[chahr-dahsh] 
| a Hungarian national dance in two movements, one slow and the other fast. |
| czar·das (chär'däsh') n.
[Hungarian csárdás, from csárda, wayside tavern, from Serbo-Croatian čardāk, watchtower, from Turkish çardak, hut, trellis, from Persian chār ṭāq, from chahār ṭāq, four-cornered vault : chahār, four (from Old Iranian cathwārō; see kwetwer- in Indo-European roots) + ṭāq, vault (from Arabic, arch; see ṭwq in Semitic roots).] |
czardas
national dance of Hungary. A courting dance for couples, it begins with a slow section (lassu), followed by an exhilarating fast section (friss). The individual dancers carry themselves proudly and improvise on a simple fundamental step, their feet snapping inward and outward, the couples whirling. The music, often played by a Gypsy orchestra, is in 24 or 44 time with compelling, syncopated rhythms. The czardas developed in the 19th century from an earlier folk dance, the magyar kor. A ballroom dance adapted from the czardas is popular in eastern Europe. A theatrical czardas with complicated Slavic and Hungarian folk-dance steps appears in ballet, as in Leo Delibes's Coppelia. Franz Liszt, in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, wrote music reminiscent of the czardas.
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