Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused Part Four: Bavno and Ravno

My father would take me to the playground, and put me on mood swings.
Jay London

I used a quote totally unrelated to today's post to get everyone's attention :)  Now that I have your attention, today's post features two dances from Macedonia that have names that sound very much alike.  Confusion reigns again!

Bavno Oro is the more popular of the two. Just about every folk dance group has it in their repertoire. There are different versions of the music for this dance; some with vocals and some without.

Bavno Oro translates into "slow dance" in English. It has five figures (four that go with the slow music and one with the fast). The slow part is in 7/8 and the fast part is in 7/16. It is a relatively easy dance that can be learned by watching.

Version #1 has vocals and you can find them here.



Version #2 is a tune arranged by Boris Karlov (1924-1964). He created and composed dance tunes for accordion and they are played at folk dances over fifty years after his death.



The next dance is the more difficult Ravno Oro. It is also an accordion tune that starts slow and speeds up as the music progresses. The dance has three distinct parts that go with the music.

The 7/8 rhythm (pineapple-apple-apple) is very popular in Macedonia and southwestern (Pirin) Bulgaria.  By the way, there are three different versions of 7/8 (the faster version is 7/16) and you can read about them in two of the posts below.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Dancing in Sevens, Part One

Dancing in Sevens, Part Two

The Legacy of Boris Karlov, Bulgarian Folk Accordionist

Balkan Dances That Are Often Confused Part Three (this has the 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.

Bavno Oro and Snosti Sakav Da Ti Dojdam

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James

I still haven't figured out the connection between common sense and dancing,  Dancing and humor have been featured often on this blog. They go very well together. 

Last week's post featured a group of dancers getting crazy with a dance from Romania.  There is link to it at the bottom of this post.

Today's dance is Bavno Oro from Macedonia..The music to this is based on the song  Snosti Sakav Da Ti Dojdam. 

Bavno Oro translates to "Slow Dance" but that is a misnomer. It has two distinct parts: part one is in 7/8 lesnoto rhythm (slow-quick-quick).  At 2:15 there is a short transition, then the fast part in 7/16 (quick-quick-slow).

There are numerous versions of Bavno; my favorite is a recording by Boris Karlov,  a Bulgarian folk accordionist who lived from 1924-1964. 



Here is the original song, Snosti Sakav Da Ti Dojdam. performed by Anastasija Petreska.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Legacy of Boris Karlov, Bulgarian Folk Accordionist

Modern Versions of Traditional Macedonian Folk Songs

Quirky, Odd and Unusual Folklore Videos from the Universe of YouTube (have some humor with your folklore)

Hora Veche (funny!)


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

The "Flavors" of Macedonian Oro

Today's post features several dances from another former Yugoslav republic, Macedonia. The word for dance in Macedonian is similar to the Bulgarian (oro in Macedonia, horo in Bulgaria).

If you are looking for oro, as in gold, you have come to the wrong place. Do a search on Spanish conquistadors instead, they had an obsession about finding gold in the New World. But before you go, spend a few minutes here, you may find this blog more interesting and a lot more fun than Latin American history :)

Bavno Oro is familiar to folk dancers worldwide. The name comes from the slow part in the beginning of the dance, which speeds up at the end. This vintage recording, still played at dances today, was made by Boris Karlov, Bulgarian accordionist.  His repertoire included music from Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia, and unfortunately, he died at a very young age from a kidney infection.

The performers are the Surrey International Folk Dancers from British Columbia in Canada.



If you are a frequent visitor here you have seen these people before.  They are a part of a "bonding folk dance class" in China.  Their instructor is very good because I can follow him even though I don't understand a word of Chinese.  Balkan folk dance is very popular in China, judging from the number of videos I have seen posted by this group on YouTube.  The dance is Berovka and its time signature is 2/4. 



The next video was from the New England Folk Festival 2012, and features an excellent group from Brooklyn, NY who sing "Macedonian roots music."  I had the pleasure of listening and dancing to Niva recently at  Balkan Music Night 2014. 

Ratevka, the dance shown here, is usually played as part of a medley that includes Berovka. It has a different time signature than the previous dance:  7/8 or 7/16 depending on the speed.  This live version is a little slower than the recording. It's the same rhythm as the Bulgarian dance Chetvorno Horo (pineapple-apple-apple).



The Tanec ensemble is well-known all over the world for their performances of music and dance from the Republic of Macedonia. This is a men's dance, Teskoto, played on two zurnas and a tupan. The zurna is an instrument that resembles a horn.  It has a double reed, like an oboe, and finger holes and it is loud enough to wake the dead. The Turks introduced these instruments during their occupation of the Balkans.  They later became part of the musical fabric of Macedonia as well as the Pirin region of Bulgaria.

If you haven't noticed previously, Macedonian folk dances tend to start off slow and pick up speed as they progress. 



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Legacy of Boris Karlov, Bulgarian Folk Accordionist

The Bagpipe in Macedonian Folk Music

Two Variations on a Macedonian Folk Dance: Bufcansko

If you're interested in music from former Yugoslav republics click these links:

The "Flavors"of Serbian Kolo

The River of Many Names, Part 6, The Danube in Croatian Folk Songs


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