The Halas Dance Ensemble is operating in Kiskunhalas since 1988. Kiskunhalas is a characteristic town of the Great Hungarian Plain, functioning as a market-town since the l5th century, lying in the sand ridge in the Kiskunság.
Folk dance has not played a major role among the traditions of the town in the past. This was the gap that Halas Dance Ensemble has tried to fill with its formation in 1988. Its members are pupils, college students young people working in other areas, who, beside their jobs take on task of cultivating the still living dance traditions of their narrower native land Bács-Kiskun county - and making it understandable to the wider public. The company has taken on from the beginning the tight relation with folk art.
The repertoire - embracing the dance tradition of the whole Carpatian Basin gives an authentic picture of the folk art of the Hungarian. The dancers also strengthen the authenticity by aiming for learning the different dance dialects as a mother language, developing an improvising ability. In order to be able to show the many-coloured folk culture and dances, the group, beside studying the dance material tries to perform the dances in original folk dresses.
Since 1988 teaching is scheduled already in nursery school and elementary school: children start with folk plays, and trough singing they reach folk dance. The outstanding success of the groups was October 23rd 1991, when the company won the national Gold classification, and May l8th 1996, when they received Outstanding classification.
The Ensemble and the orchestra are frequent participants of native and foreign festivals: Yugoslavia, Poland,, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, the Netherland, Belgium, France. The groups of our dance Ensemble have achieved outstanding results at a number of national children', solo and adult festivals, for example Bonyhád, Szekszárd, Veszprém. Several of our dancers have been admitted to the replacement group of the State Folk Ensemble, and some have completed the educator of folk dance "C" category. The dancers strongly emphasize the wider extension and continual operation of the replacement and the dance-club movement. They also care about educating and organising dance-clubs not only in our town, but also in the environs of Kiskunhalas. The Ensemble's orchestra is the Kontorás orchestra, whose members know excellently the music of almost all regions.

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HALAS DANCE ENSEMBLE
Leader: Mándity László
Address: Bükkönyös u. 39., H-6400 Kiskunhalas, Hungary
Phone: 77/424-032