Dances from Oltenia Part Two

You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.
Merce Cunningham

At the Friday night and Sunday night dances there are a number of dances from the Romanian region of Oltenia in our repertoire. They tend to be fast, with lots of crossing, stamps, and grapevines.

One that we're working on is Hora Lui Chisar. The music is delightful with caval, cimbalom and panpipes.



The next dance is Vulpita.  It translates to "little fox" in English. We have been doing this one a long time.  It's short, only a minute and a half but really fast.



This is a dance I would like to introduce to the Sunday night group.  One of the Friday night leaders taught it a few years ago.  The one thing I remember about Hora Spoitorilor is that the first figure is in the form of a square.



Another favorite of ours is Rustemul. This is the tune that we use, although there are others out there. There are also other versions of Rustemul as well; you can see an example in Dances From Oltenia (part one).



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Dances from Oltenia

Variations on the Romanian Folk Dance Trei Pazeste

Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused Part Nine: Cimpoi and Sirba din Cimpoi


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