Dance Reviews : Karpatok Folk Ensemble at El Camino College

With the vigor, precision and impeccably detailed costumes of an official state company, Los Angeles-based Karpatok Hungarian Folk Ensemble takes a serious, ethnographic approach to the music and dance of the Magyar heritage. Its performance in Marsee Auditorium at El Camino College on Saturday demonstrated such a firm stand against the ethnic-glitz school that it seemed like real folk dancing for the members’ own private pleasure.

Although the effect was marred by a few wooden faces, it lent even the simplest piece a sweet gravity. When women stepping slowly in a circle shout out their piercing a cappella lyrics in Sandor Timar’s “Zemleni Karikazo” or when (in other dances) the men stand in stylized casual attitudes to watch colleagues snap their legs into a booted frenzy, the tone is artless and pure.

Brightly colored, aproned dresses rocking like bells and exposing layers of petticoats seasoned the rhythm of the czardas and the circle dances. The men offered vivid punctuation with wiry, knees-together maneuvers and right arms upflung with a gallant, welcoming air. In artistic director Tibor Toghia’s version of a recruiting dance, a spur-clicking solo segued into a male-ensemble piece with grave knee dips and strict, powerful forearm movements.

The only dull note was a trio of earnestly pedagogical speeches by the company president.