Horo for the Dead

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. – Albert Einstein

On Orthodox Easter Monday, the Bulgarian National Radio published a post on a Vlach custom: The Horo for the Dead.

It is done in the Northwest (Severnjasko) region of Bulgaria, a place where the population is aging and dying and few young people are born to replace them. The people in this region get together at the Albotin monastery or in the town square with pictures of relatives who died since the previous Easter. Unfortunately, the custom may disappear because the authorities don't support it.

Their way of mourning the dead is to dance with them in spirit. Each dancer holds the picture of a deceased relative. Most of the people in the line are elderly, although there are a few young people. They dance a slow pravo horo, accompanied either by an accordion or brass band.

I found this post shortly I had been notified of the death of a relative in Puerto Rico.  She was my aunt, who passed on at the ripe old age of 88.

This custom reminds me of the Mexican Day of the Dead, when relatives visit cemeteries and bring food and drink for themselves and the spirits of the departed.  They decorate the graves and celebrate the lives of their deceased friends and relatives.

The Sunday night group used to have a memorial dance in June. Tom Pixton (who is fantastic on the accordion), played requests from the group, usually a favorite dance in memory of a member who had passed on.  Our group is aging and few young people are replacing them. In that respect we are much like the northwest region of Bulgaria.

Here is the video (entirely in Bulgarian). It begins with a church service. It is worth watching in its entirety; but if you're limited on time the dancing (with accordion and drum accompaniment) starts at 11:34.  The dance in the town square, accompanied by a brass band starts at 15:00.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Dancing Across Bulgaria: The Pravo and Regional Folk Dance Styles


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Three Variations on the Bulgarian Folk Dance Izruchana

In a word, the Vlachs are the perfect Balkan citizens, able to preserve their culture without resorting to war or politics, violence, or dishonesty. (source unknown)

Today's post features different versions of the Bulgarian folk dance Izruchana, also known as Izruchanka. It is of Vlach origin from northwestern Bulgaria.

Video #1 shows the version of Izruchana most popular with folk dancers in North America, performed by a group from China.

According to the notes, this is a men's dance. In the video, there are both men and women in the line.



Video #2 uses the same music as Video #1.  This is a different choreography in the Vlach style (the name Izruchana is not mentioned in the title).  The group is Severnyatsite from the city of Pleven. The costumes are predominantly red and white, typical for northern Bulgaria.



Video #3 is another version of Izruchana, performed to different music. If you're a frequent reader of The Alien Diaries, you'll recognize the dancers.  The Dunav group from Jerusalem, Israel has many teaching videos, both on their website and on YouTube.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Vlach Dances from Bulgaria and Serbia

Variations on a Vlaško Theme


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Dancing Through the Alphabet: Letter A

This week's post is part of a new series called "Dancing Through the Alphabet." Today's Alien Diaries has been brought to you by the letter A.  Where have you heard a similar saying before?  Hint: It is a popular children's TV show. Trivia fans should know the answer.  You have 30 seconds to write it down and don't forget to phrase it in the form of a question :)



The Alphabet Series, will, for the most part, spotlight lesser-known Balkan dances. Most of the popular ones have been featured on this blog at one time or another. 

Today's dance is from Bulgaria, a daichovo variation called Abdala. In the notes it's described as a Vlach version of daichovo. It has stamping (a requirement for Vlach dances) and it's fast. 

The dancers are members of the International Folk Dancers of Ottawa.



By the way, the answer to today's trivia question was Sesame Street.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like:

Daichovo, Plain or Fancy, Take Your Pick

Bits and Pieces: More Folklore and Pop Culture from the Universe of You Tube (features Miss Piggy on the Muppet Show singing Never on Sunday)

Folklore and Pop Culture Again! (features the Count from Sesame Street)


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Hybrid Dances From the Balkans

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Aristotle

Today's post features hybrid dances, so called because they have more than cultural influence.

The first video is of a Greek dance from Kastroria with lyrics in Ladino,  Alta es la Luna.  Ladino was the language spoken by the Jews of Spain, who were exiled from that country in 1492 (about the same time Columbus set sail for the New World).  The Spanish Jews, also known as Sephardim, settled in various European countries, including Greece.

You can find the lyrics with translations into English and German here.

By the way, "horon" is the Greek word for dance; "horo" is the Bulgarian cognate.



Momino Horo  is a  "Young Women's Dance" from Bulgaria that has two distinctly different moods. Part one is slow and graceful with step-lifts (the notes describe the styling as Greek Macedonian.).

All hell breaks loose after the musical transition at 2:08;  two stamps, then the "penguin step", followed by an in and out, and more stamps. The choreography in part two is as Vlach as it gets with the shouting and the stamping.

The Vlachs were descendants of Romans who lived in the Balkans.  They had wandering ways and in the old days, they worked as shepherds.

Momino Horo  is based on women's dances from the region of Lom in northwestern Bulgaria, an area with a sizable Vlach population.

Yves Moreau, the teacher in the video, gives workshops in Bulgarian folk dance all over the world. This workshop took place in Haifa, Israel.



Siriysko Horo is a dance that came to the Bulgarian community in Chicago by way of Syria. The music is really strange because it reminds me of rush hour traffic in Manhattan.  According to the notes, the dance teacher Yulian Yordanov saw it performed at a Bulgarian gathering in Chicago. In this video,the music has been slowed down for teaching.

The first time I heard the song for Siriykso, I thought it very weird, but I really like it now. I wonder if the singer, Hamid El Shaeri, a native of Benghazi, Libya, was ever in New York City?

You can find the lyrics here.  What's surprising is this happens to be a love song!



This is the same song, at normal speed, and performed by a group of belly dancers.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Travels of Pajdusko Horo

Allusions, Musically Speaking (how snippets from different cultures get mixed into Balkan folk music)

Bulgarian Folk Songs With A Hungarian Accent


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The "Flavors" of Serbian Kolo

Blessed are they who go around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
Anonymous

Today's post is about a dance much-loved in Serbia, the kolo.

The Serbs don't have a monopoly on the kolo because people dance it in Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia. These countries used to be part of a larger entity,  Yugoslavia, the place that brought us the Yugo, the car that didn't go. The country went the way of the car. May they both rest in peace.

Kolo means "circle"and it can also mean wheel. Not all kolos are danced in a circle, as you will see in the following videos. From what I've observed most groups do them in a line. Professional ensembles are more likely to dance them in an actual circle. Circles and lines, by the way, are geometric figures, which are very prominent in folk dances from Eastern Europe.

The first video is Ersko Kolo, an easy and fun dance, performed by the Tanzgruppe Schmelz from Vienna, Austria.



The next dance is a medley of three Serbian kolos, and judging from the stamping, the dances are probably of Vlach origin. The Vlachs were people of Romanian (Latin) ancestry, and they travelled all over the Balkans. They traditionally worked as shepherds, which explains their wandering ways.



This is another example of a Vlach dance from Serbia: Vlashko Kolo.



Kolo Koalition, a group from California in the USA, has many dances, including Serbian kolos, posted on their YouTube channel.  Prekid Kolo, best described as kolo interruptus, is related to another very popular Serbian dance, U šest.  Read the notes to find out why.



Finally, here's the Kolo Ensemble performing during a halftime show at an NBA basketball game in Canada.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The "Flavors" of Serbian Cacak

The "Flavors" of Bulgarian Rachenitsa, Parts One and Two

The "Flavors" of Romanian Sirba


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Why Dancing Makes You Smart

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. " (Buddhist proverb)

According to a study done on senior citizens 75 and older by the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York City, people who dance are much less likely to develop dementia. The article describes how dancing increases cognitive acuity.

I was probably one of the youngest attendees at a dance workshop in upstate New York, held in late September. The majority were people in their "golden years"; retirees who keep their brains and bodies healthy with frequent folk dancing.  They had amazing energy.

There were workshop sessions in the morning and afternoon; and dance parties that continued late into the night.  The teachers were Yves Moreau (Bulgarian dance) and Danny Pollock (Israeli dance).

Here are two of the Bulgarian dances that were taught at the workshop.  I still have yet to master them although I'd been watching and practicing with YouTube videos for several months before the workshop.

The first is Novozagorsko Horo, from the Thracian region of Bulgaria. It's named after the town of Nova Zagora. This dance has a belt hold which makes it even more challenging, and you have to be in good physical (and mental) shape to do it.  I still can't remember all the steps in the proper sequence. That will take practice.



Yves taught a dance that I've been watching on YouTube for about six months, Vidinkso Horo, and I was glad he chose it for the workshop this year. 

Vidinsko Horo is a "hybrid" dance, best described as Romanian steps to Bulgarian music. It is also named after the town of Vidin in northwestern Bulgaria. You also can see similar footwork in the Romanian dance Trei Pazeste. The Vlach people who live in this region have influenced the music and dance. Their dances are characterized by stamps and shouts, and you will see that in the video.



Does dancing make you smart? It does, because it involves a lot of memorization, especially when learning and doing a fast dance with complicated steps like Vidinsko.

Some food for thought here: a brain is a terrible thing to waste.  Use it or lose it.

By the way, the picture above was a view of Sylvan Lake near the building where the workshops were held. The lakefront was a great place to relax and chat with people in between dances.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like:

Bulgarian Folk Dances Named After Cities and Towns

Folklore as Destiny: Yves Moreau and Bulgarian Folk Music

Three Variations of the Romanian Folk Dance: Trei Pazeste


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Two Variations on a Serbian Folk Dance: Stara Vlajna

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.
Maynard James Keenan

Today's featured dance is a very popular and easy one from Serbia, Stara Vlajna.  The name translates to "Old Vlajna," and I couldn't find out whether it was named after a person or place. If anyone out there speaks Serbian and knows the meaning, please post it in the "comments" section.

Version one is more popular with folk dancers in the United States, and it's performed by the group Kolo Koalition. By the way, Kolo is a generic name for dances from most of the former Yugoslav republics (except for Macedonia).

The word "kolo" means circle in Serbian, although people sometimes dance it in a line.  There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them.  Kolos are often named after a town or region, although there are exceptions to this.  There is a funny dance named Fat Woman's Kolo, which is probably played in Serbian aerobics classes. Another one is Prekid Kolo, which is best described as Kolo Interruptus.

In the first version of Stara Vlajna, the music starts slowly and speeds up as the dance progresses (very common in Balkan folk dances). The dancers do several bounce steps when the music changes. The "bouncing" is rather subdued because this group uses a front baskethold; whereas our group does it with a simple handhold. We emphasize that bounce, especially when I lead it!

Don't pay attention to that distracting text on the bottom, either....all I know is that this was recorded on April 5, 2008 at 7:58 p.m. They were a little too early for the Doomsday Countdown. 



Version two is fast all the way through and the choreography and music are different, very bouncy and lively in true Serbian style.

By the way, Stara Vlajna is a Vlach dance; the Vlachs were decendants of Romans who lived in the Balkans, and they settled all over the place. They had wandering ways and in the old days, they made a living raising and herding sheep. The Vlach people are best known for dances with lots of stamping.

The Dunav group from Jerusalem in Israel has posted many Balkan folk dance videos on YouTube and they have a website as well, where you can get dance notes, music scores and song lyrics for all of your favorite Balkan dances.  Check them out when you have a few minutes.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Two Variations on a Romanian Folk Dance: Hora de Mina

Two Variations on a Bulgarian Folk Dance: Opas

Two Variations on a Macedonian Folk Dance: Bufcansko

Stamping it Out: Vlach Dances From Serbia  (this will give you a feel for Vlach dancing, and it's a socially acceptable way to unleash the frustrations of daily life).


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

Variations on a Vlaško Theme

When I first started Balkan folk dancing the dance Vlaško Horo from northern Bulgaria really got my attention. I watched a group of men dancing Vlaško one night and I loved the stamping and the shouting and the energy of it.

I've been practicing it for a while, and still have a little trouble with the fast parts (parts 1 and 2 are  easy). At a dance I went to a few weeks ago it was on the program; and I requested that it be taught. I still don't have it 100%. One of these days I'll be able to do it without the video; in the meantime, here's the dance, as I learned it.  You can also use a belt hold, it makes Vlaško more challenging and fun.



There are other variations of Vlaško.  These young ladies perform Sitno Vlaško Horo in a shopping mall in Bulgaria; it is a totally different dance than the previous one. They use electronic instead of traditional music, which suits the modern setting well.



My fascination with Vlaško doesn't end here; here is yet another version! If you are a regular reader of The Alien Diaries, this video will be totally familiar to you; this group is the Dunav ensemble of Vidin, and yes, that big boat is a distraction. Dunav means Danube in Bulgarian (and several other Slavic languages as well).



In the next video Vlaško travels to Serbia. The Vlachs, a people of Roman origin, traveled far and wide all over the Balkans, primarily because many of them were sheep herders and part of their job was to search for greener pastures. In Serbia, the dance becomes Vlaško Kolo. The word kolo describes a circle or wheel but sometimes kolo is danced in a line. Circles and lines are geometric figures.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Stamping it Out: Vlach Dances From Serbia

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2012/03/stamp-it-outvlach-dances-from-serbia.html

The River of Many Names, Part 3 features the Dunav Ensemble of Vidin; there is an excellent video of them in action.  You can get exhausted just watching. The scenery is nice, too.

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/10/river-of-many-names-part-3-folk.html

Folk dances with stamping are a socially acceptable way of relieving the frustrations of everyday life. 

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-stamp-out-your-frustrations-and.html

Is Balkan folk dancing related to math?  Read more here.

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/06/balkan-folk-dancing-and-its.html





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Crossing the River Part 2: The Stick Dancers-Romanian Căluşari and Their Bulgarian Counterparts

Romanian postage stamp 1977, from Wikipedia Commons

Today's post is about a ritual dance which takes place on both sides of the Danube, River of Many Names.  The Romanian Căluşari  and Bulgarian Kalushar share several things in common:  the performers are all male, they wield sticks while dancing, and they wear white costumes with bells attached to the lower legs.

There is a story behind the Căluşari and it has to do with horses and fools. The word Calus means "little horse" in Romanian, and it can also refer to the stick used to keep a horse's mouth open. The Calus dance is a springtime ritual performed around the time of Pentecost, forty days after Easter. (There is also a winter version, done around the time of the New Year in the Romanian region of  Dobrogea.)

The first video is from Romania. The sequence of the dance is as follows: walk, then some fancier footwork with stamps (how Romanian!), then it gets downright frenzied.  It's no surprise that most of the performers are young men.  The fool in the middle provides the comic relief. He's the guy wearing red and yellow...the dancers gang up on him as he tries to "whip them" into submission.  This is the Romanian version of slapstick comedy.



You can see the Bulgarian version of the dance, Kalushar, in the next video. Notice the similarities in the white costumes and the sticks; the music, is of course, different; (although it does sound very similar to Romanian folk music) and the dancers wear red masks.

There is also a man in the middle; he looks like he plays the role of the mute instead of the fool. He covers his eyes while the masked men dance around him and perform all sorts of acrobatics. 

After the Kalushar dance (it finishes at 4:00), the ladies join in and the group performs a suite of dances from northern Bulgaria, one of which involves a fire ritual (at 7:50).  The entire video is worth a look, it's very good.



For more information on the Căluşari, read these two articles. The first one primarily deals with Căluşari in Romania, although there is a mention of the ritual being performed, with different variations, in northern Bulgaria and in Serbia.

http://www.eliznik.org.uk/RomaniaDance/ritual_calus.htm

Wikipedia describes a connection between the Căluşari ritual and Morris dancing, it's an interesting read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calusari

If you enjoyed this you may also like Crossing the River: Music From the Romanian Region of Dobrogea

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2012/10/crossing-river-folk-music-from-romanian.html

For more about the Vlach people and their dances read:

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-stamp-out-your-frustrations-and.html

Romania is a country not usually associated with bagpipes, but they like them just as much as the Bulgarians. There the instrument is called a "cimpoi" and there's even a dance named after it.

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-country-heard-from-bagpipe-in.html



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Stamp it Out....Vlach Dances from Serbia

"Their way of Dancing, is nothing but a sort of stamping Motion, much like the treading upon Founders Bellows."
John Lawson

I don't know what kind of dancing John Lawson was referring to, but he could have been referring to the Vlachs.

The Vlachs also known as Wallachians, had wandering ways and settled all over the Balkans. They were most likely descendents of the Romans, a Latin-speaking ethnic group. The Roman influence lives on in the country of Romania, whose language is based primarily on Latin. The word "Vlach" is a Germanization of "Wallachian", from "Wlaha" which means foreigner or stranger. Wallachia is located in what is now southern Romania (the provinces of Oltenia and Muntenia).

Today's post will feature Vlach dances from Serbia. They are very lively and have lots of stamping, a good way to get out your frustrations on bad days. And the music will lift your spirits, too.

Speaking of spirits, stamping while dancing was supposed to drive away evil spirits.

The first group, Dunav, from Calgary in the province of Alberta, Canada performs a medley of Vlach dances.



Gaida (bagpipe) music is popular in Serbia, although they prefer the accordion. Instruments of torture seem to vary by country. The Macedonians and Bulgarians like the gaida, the Romanians the panpipe, and the Greeks the bouzouki.

This video looks like an promotion for a piper named Bulgjigič Tomaslav. He has dancers and musicians here as a backup to make sure you know his music is good. (By the way you can't dance if the music is no good!) If you want to call him, let's say to play for your next party, his phone number is on the video, although if you lived far away, let's say, in North America, it would get rather expensive to pay for him and his group to travel across the Pond :)

His speciality is Vlach melodies and circle dances (the plural of kolo is kola). The backdrop is the Iron Gate gorge, along the Danube, River of Many Names. Here we go with that Dunav thing again....



Now it's time for another Dunav group, this time from Israel. The dance is Vlaško Serbsko.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:
The River of Many Names Part 3: Folk Ensembles Named Dunav

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/10/river-of-many-names-part-3-folk.html

The bagpipe (gaida) can be used as an instrument of torture. The same can also be said about the clarinet. Follow these links and find out why.

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/06/bagpipe-and-bulgarian-folk-music.html

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/01/clarinet-in-bulgarian-folk-music-third.html

A Jamaican proverb takes on a life of its own in Those Who Can't Dance Say the Music is no Good. http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/09/those-who-cant-dance-say-music-is-no.html


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"Those Who Can't Dance Say the Music is No Good" (Jamaican Proverb)

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
~Kurt Vonnegut

There are times I find myself dancing in the living room, usually when no one is home. My husband and daughters don't appreciate Bulgarian folk music, especially when it's played on loud "obnoxious" bagpipes and accordions. You couldn't pay them to dance to what I listen to which is why joined a group of like minded friends who dance on Friday (and sometimes Sunday) nights.

I enjoy dances from all over the Balkans, but am particularly partial to those from Bulgaria. Here a few of my favorites, complete with the aforementioned obnoxious musical instruments.

I originally learned Mitro from watching it on YouTube. I was delighted when one of the leaders of the Sunday night group introduced this dance, since I already knew it! Mitro is a modern version of Pravo Horo (the most popular dance in Bulgaria). It's from the Rhodope region, where they can get a little crazy with the bagpipes, the introduction will certainly get your attention. And the stamping is one way to get your frustations after a rough day.



Another of my favorite dances is Vlaško. This was originally a men's dance, complete with stamping and fast footwork (so the guys could show off their stuff), but nowadays, women get in the line (and even lead!) since the macho dances are much more fun. The name Vlaško comes from the Vlachs (Wallachian) people who were originally from southern Romania. They got around, and there are signficant numbers of them in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. There are many dances in the Balkans with the name Vlaško:  this one is from Bulgaria.



The lesnoto, or pravoto is very popular, especially in the Pirin region of Bulgaria, which shares a border with Macedonia. The lesnoto is one of those dances in an odd rhythm (7/8 for your music theorists out there); "pineapple-apple-apple", and it's very easy. It's basically walking with a few step-lifts thrown in. Even little kids can do it.

This band does an excellent job with Idam ne Idam; the dance that goes with the song is a lesnoto variation. The gaida player is fantastic, and so is the singing, although I know some people who would disagree with that. Bulgarian folk music, especially when played on bagpipes, is something people either love or hate. A Jamaican proverb describes it best: "those who can't dance say the music is no good."



For more on lesnoto read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesnoto

If you enjoyed this you may also like my series on the clarinet, the accordion and the bagpipe in Bulgarian folk music.

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/01/clarinet-in-bulgarian-folk-music-third.html

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/10/accordion-in-bulgarian-folk-music.html

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/06/bagpipe-and-bulgarian-folk-music.html

If you're looking for a socially acceptable way to rid yourself of stress, read:

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-stamp-out-your-frustrations-and.html


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