44th National Táncház Festival & Fair • 4–6 April 2025
Issue:
Starting page: 22
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Andrásfalvy Bertalan (born 1931 ethnographer, politician) talks about how Martin danced professionally in Molnár István’s SZOT Ensemble, while attending university at the same time – in the end earning a double degree in Hungarian history and ethnography. During the same period, Andrásfalvy, Martin and others were sent out to folk culture events in the countryside to make notes and find contact info on which ensembles, bands, or dancers would be worthwhile to document. They would follow up and hopefully return to film and document them. Martin was very good with people and good at convincing people to dance for the camera. Andrásfalvy describes Molnár István’s films of Transylvanian dance from 1942. He tells about his own trip to Moldavia in the 1950s, meeting and beginning to collaborate with Kallós Zoltán on collecting folk music and dance in Transylvania. "The most beautiful material was truely in Mezőség – Bonchida, Magyarszovát, Válaszút…." He also describes going out in Hungary to collect dance with a small group of ethnographers several times a year, on work holidays and vacation time - they collected all over Hungary from Somogy to Szatmár. "Martin had an unbelievable dance talent. I don’t think there was anyone else in Hungary with that kind of dance ability." "Martin had a huge overview of European dance culture…his first large monographic work was published in 1979 (Akadémia Kiadó) on women’s circle dances…. He had excellent contact with the Romanian, Polish, Slovak researchers; he was one of the most well-known folk dance researchers in Europe."