Our town is one of the richest historical town in Hungary. It was one of the capitals in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, royal headquarter, crowning city. The city with nearly one hundred thousand inhabitants lies between the capital city, Budapest and the biggest lake in the country, Balaton. The town’s cultural life is vibrant, which is proved by many institutions and communities. Our baroque city center is surrounded by a modern, industrial area. In the past few years we could witnessed major improves. In the recent years we have witnessed a very significant development, new companies settled down, new jobs were created, salaries increased, the number of people moving here has increased, our community spaces are beautiful, there is purity and thre are plenty of quality cultural and sporting events in the city, visited by thousands of local people.

The Alba Regia Dance Ensemble was founded in 1949 in Székesfehérvár. The ensemble has been named after our town’s latin name: Alba Regia. They have been the most successaful rural dance ensemble in Hungary for 70 years. The members of the group are not professional dancers. They are teachers, doctors, engineers, event organisers, soldiers, students, mothers, fathers and dancing is their hobby. They have dance trainings three times a week in the house, that is called the Dancehouse. The Dancehouse was built for them, so they have a proper place, where they can prepare for performances and festivals. In their choreographies the dances and the colorful costumes of the whole Hungarian language area are presented. Besides the authentic choreographies, the repertoire of the ensemble is constantly expanding with contemporary and dance theater pieces. Dancing to live music – as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago - was always important for the ensemble.

The maintainer of the ensemble is the Alba Regia Dance Association, which maintain the 40 people group as a civil organisation, through winning applications from the local government and the state.
The association and the ensemble is the host of the Royal Days International Folk Dance Festival for 23 years, and the Dance World Day Gala.

• 1994 – Europe-award for Folklore

• 2014 – Specal Prize for Rural Traditions

The next generation

In 2003, a school estabilished around the ensemble’s art workshop, providing the „refilling” of the adult ensemble. In this school their own educated teachers teach the children, by their own methods. In the school 240 children is learning folk dance in 11 groups.
The school provides plenty of performing opportunities and a friendly atmosphere for the children.

The maintainer of the Alba Regia Basic Art School is the Alba Dance Nonprofit Kft.

• 2006 – The most succesful preparatory school-award

• 2007 – Highly qualified primary education institution-award

• 2015 – The most versatile dance ensemble-award

The ensemble’s Senior group

The Senior group of Alba Regia Dance Ensemble was refounded in 1999, for the 50th anniversary of the ensemble. The group counts alost 50 people. This number includes the original founding members and the recently active young dancers in their 30’s. The really variable aged group is the audience’s favourite. They are famous from their quality performances and good moody trainings, which they hold two times in a week, in the Dancehouse.

The Dancehouse

Since 1995 the ensemble’s home is the Dancehouse in Székesfehérvár. A grand theater room, a room with huge mirrors, and a music room provide the place for the trainings. The two-floor, 4000 m 2 house has 8 changing rooms, and many community spaces. In the library professional publications, musical recordings and musical notes are helping the researching. Also we keep here plenty of gifts and memories that we collected at different festivals.

At the back side of the building we have a shed, which is perfect for cooking and small parties.

The Dancehouse also operates a youth hostel, which can accommodate 27 people.

Besides the performances and the trainings, we are the hosts of several events. We organise competitions, professtional meetings, balls, festivals, casual dance parties. We consider important speaking to every generations, forwarding our heritage, dance knowledge, the love of our folklore, and teaching the youth of respect.
We also help the nearby smaller towns. We draw their attention to application opportunities, and we organise programs that are also available to them. Székesfehérvár is a city counting about 90000 people, where thousands of people take part in different events. We try to make groups of smaller settlements present themselves at these events.

Royal Days International Folk Dance Festival

Our most important event is the Royal Days International Folk Dance Festival, which will be 25 years old in 2020. More than 200 dancegroups took part in our festival from more than 80 countries.
24 years ago it all has started in between the walls of the Dancehouse. The fesival was always known by it’s friendly atmosphere, we can say that this is the spice of it.
As the hosts, extended with our more than a 100 volunteers, we try to make such good extra programs, so that the guest groups, the tourists and the local people will feel themselves at home.
The performing groups give the quality of the event, so we are very careful of choosing them every year.
The festival is one of the main events in Székesfehérvár, since during this week the WORLD comes to us.

„Dancehouse in the dancehouse”

The world dancehouse is not only the name of our building. In hungarian, the word means a regular and casual dancing event in the first place. This type of fun is known in Hungary since 1970. Our town was the first rural town who joined to the heritage conservation initative, and started to teach folkdance outside the dance ensemble. This is a public, cultural, community event where on the one hand, our dancers can dance to live music out of bonds, and on the other hand, we teach hungarian folkdance to those, who are interested in it, but don’t want to join the ensemble. They don’t want to perform, only being active and learning more and more dance moves. They want to sing folksongs and meet new people. We keep these events once in every months and we welcome everyone who would like to take part in it.

The Dance World Day Gala

Our ensemble celebrate this occassion in every April, with an amazing gala day. 300 dancers of the ensemble perform in two pieces in the theater of he city. It is our tradition that we choose the best masterpieces of the past years, presenting the brand new choreographies, and remembering the older, successful works, all of these with our characteristic diversity and quality in time, space and style.

The „Funmakers” ball

We hold a ball, in every year, after the carnival season. We respect the tradition, and don’t organise a ball in the fasting season, but just before it, we invite everyone to dance. Our ensemble is the host of the occassion, we provide the ball opening and the main production. In this evening, folkdance is not in the center of the attention, but our dancers prove their talent in modern dancing too. We run out of the ball tickets very fast, since the amazing decor, the delicious dinner, the surprise guests and the raffle gifts are really charming. During this event we have the possibility to thank our supporters all of their help, and host them in the palace of dance.