Dancing Across Borders: Ripna Maca

The Internet knows no national borders.
Alan Dershowitz

Today's dance is Ripna Maca. It is related to Chetvorno Horo in that it uses similar steps and has the same rhythm  (pineapple-apple-apple).  For the musicologists out there, the time signature is 7/16. There are several border crossing dances, for example: Godecki Cacak, that have dual citizenship. The jury is still out as to whether it is Serbian or Bulgarian, but to most of us dancers, it doesn't really matter.

Ripna Maca #1 is from East Serbia.  There is a Shope region in Serbia, and also across the border in Bulgaria. Dances from this area tend to be fast and done with a belt hold.

The lyrics describe a cat who steals sausage from the pantry.  I've lived with a number of cats and they are always getting into trouble.  One of their vices is stealing food meant for humans, especially meat.  That is usually not a problem unless they get into the roast that was designated for company. Nobody wants to eat Kitty's leftovers.



Ripna Maca #2  is from Bulgaria. . The leader calls the steps (in English). They have some interesting names: cross step, hop and horse.



Ripna Maca #3: same dance as the previous video with different music. It's heavy on clarinet and brass and I like it very much.



Recently, the Bulgarian National radio featured The Clarinet in Traditional Bulgarian Folk Music. They have some really good vintage recordings from their archives.

You can also read my post The Clarinet in Bulgarian Folk Music  and why some people consider it an "instrument of torture."

If you enjoyed this you may also like

The "Flavors" of Serbian Cacak

Three Variations on a Bulgarian Folk Dance Chetvorno Horo

Bulgarian Folk Music for the Year of the Horse



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

Three Variations on a Bulgarian Folk Dance: Chetvorno Horo

Hang on to those belts, dancers, today's dance is Chetvorno Horo!

On the Universe of Youtube, I found several video examples on how different "villages" interpret the dance.

Chetvorno is from the Shope folklore region of Bulgaria  (western region near the capital, Sofia). The time signature is 7/8 (pineapple-apple-apple).This dance has traveled around the world and undergone several incarnations, from easy to moderately difficult. You will see them here.

Although there are other dances in 7/8 (or 7/16 depending on the speed) such as the rachenitsa and the lesnoto; the accents fall on different beats and each one has a distinct feel.  Read the posts Dancing in Sevens (part one and part two) to find out more. You can find the links to them at the bottom of this page.

Tbe first video shows a group dancing in a shopping mall.   This version is the least complicated and uses the basic steps (hop-step-step in the first part and one two three in the crossovers, also called pas-de-basques.  Where they got that fancy French name for that step, I don't know.



Version two is slightly more complicated and introduces the slide step as well as the basic ones. This video comes from the series "Teach Yourself Bulgarian Folk Dance" and features professional dancers in elaborate embroidered costumes.  There is also step by step teaching video (pun intended) which is posted on YouTube.



The next version of Chetvorno has a more complicated choreography; if you look at the dance notes you will see five distinct figures.  People in international folk dance groups seem to thrive on complex dances and go to workshops to learn them.  This one is from the village of Bistritsa, and the person demonstrating the dance is from the "village" of Haifa, Israel.



Kolokoalition, a group from the United States, has many dances posted on YouTube. In this video, they dance Chetvorno to live music, the same version and music as shown in the previous video.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Dancing in Sevens  Part One and Part Two

Two Variations on the Bulgarian Folk Dance Kraj Dunavsko Horo

The "Flavors" of Bulgarian Rachenitsa Part One and Part Two


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