Monday, June 20, 2016

Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused Part Four: Bavno and Ravno

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 #1 has vocals and you can find them here.



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.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Dancing in Sevens, Part One

Dancing in Sevens, Part Two


The Legacy of Boris Karlov, Bulgarian Folk Accordionist

Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused Part Three (this has the links to the previous posts in the series)

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