Two Variations on an Albanian Folk Dance: Valle Pogonishte

I smell of sweat. I don't like people smelling of all these weird things. I think deodorant is disgusting.
Rupert Everett

Today's featured dance is Valle Pogonishte from Albania. Valle is the Albanian word for dance.  Pogonishte comes from "pogonisios", a similar dance from Greece.

Version one is very popular amongst recreational folk dancers around the world.; this group is from Austria. They are part of a dance festival titled Schwitz-mit-Fritz, which translates to "Sweat with Fritz." If you listen carefully, you'll hear the instructor calling the steps in German and the dancers humming along to the music.  Although I wouldn't consider Valle Pogonishte a dance for working up a sweat (and grossing out the people next to you) these people are having lots of fun with it.



The second video was taken at a summer event that I went to several years ago.  Although it was advertised as a Romanian festival, there was neither music nor dance from Romania.  It was held in the park by the Romanian Orthodox church in the small town of Southbridge, Massachusetts.  The church,  however, imported a very good group from St. Mary's in Worcester.  This is an easier version of Valle Pogonishte with different music. Notice the young woman and young man taking turns leading the line, doing the;fancy steps. There's a camera man following the dancers around. He seems to have trouble keeping up with them. Maybe he needs to exercise more.



If you enjoyed this you may also like the following posts:

Two Variations on a Romanian Folk Dance: Hora de Mina

Two Variations on a Bulgarian Folk Dance: Opas

Two Variations on a Macedonian Folk Dance: Bufcansko

Two Variations on a Serbian Folk Dance: Stara Vlajna

A Taste of Albania at Balkan Music Night (featuring the group Valle Tona from Worcester, Massachusetts.)


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