VIDEO, PHOTOS: Hungarian State Folk Ensemble performs on Great Wall of China

On 14 May 1951, the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble presented its first independent show in the City Theatre (today Erkel Theatre). Now, they performed on the Great Wall of China, about which they shared a video on Facebook.

According to turizmus.com, the folk dance group performed a szatmári verbunkos on the iconic historic memorial of China. We summed up the traditional Hungarian folk dance types in THIS article. In a nutshell, verbunk is a solo man’s dance which evolved from the recruitment process of the Austro-Hungarian army. Trained recruitment professionals visited the smallest towns in the country, entertaining the local (often peasant) crowd, dancing and drinking, and marketing how amazing army life is. Many young men were lured into a lifelong army contract this way.

The Hungarian State Folk Ensemble performed in China in 2008 for the first time. Now, they visited the country with a show titled Hungarian Rapsody, which they will perform at the Dream Langfang Carnival. In a Facebook post, the folk dance group said their goal was to present the unique beauty of the Hungarian culture everywhere in the world. Here you may check out their trailer video:

More tourists will come to Hungary thanks to the viral dance?

Of course, they found time between the shows to visit the Great Wall of China, a symbol of the country. And since they were there, the men members performed a szatmári verbunk dance on the wall for the first time in history. People walking around were astonished by what they saw, and the folk dance group hoped more foreign tourists would come to Hungary thanks to that. Here is the video:

Finally, here are some photos taken during their first performance in Langfang’s Silk Road International Arts Center: