The Universe of You Tube never fails to surprise me.
Today's post features some goodies from Lado, the National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia. They are a group of over fifty dancers and musicians and their repertoire includes all the folklore regions of Croatia.
The ensemble was founded in Zagreb in 1949 and has been performing for 67 years. In this post you will see some samples of them in action. If you like tamburitza music and choral singing you will love Lado.
Croatians usually sing and dance at the same time. The most popular dance is the kolo, which they do in circles and serpentine lines. They are also big on call and response songs and tamburitza music.
The medley in Video #1 is from the region of Posavina.
Video #2 is from the town of Valpovo, in the region of Slavonia. The women's costumes are colorful, ornate, and how many petticoats are they wearing?
Video #3 is of a dance called Drmes. It is a kolo with a "shaking" motion. There are many versions of this dance in Croatia and you can read a description of one here.
Video #4 is song/dance medley from the Baranja region of Croatia. There is also a district in Hungary with the same name. Oftentimes, names cross borders, another example is Dobrudja in Bulgaria and Dobrogea in Romania.
My father would take me to the playground, and put me on mood swings.
Jay London
I used a quote totally unrelated to today's post to get everyone's attention :) Now that I have your attention, today's post features two dances from Macedonia that have names that sound very much alike. Confusion reigns again!
Bavno Oro is the more popular of the two. Just about every folk dance group has it in their repertoire. There are different versions of the music for this dance; some with vocals and some without.
Bavno Oro translates into "slow dance" in English. It has five figures (four that go with the slow music and one with the fast). The slow part is in 7/8 and the fast part is in 7/16. It is a relatively easy dance that can be learned by watching.
Version #2 is a tune arranged by Boris Karlov (1924-1964). He created and composed dance tunes for accordion and they are played at folk dances over fifty years after his death.
The next dance is the more difficult Ravno Oro. It is also an accordion tune that starts slow and speeds up as the music progresses. The dance has three distinct parts that go with the music.
The 7/8 rhythm (pineapple-apple-apple) is very popular in Macedonia and southwestern (Pirin) Bulgaria. By the way, there are three different versions of 7/8 (the faster version is 7/16) and you can read about them in two of the posts below.
There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
In previous posts I have written about songs called "earworms." They take up residence in your head for hours and refuse to move out. Today's post features earworms from five Balkan countries.
Video #1 is Valle Kosovare/Shqiptare from Albania. The group is Valle Tona from Worcester, Massachusetts. This song rang in my head for hours the first time I heard it. You can find the lyrics here, in Albanian and in English translation if you'd like to sing along.
The song in Video #2 is by Maria Tanase, a Romanian singer who passed away in 1963 at age 49. During her relatively short life she gave performances around the world, and also had parts in movies and in a musical by Ralph Benatsky. Her most famous song, Ciuliandra, is very popular at folk dances.
Ciuleandra is not as much of an earworm as Bun ii vinu'ghiurhiulul. You will definitely need more than a glass of wine to remove this song from your head. You may even need an entire bottle!
Notice the 7/16 rhythm and repetitive refrain. It is the rhythm for the dance Geampara in Romania and Rachenitsain Bulgaria.
Earworms tend to have an element of repetition; a distinct rhythm and catchy lyrics, which is why they tend to stay in memory for a long time.They can even drive you crazy as you find ways to purge them from your head.
There is a science to this which is explained in Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sachs, M.D. I borrowed the book from the library to check out his take on music. His research is primarily focused on neurology and experience with stroke, Parkinson's and dementia patients, musical savants, and classical composers.
There is an entire chapter devoted to rhythm and another devoted to what he calls "brainworms". I saw nothing on Balkan music and its asymmetric rhythms, nor does he mention folk instruments like the gaida and zurna. (If you want to read about how the Ottoman Turks used the zurna to intimate their enemies, see the list at the end of this post).
The song in Video #3 is from Croatia. For some reason, Croatian songs tend to stay in the brain forever. It's the repetitive lyrics and the tamburitza music that accompanies them.
U Selu Pokraj Dunava (In a village near the Danube) is about a man in love with the young woman who lives in the village. You can find the lyrics here, but no English translation.
One of the best sites for folk song lyrics in the original language, English and German is the Songbook for Nearsighted People, so named because because the lady who compiled typed the lyrics in a large font so they could be seen in places with poor lighting. It is also good for those who are visually challenged.
You can find the lyrics and sing along toOj Shope Shope in the Songbook. It has a German translation for the song which is about a young man from the Shope region of Bulgaria who thinks he's God's gift to the world. This is a song that refuses to be evicted from the brain. Last year it was part of a gala concert featuring several Bulgarian women's groups. It kept me awake that night.
Video #5 is a song from Macedonia, Dedo Mili Dedo, It tells the story of a day in the life of an elderly couple who still love each other after all the years they've been together. This song has that earworm quality: repetitive lyrics and a catchy rhythm. There is also a dance that goes with the music.
Call-and-response is a time-tested technique for getting attention, not just in classrooms but in the military, in churches, at sports events, and in traditional cultures in various parts of the world. Instead of repeating yourself, train students to respond to a fun or inspiring statement!
Last week at dance we reviewed the dance and the calls for Daichovo Horo. It is a dance in 9/8 or 9/16 from northern Bulgarian and supposedly named after a rich cattle merchant from Pleven named Daicho.
The "village Daichovo" is an easy dance that anyone can do. Read a description of it here.
Video #1 is an example of a "village" Daichovo.
The version that we did was more complex with different calls and responses. A member of our group wrote them down (in transliteration, since very few of us can reador write Bulgarian Cyrillic) and posted them (see photo at beginning of post.)
After researching further, I found that there were even more calls and responses. See complete list here from Dick Oakes' Phantom Ranch website.
I check Google searches on this blog and I found that "Daichovo calls" was often requested. The choreographed version of the dance is in Video #2. The music is from an old recording by Bulgarian accordionist, Boris Karlov (1924-1964). The dance is sometimes known by the name Zizaj Nane.
If you love Balkan music and dance you have come to the right place! The Alien Diaries began in February 2010 and is updated at least twice a month.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of my cat Fatso (see avatar), who passed away on April 9, 2011 from congestive heart failure. He was the inspiration for several of my early posts.
Don't forget to check out my second blog, Light and Shadow, for some humor, satire, photos and poetry!
