Dances from Oltenia Part Seven

I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.' 

Elmore Leonard 

The leader at the Wednesday night Zoom meeting seems to be fond of fast Romanian dances from Oltenia. He does a hybrid session; the local people attend in person; and there's a Zoom option for those who live at a distance.

The dances featured here have one thing in common: they are Alunelul dances from Oltenia in Romania.  They have different music and different choreographies.

There is a little confusion (that word again!) as to how the name Alunelul originated.  One is the Romanian word for  hazelnut. The other is "A lu Nelu" or a dance for John; Nelu being the nickname for John. There are many dances with Alunelul in the name. The ones featured today are not the only ones!

 Video #1 is Alunelul Sucit, done by the Dunav dance group from Jerusalem in Israel. The leader is Yehuda Ben Harush. (The strigaturi in this dance refer to the numbers one to four).  Sucit in Romanian means "twisted or distorted."  The figure than goes into the center looks like a twist. I think it's a twisted dance with counting.  

   

Video #2 is  Alunelul ca la Sadova. Sadova is a village in Dolj county. There are no strigaturi in this dance. Dances are usually named after cities, towns, and regions.

This group is the "Bonding Folkdance Class" from Taiwan.

   

 Video #3 is Alunelul de la Bailesti (a town in southwest Romania).  Balkan dance is very popular in Asia. The language on the website is Chinese.

   

 Video #4: Alunelul de Brau performed at a Romanian festival in Boulder, Colorado, USA.  There are strigaturi in this dance. For some reason they only count to four (patru), but the music is very short; less than two minutes long.

   

 If you enjoyed this you may also like: Dances from Oltenia Part Six (links to the other posts in the series).

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

Hora de Mina (mână) Variations

Hands have their own language. 

 Simon van Booy

Today's post is about three variations of the dance Hora de Mina (mână). It emphasizes a particular body part, the hands. There are two spellings, one with diacritics and one without. Most groups in the States use the spelling "mina" without diacritics.  

 Video #1 is the version done by nearly every folk dance group. The melody is played on a bagpipe (cimpoi) in Romanian. It's from the region of Oltenia in southwest Romania. The dancers are from Jerusalem in Israel.

   

Video #2 has different music and different choreography than Video #1. This group, Hora Romaneasca, is from Boulder, Colorado, USA, performing the dance during a festival.  This one has strigaturi (shouts) and a lot of hand movement.

   

Video #3 is a version of Hora de Mina that I haven't seen before.  This one seems to be more popular across the Pond. 

The dancer, Rosemary Gledhill, is from the United Kingdom. Does anyone out there know the name of the song? This is the only version of this dance with vocals. There is a teaching segment at the end of the video.

   

Since dancing is much more fun in a group, here is Hora de Mina version 3 performed by Kaval, a group from the Netherlands.  Kaval is also the name of a musical instrument, an end blown flute played in the Balkans.

   

 If you enjoyed this you may also like: Dances from Oltenia Part Six (links to the previous posts in the series)

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