A Sense of Déjà Vu

It often happens that when you look at familiar things through someone else's eyes you see them as you have never seen them before.
John Mole

Today's post shows how the same music can be used for different dances. The musical arrangements are different but the tunes are similar. You get a sense of déjà vu.

Momino Horo  (Young Women's Dance) was featured on this blog about two years ago. Video #1 is the original, arranged by Yves Moreau using dance steps typical to the region of Lom in northwest Bulgaria. In Video #1, Yves also leads the dance.

Momino Horo is a "hybrid" dance.  From the beginning of the video until 2:07, the music sounds more Middle Eastern or Macedonian than Bulgarian. There are lesnoto steps that you usually see in dances from southwestern Bulgaria or Macedonia. After 2:07, the dance becomes pure Vlach, with stamps, shouts and the "penguin sway" step, also common to dances from Romania.

Pay attention to the music from 2:07 until the end, because you will hear it again in Video #2.



Video #2 is Vlashko Horo (not the one we know from Yves Moreau) that uses the same tune as Video #1 with different steps (recognizable as Vlach). Listen carefully at 0:13.

The group is a dance club from Pleven, Bulgaria.



Kasapsko Horo is another dance from northern Bulgaria.  It's not as fast as the dance in Video #2 but you can see the Vlach origins here, too.  The dancers do this slide from side to side that is common to dances in northwestern Bulgaria and southwestern Romania.  You'll see it at 0:53.

By the way this can be filed under Balkan Dances that are Often Confused because there is a Kasapsko Oro from Macedonia, and a different version of Kasapsko Horo from the Pirin region of Bulgaria.  Kasapsko is a butcher dance: the word has its origins in the Turkish word "kasap".



The music from the dance Sitno Vlashko sounds familiar. Why?  It's the tune from Kasapsko Horo. This is modern music in a modern setting, a shopping mall in Bulgaria.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Balkan Dances that are Often Confused (the series)

Dancing Through the Alphabet: Letter M

Variations on a Vlaško Theme

The Butcher's Dance in Balkan Folklore


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Dance Name Malapropisms

It's a proven fact that capital punishment is a known detergent against crime.
Archie Bunker

Archie Bunker was famous for his malapropisms. He was a fictional character in the show All in the Family. The show was so popular that it ran for eight seasons: 1971-1979.

The word "malapropism" originated from a character, Mrs. Malaprop, who often confused words that sounded similar (see quote above).

Sometimes, at dance, we intentionally (or unintentionally) mispronounce the names of dances.  The names have stuck and everyone knows which one we mean.

Video #1 is a folk dance from the Dobrogea region of Romania.  One of my friends calls it Dragon Dance.  Its real name is Dragaicuta.  The notes describe it as a "women's dance, done by friends of the bride, to mourn the loss of her in marriage."



I came up the name Rusty Nail for Rustemul because I practice dance in my basement.   I stepped on a rusty nail while doing Rustemul and the name stuck.  Fortunately the nail was lying on the floor so I wasn't hurt.  It was an annoyance more than anything else. Now I use the Shop Vac on the basement rug before dancing. It is my husband's work space and he fools around with tools and hardware when I'm not there.

Which region of Romania is this from?  The notes I found mentioned Muntenia, but the title on the video is "Rustemul din Oltenia." Both Muntenia and Oltenia are in southern Romania.



The name Nebesko Kolo sounds a lot like a popular brand of cookies here in the States (Nabisco). Nebesko means heavenly in Serbian and some people think Nabisco makes heavenly cookies.  Their most popular brand is the Oreo, which has many different varieties as you can see in this taste test video:



Back to Nebesko (Nabisco) Kolo.  We use different music for this dance, but the same choreography.

I'm not sure if this dance is from Serbia or Croatia, although I know there is a region in Serbia where tamburitza music is popular. The notes mention a country, Yugoslavia, that no longer exists. It broke up in 1991.



Horror From Veche is actually a souped-up version of Hora Veche an old dance for young people :) This group is fun to watch.  Listen carefully to what they say when they're dancing, it's quite funny. Too bad the video isn't closed captioned.

The goal here is not perfection, but fun.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Best of The Alien Diaries, 2010-2015

Folklore and Pop Culture (Again!)

Bulgarian Folklore and Pop Culture


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.