Okros Ensemble Recalls Hungary in Folk Songs

For years on Saturday nights in Budapest, droves of young adults and teens have taken to the tanchaz (dance house) circuit of clubs featuring folk dancing to live performances of music drawn from the Magyar traditions of the Hungarian plains and Transylvanian hills. It’s a scene that as a banned, underground movement helped revive a sense of Hungarian national identity in the ‘70s and ‘80s under Soviet rule, and has flowered with new generations of both musicians and fans since the downfall of Communism. There’s nothing comparable in U.S. culture.

Saturday in Los Angeles, though, there was a taste of this at the Hungarian House, a venerable cultural center in the West Adams district, where Budapest’s veteran Okros Ensemble gave a lively performance and then played for two more hours of dancing. Joined by cimbalom (hammered zither) master Kalman Balogh, veteran Gypsy violinist Aladar Csizar and young singer Agnes Herczku, Okros’ three violinists and double bass gave a thorough tour of their regional traditions.

Their roughhewn playing anchored suites Saturday that generally began with lilting laments echoing both Hungary’s oft-tragic history and the hardships of village life before moving into increasingly hopeful and joyous dance pieces. It’s music that first turns troubles into poetry, and then casts them off in cathartic celebration--the universal nature of folk and dance music.