Balkan Dances that are Often Confused: Part 15

Before I came here, I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture, I am still confused -- but on a higher level.
Enrico Fermi

Folk dancers are often in a state of confusion because there are so many dances with similar names.

This post is a part of the longest continuous series on The Alien Diaries.  There are 14 other posts on this subject (see links at end).

Today's dances are Maleshevsko Horo and Maričensko (the full name is Maričensko Pravo Horo, but no one ever writes that on request lists.)

Video #1 shows the dance club Chanove from the city of Ruse performing Maleshevsko.  Although this is a very macho piece of music, there are women as well as men in the line, so this is an equal opportunity dance.

Maleshevsko is from the southwest Bulgarian region of Pirin.



Maleshevsko can be danced to more than one tune; here is another example done to the folk song Ay da idem Jano; click on the link and you can sing along, provided you can read Bulgarian. This is a slightly different choreography by the group акцент (Accent).



Video #3 is Maričensko Pravo Horo. It's a moderately fast Pravo from the Shope region.

Pravo is one of the most popular dances in Bulgaria; it has many variations, from slow to hold on to your neighbor's belt fast.



Video #3 was the only example of Maricensko I could find with dancing, but here's another version  that's worth a listen, played by a very talented guitarist, Ewan Dobson. You can dance to this one too.



If you enjoyed this you may also like the rest of the Balkan Dances that are Often Confused Series.  You can link to all posts by going backwards from this one:

Balkan Dances that are Often Confused, Part 14

Pravo Horo variations from different regions of Bulgaria:
Dancing Across Bulgaria, the Pravo and Regional Folk Dance Styles


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