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