Balkan Folk Dancing and its relationship to...Math?.......

(picture from Wikipedia Commons)
Math was not my favorite subject. Algebra, to me, was torture by letters and numbers, variables and coefficients, a crazy balancing act of equations that left me totally unbalanced. It was a course I despised.

Math was just one of those things you had to endure to graduate. Although I did pass my algebra course, I wasn't particularly good at it.

Math is for left brained people, who thrive in the world of abstractions and symbols. Some of the people I dance with are left brained and teach science and math. Oftentimes I've wondered how they got into dancing, which for the most part is a right-brained activity. However, as this post shows, there is a relationship with Balkan dancing and math, which is why some left brainers like it so much.

Would you believe that the Massaschusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) has a folk dance club? Many years ago I went to a Bulgarian folk dance workshop there, with all those math and physics fans. The ways they taught the dances was actually quite good. They emphasized the physical aspects of the dance, and some of the history and folklore behind them. Maybe the dance instructors were right-brained like me.

http://web.mit.edu/fdc/

Although I hated algebra in high school, geometry was another story. It was something in which I excelled, because it involved pictures of actual objects, such as circles, rectangles and triangles. It involved an intuitive sort of reasoning that made a lot of sense, once I got the hang of it.

The past few weeks I had been watching and learning several dances from my favorite dance resource, YouTube, and my current favorites are Pravo variations. The Pravo is the basic Bulgarian dance, done in an open circle or a line, but there is more to it than that. There is a geometric pattern it that I never noticed while dancing, but came right out at me when I watched the videos.

This is Sapril Dobri. If you watch it closely, the dancers move in and out of the open circle at an angle of approximately 60 degrees.



I learned Maricensko with my group on a Friday night. It, too, is a pravo variation, with the same 60 degree pattern. The person who taught it described the dance movement like cutting a wedge of pie (not π, which is symbol for a crazy never ending number discovered by a Greek mathematician who was fascinated by circles....)



The Serbs dance something called the kolo, which translates into circle in English. Their interpretation of a circle is quite loose, and sometimes a kolo is danced in a line. A line is also a geometric figure.



The last dance, Pinosavka, done in a line (instead of a circle) has that wedge pattern. Want some pie with that?



Now I know why all these math and physics people go dancing. Between all that step counting and the crazy irregular rhythms of the music (with time signatures that resemble top-heavy fractions), they are right at home.


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Bulgarian folklore travels to China and Japan....

This is based on personal experiences, observations, and forays into the universe of You Tube.

For some odd reason, I've noticed that Chinese people have an avid interest in Balkan dance. The group I dance with on Friday nights has at least five Chinese members, they love the music, and they are excellent dancers.

There are a number of videos on YouTube of people in China performing Bulgarian dances. They belong to informal dance groups, much like mine. The videos they post on YouTube are instructional in nature. Here is a Chinese performance of Jove Malej Mome from the Shoppe region of Bulgaria. It's a popular dance all over the world, and they do it very well!



Here is some information about the dance, which is in the complex time signature of 18/16:

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

There is no explanation that I am aware of why the Chinese like this music so much. My Chinese friends at dance are very interested in Bulgarian culture, and often ask me questions about it. There may be an Asian flavor about it that speaks to them. Eastern Europe has always been the crossroads between East and West, and cultures and people traveled back and forth across the Eurasian land mass. Another possibility is that somehow Bulgarian culture made its way to China, and some Chinese might even be descendants of Bulgarians and have this in their genetic makeup. After all, there is a connection between the ancient Bulgarian Calendar and the Chinese Zodiac!

For more on the Bulgarian Calendar and the Chinese Zodiac:
http://www.helium.com/items/1512507-ancient-bulgarian-calendar-and-chinese-zodiac

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, which I believe there is, there is the possibility that their liking for Bulgarian music may be related to a past life experience.

The Japanese have an interest in Bulgarian culture as well. Here is one of the strangest videos I've ever watched, of a group of Japanese, costumed, in a botanical garden, performing a Bulgarian folk dance, which somewhat resembles Daichovo Horo. See my previous post for an exceptional rendition of this dance:

http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/06/having-blast-with-diko-iliev.html

Unlike the Chinese group, which has a feel for the assymetrical rhythms of Bulgarian folk music, their counterparts in Japan have it all wrong. They mince their steps and are very stiff. Someone from Bulgaria needs to give them some dancing lessons! It looks more they're performing some odd martial arts moves, using sickles instead of swords. Is there something lost in translation here?



The Bulgarian National radio mentioned this on its website about Japanese culture and its connection to Bulgaria: “The first statues of Buddha were created under the influence of the Greek culture on the Balkans. The cultures of Bulgaria and Japan are related since ancient times.”

It's fascinating to see how Bulgarian culture travels around the world.


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Having a Blast with Diko Iliev.....

Today we're going to have a blast with the music of Diko Iliev, a Bulgarian composer of dance music for brass bands, who lived from 1898 to 1984.

The first time I heard a piece by Diko Iliev, I was blown away (literally) by this fiery and passionate music. While exploring the Balkanfolk website, I heard some samples of his work and decided this CD was something I absolutely had to have. http://www.balkanfolk.com/.

It so happened that the CD took nearly two months to get here because I ordered it during the festive season in Bulgaria. Everyone there must have been celebrating Diko Iliev's 110th birth anniversary. In the photo above it reads (translated into English, for the Cyrillically challenged): "Masters of Bulgarian Folklore, Diko Iliev, Dunavsko Horo."

Who was Diko Iliev and why is he the soul of modern Bulgarian folk music? Not many people in the United States have heard of him, but everyone in Bulgaria knows who he is, and holidays and festivities would be unthinkable without the lively and vibrant music of this composer.

Brass band music is a common element in many cultures; for example: Germany (Bavaria), Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey, Romania, and even in the United States and Latin America.

First of all, here's his most famous piece: Dunavsko Horo (Danubian Horo) which has become the unofficial national anthem of Bulgaria. Both are in this New Year in Sofia 2007 video. After the countdown they play Mila Rodina (the official Bulgarian anthem), and right after, Dunavsko Horo. (note: this was a very special event celebrating the admission of Bulgaria to the European Union, the fireworks are in perfect time with the music!)



And here is the actual dance:



A celebration in Bulgaria would be unthinkable without a group of people getting together to dance horo and rachenitsa. Horo is a dance done in an open circle or a line, and means "chain dance" in English. The dancers hold hands or each other's belts and are linked like a chain.

This group dances Svatbarska (wedding) rachenitsa,composed by Diko Iliev, (as part of a medley of several dances, including kopanitsa and pravo, the first one is the rachenitsa).



For more on the rachenitsa, read: http://katleyplanetbg.blogspot.com/2010/07/flavors-of-bulgarian-rachenitsa.html

Diko Iliev had an interest in music and dance from a very early age, especially the brass band music popular in northwestern Bulgaria, where he grew up. At the age of 13,he left home to study music with a military brass band. He composed his first piece at the age of 19, the Iskarsko Horo.



Diko Iliev lived in Oryahovo, a town on the Danube, for many years. He was the bandmaster of a regiment in nearby Kozloduy. Aside from that he composed music for various events, and taught music to the children of the town. The people of Oryahovo thought so highly of him that they named a square in the center of town in his honor, and his house is now a museum.

Here is the river that inspired him, at sunset, as seen from Oryahovo, from a site called "Bulgaria in 360." What is amazing about it is that you can zoom and rotate the picture, and almost get inside it. The view is magnificent!

http://bg360.net/pano/oryahovo/zalez.php

Here is a video of the Danube as seen from Oryahovo on YouTube. The surreal music adds some charm to it, although it's not by Diko Iliev.....



The Bulgarian National Radio featured a segment on him recently (in German), with lots of music.

http://bnr.bg/sites/de/Musik/Pages/050510_MF.aspx

Diko Iliev composed about 70 works. Most of his music is based on Northern Bulgarian motifs such as the elenino, the daichovo, and the pravo. The majority of his work consists of marches and Bulgarian folk dances. He did, however, experiment with other genres, such as waltzes and tangos but his real love was horo and rachenitsa.

This is why the people of Bulgaria love his music, and it became the soul of a nation.


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Bulgarian Folk Music Travels Abroad......

Bulgarian folk music is so good they have a difficult time keeping it inside the country. It undergoes some interesting transformations when foreigners borrow it. For example, check out this performance of the Hungarian group, Besh O Drom, who used a Bulgarian folk tune and kicked it up a notch. The result? Something so dynamic that you can't sit still while listening to it.(For some reason this performance ended up on a Spanish TV program).



And here's the original music and dance, which is Graovsko Horo, performed by a Balkan folk dance group in Israel:



The Pravo is another dance that has been around. It is supposedly the most widespread dance in the world. Variations of it have turned up in Greece, Macedonia and Albania. Here is a group of dancers at a Greek festival that I went to last summer performing Zonaradiko, the same dance as the Bulgarian Pravo. By the way, the Pravo is the most popular dance in the Thracian region of Bulgaria. The ancient Thracians were a people who lived in what is now Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, so there was a lot of cultural cross-pollination in that part of the world.



A little on the history of Thrace can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace

The Valle, a dance from Albania, is also similar to Bulgarian Pravo:



The Rachenitsa has been around, too. It has migrated as far as Armenia, in a dance called Laz Bar. A Laz is a dance in 7/8 rhythm (apple apple galloping), and although the music is Middle Eastern, that Rachenitsa rhythm is in there. Notice a rhythm change near the end, and the dancers doing something similar to Bulgarian Pravo:



Compare it to the Bulgarian Rachenitsa seen here:



Back in the 90's, there was a series called "Xena, Warrior Princess." It had been brought to my attention, since I never watched it on TV, that Bulgarian music had infiltrated this particular miniseries. I checked it out for myself, on YouTube.



Hope you enjoyed this multi-cultural journey to Bulgaria and beyond.....

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The Bagpipe in Bulgarian Folk Music

(photo from Wikipedia)

This is the musical instrument some people love to hate, and my daughter calls it music from Hell. The bagpipe is strident and loud, and you do not want to hear one the morning after a night of drinking! Most people associate the bagpipe with Scotland, where it is called the Great Highland Bagpipe. It takes a lot of lung power to play one.

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

Here's a traditional Scottish tune played on the Highland bagpipe:



Bagpipes are common to a number of cultures: the Scots, the Irish, the Bretons of northwest France, Macedonians, Greeks, and Bulgarians, to name a few. Here's some information about the Eastern European gaida (bagpipe) with some pictures, from Wikipedia:

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

An ad for Bulgarian rakia (brandy) cleverly combines Scottish bagpipes and kilts with Bulgarian music and dance:



In Bulgaria, the bagpipe is called the gaida. It is the predominant instrument in the Rhodope Mountains, near the Greek border, but common to all the folklore regions of Bulgaria. Most folk ensembles have a gaida player. You can really hear it in this performance of Kabile, a Bulgarian wedding band that toured the United States in 2008 and 2010.



This is what happens when 100 Bulgarians play the gaida at the same time. You will either be totally delighted by the performance or running to the medicine cabinet looking for a headache remedy. The fireworks add a nice touch!



When a female voice accompanies a gaida, you have a formidable combination. The song is Izlel e Delyu Haidutin, performed by a young lady named Nevena on the show Music Idol (the Bulgarian counterpart to American Idol). Her performance is on a par with that of Valya Balkanska, whose version of the song was launched into outer space in 1977.



There is no middle ground with bagpipes. You can love them or hate them, but they are pretty damn hard to ignore!

I love gaida music.

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Hristo Botev, Poet and Revolutionary

There is no power over those who are ready to lose their lives in the name of freedom and the good of humanity.

- Hristo Botev

Today's "patron saint" of Bulgaria will be Hristo Botev, a poet and revolutionary who lived during the 19th century. He was born on January 6, 1848, and died in June 1876.

The combination of poet and revolutionary is often found in countries with a violent history. What is ironic is that poets, in general are usually very peaceful people, who despise violence and conflict. They are also idealists.

There are a number of countries with a literary history of revolutionary poets, such as Scotland (Robert Burns), Cuba (Jose Martí), China (Mao Zedong), and the United States (Phyllis Wheatley). Hristo Botev and Ivan Vazov (who will be mentioned later) are Bulgaria's contribution to the world of revolutionary poetry.

Hristo Botev died before the age of 30. He wrote 20 poems during his lifetime. Besides writing poetry, he was a teacher, writer, journalist, and revolutionary. He is considered a national hero in Bulgaria. Every year on June 2, the anniversary of his death, sirens sound at noon for several minutes and the entire country comes to a standstill. The city of Botevgrad is named after him, as well as a number of schools, sports stadiums, and even a program on the Bulgarian National Radio!

http://www.bnr.bg/sites/hristobotev/Pages/default.aspx

He was one of the key figures in the overthrow of Ottoman rule in his country, and is much revered by the Bulgarian people.

Bulgaria and a good portion of the Balkans had been under Ottoman Turkish rule for about 500 years, until the the end of the Russo Turkish War in 1878. Their rule was somewhat harsh; the Balkans have always been a hotbed for conflict, especially of the religious kind. The Turks were Muslim, and the Bulgarians, Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Bulgarians chafed under the Ottoman yoke; the Turks suppressed their religion and culture and taxed them heavily. They also took a number of Bulgarian boys away from their families and conscripted them into elite fighting units called the Janissaries. This did not sit well with the Bulgarians, either.

Hristo Botev's goal was to free his country from Turkish oppression. He was especially influenced by the Polish and Russian revolutionary movements and writers; nearly all his poetry was based on patriotic and revolutionary themes. Here is "The Hanging of Vasil Levski" in an English translation:

http://www.slovo.bg/old/f/en/botev/vlevski.htm

Vasil Levski was executed for spreading revolutionary ideas, and attempting to start an uprising, and this was Botev’s account of his death. It is very moving, graphic and sad. Poetry is emotion put on paper, and it’s not always about beautiful things. The description and its meaning to the poet, and to his readers, are what constitutes his message.

For more on Vasil Levski, read http://www.bnr.bg/sites/en/Lifestyle/HistoryAndReligion/Pages/1902LevsiplusPoem.aspx

One of the most famous incidents in Bulgarian history, and one that was in part, responsible for the overthrow of Ottoman domination of Bulgaria, was the May, 1876 takeover of the Radetsky, in which Botev, accompanied with about 200 men, dressed as gardeners, hijacked an Austro-Hungarian steamship. He, with a group of revolutionaries, exiles, living in Romania, were fed up with the situation in Bulgaria, and decided the time was ripe to return home and overthrow the Turks. Their plan was to cross the Danube into Bulgaria and join other rebels in hiding in the Vratsa region. His group, disguised as laborers, boarded, and as soon as they left Romania, Botev made the following demands to the captain:

(translation from Wikipedia)

“Mr Captain!
Dear passengers!
I have the honour to notify you that Bulgarian rebels, whom I have the honour to be the voivode of, are located on this steamship.
At the price of our livestock and our agricultural instruments, at the expense of great efforts and sacrifice of our goods, finally at the price of everything which is dear in this world (without the knowledge and despite the pursuit of the authorities in the country whose neutrality we respected), we have provided ourselves with what is necessary to us, in order to come to the assistance of our revolting brothers, who are fighting so brave under the Bulgarian lion for the liberty and independence of our dear Fatherland — Bulgaria.
We pray to the Lord that the passengers do not worry at all and remain calm. As for you, Mr Captain, I have the hard duty to invite you to place the ship at our disposal until our very getting-off, while at the same time I declare that even your smallest resistance will put me in the sorrowful necessity to use force and against my will to revenge for the disgusting incident on board the Germany steamboat in Rousse in 1867.
In one case or the other, our battle cry is the following:
Long live Bulgaria!
Long live Franz Joseph!
Long live Count Andrássy!
Long live Christian Europe!”

A poem by Ivan Vazov describes the Radetsky incident. Vazov was also a poet, writer, and revolutionary, and a contemporary of Botev. He lived long enough to see the Ottomans overthrown. Fortunately for him, he did not live to see the Nazis and later the Communists, since he died in 1921.

This is the poem "Radetsky" (translation found on Wikipedia, now deleted) by Vazov and a YouTube video of the song created from the poem. (Translations from Bulgarian can get a little strange but this one is actually quite good).

The placid white Danube is excited
And splashing merrily,
For the Radetzky is proudly sailing,
On its golden waves.
But as Kozloduy is sighted
A horn sounds on the ship,
A banner is unfurled.
Young Bulgarian warriors
Suddenly appear,
On their foreheads lion badges,
Ardour in their stare.
Proudly there stood before them,
Their leader young,
And thus spoke he to the captain
With bare sword in hand.
‘I am a Bulgarian voivod,
And these are all my men.
We are speeding now for freedom
to spill our blood today.
We are speeding to Bulgaria,
To offer our help,
And from oppressive tyranny
To rescue her today.'



The captain, Dagobert Engländer, was quite taken with Botev’s demeanor and described him as personable and well-mannered. He was impressed with the Botev’s willingness to die for a noble cause, and agreed to his demands. He wished the revolutionaries well when they docked in the Bulgarian port of Kozloduy, and this was all accomplished peacefully, without bloodshed.

By the way, the ship was named after an Austro-Hungarian general, Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. He was immortalized in a march by Johann Strauss Senior, this is his most famous work, the Radetsky March. Every year (except for 2005) this piece has been the rousing finale of the yearly Vienna New Year's Day Concert. Another interesting fact: the composer was the father of the man who wrote that very famous waltz about the Danube :)



There is a statue of Radetsky in Vienna, and a town named Radetski in Bulgaria. Everyone in Bulgaria is familiar with the name Radetsky, and it’s written forever in their history books as well as Austria’s.

Here is the account of Botev's death from last year's Bulgarian National Radio entry on the Internet (which is no longer on their web site, so I have quoted it here).

At that point, when Bulgaria was in the fire of the April events, when the houses of the rebellious Bulgarians were set on fire and the bodies of the slaughtered lay unburied, 200 brave young men decided to cross the Danube River and return home to fight side by side with their compatriots. On May 29 they set off from Giugriu determined to fight for Bulgaria’s freedom. Hristo Botev was their leader. On May 30 they set foot on the Bulgarian bank of the River at the town of Kozloduy and headed for the Balkan Range. After heavy and unequal fighting with the Turkish police units and regular army, on June 2, just below Okolchitsa Peak, in the region of Vratsa, Northern Bulgaria, Botev’s detachment was inflicted the heaviest blow and its leader – Hristo Botev was killed in battle. He was only 27.

To this day, Hristo Botev, poet and revolutionary, is one of the most important figures in Bulgarian history.

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Puerto Rico and Bulgaria.....a cross cultural comparison (or how I became a "Bulgarican")

How did a descendant of Puerto Ricans, raised in the projects of the South Bronx, develop an interest in Bulgaria?

When I was growing up, music and dance were an integral part of our celebrations, especially during Christmas, New Year's, birthdays and weddings. Puerto Ricans love to dance and party. They will find any excuse to do so.

The dances of Puerto Rico are inspired by several different cultural influences: the Spanish, who arrived on the island in 1493, the Taino Indians, who were the natives Columbus and his men found, and the West Africans. The Spanish enslaved the natives, using them to work the gold mines and build the forts. As a result of this cruel treatment, and the introduction of diseases such as smallpox from the Europeans, the native population was decimated. The Spanish, who needed an unpaid workforce, brought in slaves from West Africa to replace the Tainos in the mines. When the gold ran out, the slaves worked in the sugar plantations. When the Africans had a chance to chill and relax (which wasn't often), someone brought out a drum, and people danced to the beat.

Here is a dance called the Plena, which is a blend of Spanish, Taino and African influences, the dominant being African:

And this is the Bomba, a Puerto Rican call and response song and dance, also inspired by African folklore:


Both Puerto Rico and Bulgaria have strong folk music and dance traditions and share a history of domination by foreign powers. Puerto Rico, however, has never been an independent entity. Bulgaria, on the other hand, has been in existence for over 1300 years, and except for the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, and the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe, has been an independent nation for much of those 1300 years.

Spain ruled Puerto Rico for over 400 years, and after the Spanish American War of 1898, Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory, and later a commonwealth. One of the reasons Puerto Rico refused statehood has much to do with maintaining its cultural identity, which is a mixture of Spanish, African, and Taino. The original inhabitants, the Taino Indians, lived peacefully on the island for thousands of years until Columbus arrived. He and the Spanish suppressed the indigenous culture, but couldn't destroy it, despite the decimation of the natives and the repression and enslavement of the Africans.

Bulgaria has maintained its cultural identity for over 1300 years, despite the domination of the Ottoman Turks, who ruled the country for five centuries, from the mid 1400's until 1878.

The country is a mixture of a number of influences: Thracian, Slavic, Bulgar, Turkish, Greek and Roma (Gypsy).

The Ottomans conscripted Bulgarian boys to serve as Janissaries in the Sultan's armies, a form of slavery, since these young men never saw their families again. http://i-cias.com/e.o/janissaries.htmEvery mother's biggest fear was that the Turks would abduct one of her sons. This was a form of taxation imposed on the Christian population of the Balkans.

In the 20th Century, after World War II, the Russians set up puppet governments in Eastern Europe, which lasted until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Communists were as repressive as the Turks, taking away the human rights of the people of these countries, and sending dissenters to prison camps or worse.

Whoever thought Bulgaria and Puerto Rico would have so much in common historically and culturally? Despite the differences in language and climate, they both share a history of oppression and a love of music and dance.

Although immigrants who come to the United States to live try to pass the culture on to their kids, oftentimes it's diluted and eventually lost as Americanization takes over. My parents, although they kept some of the traditions, and spoke Spanish, wanted my brother and me to speak English and be assimilated. As a result, I understand Spanish, but don't speak it very well.

My children, unfortunately know little of their culture except what I was able to pass on to them, via family and friends. One of my daughters has a very close friend who grew up in Puerto Rico, she has been a valuable source of cultural information for both of us!

I have been to many ethnic festivals during my lifetime. I love the authenticity of them, especially when they are connected with a group that has not been here long enough to be Americanized. Here is a Bulgarian event at Mt. Holyoke College that I went to back in March, the beauty of their culture comes alive here.

Cultural identity is very important. That is why I appreciate the culture I was born to. When I grew up and did some traveling, I learned to appreciate and love the cultures of other countries as well, especially Germany, where I lived for four years. When I took up Balkan folk dancing, I fell in love with Bulgarian culture, and it will always be a part of me. That is how I became a "Bulgarican."

I am a citizen of the world.


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