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Folk Dance Federation of California, South, Inc.
DANCING WITH TWO LEFT FEET |
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Our perception of a country, if we have never visited it, is shaped by the impressions we get from the media, music, pictures, and stories of travels by our friends. Our folk dance community loves to travel to countries that are familiar to us through the dances we do.
We visit the countries at times of festivals, or prearranged events that emphasize the culture we all love. Cities such as Melnick, Kyustendil, Sandanski, and other others evoke dances we all know and do.
The reality is, that these locations have grown with the time and are quite different than what we imagined. The progress enveloping our whole planet has sadly reached these beautiful remote locations and transformed them into the ubiquitous big cities, resplendent with traffic, noise, pollution, and the proliferation of fast-food and one-stop shopping centers
The other observation while visiting Bulgaria, is not very visual and is more difficult to notice. It is the general mood and feelings of the population. It is so different from the happiness of their songs and dances that we have experienced through the various teachers and Bulgarian people that have shared their culture with us. I found the general population we came in contact with sad, melancholy, almost as if a cloud were hovering over them. I am not sure if these moods are vestiges of long communist rule, or just the results of the poor economic worries many people have. I hope that with time, this mood will fade and let the true and happy spirit of Bulgaria show.
To find the folk gems and the happy people we all love, you have to dig deep into the countryside, where you might still find the small villages keeping the torch of tradition still burning. They are places populated with older people – the young have left, mesmerized by the glitter of opportunity in the bigger cities, or having left the country to pursue their luck in foreign countries.
We discovered, during our recent trip, one such gem tucked close to the border between Macedonia and Greece in southwest Bulgaria. We left Bansko, a former small mountain village transformed into a bustling ski resort, to arrive at the village of Dobarsko, perched in a forested spur of the Rila Mountains.
The "Dobarsko Grannies" emerged in their full regalia to serenade us with their open-throat multiple-harmony songs. They changed our tourist look by dressing us in their native costumes of a bride and groom as we joined them in dance and performed a mock village wedding.
How appropriate! It was our 15th wedding anniversary this year.
I told them that we were so happy that they kept the tradition going, and when I told them that we as well keep their tradition in the States by dancing and singing their songs, they hugged us and asked me to convey their thanks to our group.
So all of you folk dancers, consider yourselves hugged by the "Grannies of Dobarsko."
Printed in Folk Dance Scene, "DANCING WITH TWO LEFT FEET (59), October 2010.