Hungarian Bride

48 bar Reel for five couples in a square set by Eric Finley
The full description of the dance is in our book: A reel Goulash
This dance in SCDDB: see here
Diagram: see here
Scottish Dance with hungarian music: video on youtube:

The Story

A wedding dance written by Eric Finley for the wedding of Judit Hunyadi and JeanFrançois Ginoux in Szeged, Hungary, 21 July 2007.

Performed for the first time by the bride and the groom, Agnes Borbély, David Esdaile, Pierre Martin, Annette Lotz, George Flett, Elaine Henderson, Ross and Howard Colwell to a tune played by David Hall on the grand piano in the ballroom of Hotel Tisza, where the wedding reception took place and where, 3 years later, a Scottish Country Dancing Weekend was organised in Szeged for the first time. For that occasion, Keith Smith composed a tune for the Hungarian Bride for piano and fiddle, played by Muriel Johnstone and Keith Smith during the ball. Eric Finley, one of the teachers at the weekend and 5 dancers of the original set were also there.

The Hungarian Bride was also danced to a traditional, Hungarian tune by members of the Budapest Scottish Dance Club at the 2011 International Scottish Country Dance Weekend in Budapest symbolising the merging of Scottish and Hungarian music and dance.

Ladies were wearing national costumes from different regions of Hungary and gentlemen were wearing Scottish outfit.

The tune entitled 'My Lover in this Dance' was sung by Bea Palya, a famous Hungarian contemporary singer, who was awarded the title of 'The Global Ambassador of Hungarian Culture' in 2008. Anita Horváth and Mátyás Szili were dancing as bride and groom as they had become engaged just a month before the international SCD weekend.
The Hungarian Bride was preceded by a Moldavian 'Csángó' dance (The Goat Dance), in which couples danced in a circle and swapped partners. It was presented by 32 Budapest Club dancers showing how the bride and groom found each other.
The choreographer was Zoltán Gräff

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