held in the Grand Theater, where the bands will perform their best songs. The Szeged Golden Slipper Award (Szegedi Arany Papucs Díj), donated by the Szeged Slipper Foundation, will be presented to one of the foreign bands, and will be awarded according to the votes of the audience of the folklore festival.
Via MTI, Featured photo via Facebook/Szegedi Nemzetközi Néptáncfesztivál és Martin György Néptáncfesztivál