The very young were eager for the day when they too could join in. The best dancers vied with each other to lead the next kolo, and if there was dust, as there often was, it rose to cover the dancers, who in their enthusiasm never seemed to mind.
At a sabor, groups from many different villages, complete with their own musicians, would meet on the dance field in a swirl of sound and color. These events could go on for days, with dancing from sunup to sundown. I later introduced it to American folk dancers under the name "Pinosavka."Īn even better time for dancing than Sunday or Saturday was a sabor (church fair), or a vašar (village fair). Their version of the Pinosava U šest was a work of art. In their opanci (leather shoes open at the top with curly toes) and šarene čarape (multicolored socks), they dazzled everyone with fancy step work, double bounces and a surprise dip. "Crashing the party," a group of young men in old–fashioned Serbian costume burst onto the scene and immediately paid the musicians for the next dance. The young men were somewhat drab in West European dress, but an occasional old–timer had on bits and pieces of folk costume.
Stari svat serbian wedding full#
Imagine my delight to find all the young women of marrying age dressed in full regional costume from head to toe, including necklaces of dukati (large heavy gold coins that are family heirlooms and part of a girl's dowry). I had come forty minutes from Belgrade by the local bus. By the time I arrived, a few hundred people had already gathered and were dancing the kolo. Lights strung over the village square added to and reflected the harvest moon. The tempo is slow and delicious, and the dance pattern, instead of going equally to the right and left, changes after two measures to the left, and travels right again. The local kolo (literally "wheel", the common Serbian word for folk dance) is a form of the nearly universal Serbian dance known as U šest (literally "in six") or Moravac (after the Morava River). I first saw this in the village of Pinosava, south of Belgrade not far from the landmark and park-area known as Avala. The young people came to meet their friends and to distinguish themselves with the more difficult dance steps. When I was in the villages south of Belgrade, everyone looked forward to the Saturday night dances called igranka (from igra, "to play" or "to dance"). The best dancers might marry sooner, even if poor. A man's standing in the community was often shown by his place in the dance line, and naturally the best dancers led. Traditionally, mastery of the dance was important. In South Serbia, in winter and on rainy days, dances were in barn-like structures known as čardak (literally, the enclosed porch on the first floor above the ground in a Turkish-style house). Montenegro has stone terraces on the mountain slopes near the village. Fall and winter had Saturday evening dances too. Almost every Sunday villagers gathered after church to dance, next to the church, in a field just outside the village, or in a central square near the community well. In the village no holiday, Saint's day, wedding, or other celebration could go without dancing. This enchanting rural way of life has provided the setting for one of the most impressive dance traditions in Europe. These impressions have remained with me through all my folklore adventures. I am no longer in this century.Īs a young folklorist, visiting Yugoslavia for the first time in 1963, I wrote the above impressions of Dalj, a Serbian village on the Danube River, where the river borders the regions of Vojvodina and Slavonia. My host refills my glass with more delicious red wine and I cannot resist. The delicious red and green stuffed peppers, fresh-baked wheat bread, and heavy red wine have filled my senses. Baba has placed a bowl of dark red goulash filled with steaming meat and vegetables on the table in front of me. As I am writing, Baba and Mama Ristić are cleaning the intestines of one of their pigs, slaughtered early this morning. I live in a typical village cottage with an earthen floor the front door is about five feet high. Horse-drawn sleighs, carrying peasants dressed in warm woolens and black lambs-wool hats, slide through the snow, bells jingling, scattering the pigs and geese in all directions. As I walk along the broad Pannonian streets, a herd of white-haired swine cross my path while a flock of sheep and a dozen quacking geese brush against my legs. My senses are reeling with impressions of peasant life here.
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