What's in a Name Part Two: Croatian Confusion :)

The cook looked at the old man, and her gibenica burned.
Sukačica, Croatian folk song

Todays' dances can easily be confused because the names are similar. The first one is the very popular Sukačko Kolo from Croatia, based on a humorous song, Sukačica.  It's about a cook who burned a gibenica (cheese pastry). Despite the disaster in the kitchen, everyone has a great time dancing. You can find the lyrics here, in Croatian, German and in English.

The video itself is also cool, because of the male-female costume reversal.  It was mentioned in the comments on YouTube that the dancers wore Serbian costumes. A cultural faux pas, maybe, but certainly not a punishable offense :)



By the way, if you come to my house for dinner, you'll know that the food is ready when the smoke detector goes off:



Dance #2 is spelled a bit differently and has a different meaning.  With the diacritical marks it's Šokačko Kolo, a dance of the Šokač people who live in Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary.  Ethnically, they consider themselves Croats and dance to music played by tamburitza orchestras.

You can see why it's easy to confuse the name with the better known Sukačko Kolo. I couldn't find any videos of this dance from the States or Canada although I did find notes from the Folk Dance Federation of California.  It was taught at a workshop back in 2009.  For some reason it didn't become part of the repertoire.

High heels are not the best footwear to be worn when dancing, but since this video was taken at a wedding, that is to be expected. I recommend kicking off the shoes, all they do is get in the way.

The dancers uses a front basket hold.




There is more tamburitza music in version #2 of Šokačko Kolo. The video was taken during a party (Šokačka Večer) in 2014. You'll see dancers in traditional folk costumes along with the band.

Croatian dances are usually circular, and move in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction (or both). The word kolo means either "circle" or wheel in Croatian (as well as Serbian).



If you enjoyed this you may also like

What's in a Name Part One: Dobrujanska Pandela and Pandelas
(more confusion re: names)

These posts are must-reads if you like tamburitza music:

Dancing Through the Alphabet Letter K (several folk dances from Croatia)

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.

Crazy Croatian Dance Songs

Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Anthony Burgess

Have you ever wondered about what some of those folk songs mean?  Before the Internet it was almost impossible to get translations of Balkan folk songs.  Now they are relatively easy to find if you know where to look.

Today's post features two songs from Croatia with humorous lyrics.  After I read the translations, I wondered if Croatia is a fantasyland full of crazy people and anthropomorphic creatures.  From what I've seen of it in pictures, it looks nothing like Disney World.  Croatia does, however, have some amazingly beautiful scenery, and it's a place I'd definitely like to visit. I've been to Disney World too many times, anyway.

The first song is Raca Plava, and the group in the video is a "bonding folk dance class" from China. They seem to take their dancing quite seriously; you can hear the teacher call the steps while the music plays.

Click this link for the lyrics in English translation. If you've ever seen a duck swimming with a basket on its head you have probably had a bit too much to drink or spent too much time in Alice's Wonderland. According to the lyrics, the man is in love with a woman who has a distinctive walk. Maybe she walks like a duck. The song as a whole is rather strange.



The next song Sukacica, (dance: Sukacko Kolo) is another excursion into surreality.  This time it's a kitchen disaster, complete with burnt food, poultry with singed feathers, and roasted chickens with water running out of them (somebody tried to put out the fire).  The cook and the rest of them danced all night despite the mishaps.  They had a jolly old time.  You can read the lyrics in Croatian, German and English here:

By the way, the Songbook For Nearsighted People is an excellent source of lyrics with songs from the Balkans and beyond.  Most of the songs are translated into German and English. It's definitely worth a look.

Sukacko Kolo can be done in a circle (kolo is Croatian for circle) or as a couple dance. This group is from Belgium, and they use the "double kolo" method: two circles.



If you enjoyed this you will also like:

Some Fun for April Fool's Day: Silly Songs, Strange Sayings, and Insults From the Balkans (includes a version of Sukacko Kolo with a male-female role reversal).

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

Sometimes Lost in Translation (Bulgarian proverbs translated into English, some of them are quite funny!)



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