The Dancing Hat

Hats have power.  Hats can change you into something else. 

Catherynne M. Valente

Today's post is about an ethno-pop dance band from Romania. The name of the group: Ro-mania. The song is about a magic hat (beret) that has a mind of its own. It belongs to the violinist, who takes it off when he plays the violin. The hat makes its way through town and lands on the ground.

 A curious young woman picks it up and puts it on her head; she can't stop dancing until she takes it off. The hat finds its way to a street artist (it lands on his head) and he dances as well. After he takes it off, the hat makes its way to a street sweeper, who also can't stop dancing until she tosses the hat. The hat ends up back where it started, and the music stops.

The video is fun to watch.  While the hat makes its journey the guys go crazy singing and tapping on the table. Make sure to watch it all.  It's 3 1/2 minutes of fun.

The rhythm of this song is geampara (apple-apple-pineapple). It is similar to Bulgarian rachenitsa. Geampara is a dance native to the Romanian folklore region of Dobrogea.

   Video #2 is a geampara  performed by a group from Taiwan. The instructor does a great job (he can really shake that body as well!) Unfortunately, I have not seen any groups in North America or Europe do this dance.  I wonder if the hat is in there somewhere....

We are going to let 2020 go out with a bang and hope 2021 won't be a repeat of 2020. Regulars have probably seen this before: Dunavsko Horo with a war movie as a soundtrack. It's time to kill 2020! 

Notice that the explosions are in time with the music. Hopefully by the end of 2021 things will get back to normal and people will be dancing together again.

If you enjoyed this you may also like: The Best of the Alien Diaries 2010-2015.  

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