This week's dance isUžicka Carlama from the Sumadija region of Serbia. There aren't too many dances from the Balkans that begin with the letter U (with the exception of U Sest, which is probably one of the most popular dances in Serbia).
You've probably noticed I've featured two Serbian dances in two weeks. Next week's dance will be from a different country so you won't think this blog is stuck in central Serbia.
Some additional notes for Uzicka Carlama can be found here. Notice the heel clicks; the notes describe it as a dance with "movements that were fun to do in boots."
This group is from Toronto, Canada.
Since the word "carlama" is derived from the Turkish "to strike" this week's bonus video is the "world's fastest 300 game." For those who aren't knowledgeable about the sport of bowling, 300 is a perfect game (twelve strikes in a row). The reason this guy can do it so fast is that he has the entire bowling alley to himself. In an actual game, he would be using two lanes and waiting for the pins to reset, which could get really boring after a while. He would also be playing against a competitor and you'd probably go to sleep before the game is over unless you're a true bowling aficionado.
Bowling is one of the few sports that's fun because you can get rid of stress without hurting anyone. In that respect it's a lot like Romanian folk dancing (stamp, stamp, stamp).
Once I am in the square circle, I am in my home.
Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Today's dance is a bouncy number from Serbia, Toicevo Kolo. I found it by accident on Dunavfolk's channel on the Universe of YouTube.
There are two Balkan dance groups in Israel: Balkanitsa from Haifa and Dunav from Jerusalem. Dunav has a great website with resources, information, dance notes, lyrics and best of all, videos. Balkanitsa's YouTube channel is also a good resource for dance videos.
However, I couldn't find any notes for Toicevo Kolo anywhere on the Web.. It reminds me of another dance from Serbia, U Sest.
I don't know of any groups in my area that have it in their repertoire. It looks like a fun (and relatively easy) dance. Kolo means circle in Serbian, but sometimes it is danced in a line. Both are considered geometric figures. And when you have only two people you have no choice but to dance in a line.
Here is a slightly different version of the same dance performed by two members of Kolo Dragan, also known as KoloKoalition. They, too have an extensive collection of Balkan dance videos on YouTube. The situation is the same as the previous video: only two people doing the dance. They are making it as circular as they possibly can.
The bonus video is vintage Sesame Street, from the 1990's. There are funky circles, but no kolos :)
Friday. The golden child of the weekdays. The superhero of the workweek. The welcome wagon to the weekend. The famous F word we thank God for every week.
source unknown
Fridays are usually dance nights for me, and I am always thankful for them at the end of a hard week. I bet you thought I was going to mention the other F-Word, which you can find on Wikipedia. They have written extensively about it,. You can satisfy your curiosity about its etymology, and how it can be used as a noun, adjective or adverb. The F-Word is an extremely versatile as well as colorful part of speech.
This week's dance begins with the letter F, although it hardly can be called the F-Word. It's Fatise Kolo , a dance from from the town of Vranje in Serbia. It is one of those odd rhythm things; the time signature is 9/8 (quick-slow-quick-quick). You can find the lyrics and translation here
I don't know who sings this piece, but it's beautifully done and reminds me of classical music. It's amazing how many musicians have used this song on YouTube. It is a Serbian classic.
This week's added bonus is for one of my readers who likes videos of scantily clad women. It's a different Fatise Kolo, from Niš, a spa town in Serbia. In spa towns there are swimming pools, and that is the place where you find the bikini girls.
The music isn't bad, either. It is in 7/8 lesnoto rhythm, and very danceable.
Since this week's dance has two c's instead of one, here's the Cookie Monster to tell you what the letter C is all about. Eating too many cookies results in weight gain, which is why Cookie Monster should take up Balkan dancing.
The featured dance is from the Sumadija region of Central Serbia, Cicino Kolo. Translated into English it means "Grandfather's Kolo" At first it looks like something your grandfather can easily do until it starts to speed up.. Cicino Kolo is not recommended for those who have arthritis in the knees or other mobility problems. No disrespect meant to grandfathers, some are very fit and active people.
Kolo means "circle"and it can also mean wheel. Not all kolos are danced in a circle, as you will see in the here, since there are only two people, not enough to form a circle. Circles and lines, by the way, are geometric figures, which are very prominent in folk dances from Eastern Europe.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll recognize the dancers. They are members of the Dunav group, from Jerusalem, Israel. By the way, Dunav means Danube in Serbian and Bulgarian.
Although I'm not quite ready to move to letter D I thought I'd include, as an added bonus, the Bulgarian New Year Dance: Diko Iliev's Dunavsko Horo. He composed it in honor of the Danube, River of Many Names. It was a big part of his life because he spent many years in the town of Oryahovo, along the river. The music and the dance are associated with Diko Iliev, even though he wrote many other compositions.
Play it at midnight and turn the volume loud enough to wake the dead. Get all your friends to line up behind you and dance around the living room instead of having a drunken Auld Lang Syne singalong. If you want to learn the dance, the first post on the list below will help.
The world's most famous and popular language is music.
Psy
What I like about the Universe of YouTube is that you can travel around the world without leaving your home. This is especially good during the fall and winter when it is sometimes too cold to venture outside.
Today's post features Serbian folk dance videos from the following countries: the United States, Canada, Israel, China and of course, Serbia!
Video #1 is from the United States. It took place at a festival in Sacramento, California and includes four dances: Groznica, Prekid, Treskavac, and Cicino from central Serbia. The performers are the Asna Kolo Ensemble.
Their version ofPrekid Kolo is different from the one done by recreational folk dancers, also known as "Kolo Interruptus."
Many Serbs emigrated to Canada, which is even colder than New England :) Folk dancing generates heat and is an excellent remedy for winter depression. (Have you ever been to a dance in the middle of winter and watch people turn on the fans and open the windows?)
The group, Kolo, from Hamilton, Ontario performs at halftime during a basketball game. One of my daughters played basketball in high school, and the most annoying thing was that damned buzzer at the end of every quarter.
This is one of the best halftime shows I've seen.
The dancers perform Vransko Polje, from the region of Vranje. Vranje is in southern Serbia near the borders of the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria.
If you are a regular reader of The Alien Diaries, you will recognize this group, Dunav from Jerusalem in Israel. The lady on the right, Mika, has a kolo named after her. It was created from two Serbian dances: Liljano Kolo and Kolo iz Dubrave. It must be really cool to be named after a dance :)
This Chinese "Bonding Folk Dance Class" has been featured on this blog many times. Here they perform the very popular Popovicanka.
The final video in this post is a performance from the group Akud Branko Krsmanovic. They are from the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, and do a medley of dances from the region of Šumadija. I recognized Moravac (at 2:49) and Cacak (at 4:32). If anyone out there can tell me the names of the other dances in this medley it would be very much appreciated. If you can ignore the chatter in the background, this is a very good video.
Who knows who will be on board? A couple of spies, for sure. At least one grand duke; a few beautiful woman, no doubt very rich and very troubled. Anything can happen and usually does on the Orient Express.
Morley Safer
Orijent is one of the first dances I learned. There is one part of the dance in which my dance instructor described as "scraping shit off your shoe,"which is something peasants often did when dancing in the fields.
Back in the old days, animal droppings were the only "land mines" dancers had to worry about. In the country that used to be Yugoslavia, there are many places that have live land mines. The areas are marked off with warning signs.
Fortunately, there was no "land mine" danger for these dancers.
Ciganski Orijent most likely originated as a Gypsy (Roma) dance. The music sounds like a train and was inspired by the Orient Express, a luxury train that took passengers from Paris to Istanbul. The Simplon route passed through Serbia and there was a stop in Belgrade, the White City and capital of Serbia.
The Orient Express inspired Agatha Christie's novel Murder on the Orient Express, and there was also a movie based on the book.
Some of the steps are similar to Orijent in the previous video.
Čačak is one of the first Serbian dances I learned many years ago at the Ethnic Folk Arts Center in lower Manhattan. (It is now the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.)
It comes in different "flavors" from easy to hold on to your belt difficult. The basic pattern of the dance is three-two-one and the rhythm is 2/4.
First, read the dance notes for a little background information . They are ancient and typewritten (from 1957) and mention a country that no longer exists: Yugoslavia.
Čačak can be danced with a hand hold, a belt hold or a basket hold. You will see the different variations in the following videos. Čačak is also considered a kolo. Kolo means "circle" in Serbian and Croatian, but just because a dance is a kolo doesn't always mean it's done in a circle! Some kolos are performed as line dances, you will see that here too.
First is the teaching video. It's basic čačak, taught in Serbian, and easy to follow. The costumed dancers use a front basket hold. The arms go over the waist of the person on both sides..
Here you will see the basic čačak danced at a party. The dancers are in circles and since kolo means "circle" it meets the definition of kolo. The www.goranstudio.com on the bottom in large white letters on the bottom of the screen is a bit of a distraction. It did, however, give me enough incentive to visit their website, which specializes in photography for weddings, videos, and other events in the Houston, Texas area.
The Tanzgruppe Bäckerstrasse is from Vienna, Austria. They have many videos on their Dancilla site, as well as a social network for dancers all over the world. Check them out sometime. They are also on YouTube.
They perform the next čačak, which is slightly more complicated. My group calls it the Five Figure Čačak because it has five different figures, all in a three-two-one pattern. Each figure is repeated throughout the dance, and depends on the whim of the person leading. If the leader has good counting skills, and can keep it together, the dance ends on the right foot in figure five. Figure five is similar to figure one with a bit more movement. This group uses a hand hold.
For some reason, they did the dance sequence twice, it seems that there were technical difficulties with either the dance or the camera (the camera glitch is at 2:45). Maybe it was both.
Godecki Cacak is a border crossing dance. Some say it's Bulgarian and some say it's Serbian. To me it can be either or both. It has dual citizenship. There is a Shope region in both Bulgaria and Serbia and that's where the dance is from. It is hold on to your belt fast, which is why the dancers use a belt hold.
This čačak is more complicated than the previous dances and doesn't quite follow the 3-2-1 rule. It's one of my favorites and very popular with folk dance groups all over the world. If you're a frequent visitor to this blog you'll recognize the Dunav group from Jerusalem in Israel.
If you enjoyed this you may also like:
The "Flavors" of Bulgarian Rachenitsa (Part 1 and Part 2)
And finally, some trivia. Čačakis also a city in Serbia, but I'm not sure if the dance was named after it, if anyone out there knows why the city has that name, please let me know in the "comments" section.
If you love Balkan music and dance you have come to the right place! The Alien Diaries began in February 2010 and is updated at least twice a month.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of my cat Fatso (see avatar), who passed away on April 9, 2011 from congestive heart failure. He was the inspiration for several of my early posts.
Don't forget to check out my second blog, Light and Shadow, for some humor, satire, photos and poetry!
