Today I had my first dance class. As a musician, I find dance very important - how can you play music if you can’t feel it in your body? Having attended a few pan-Balkan social dances in the US and Germany, and having been raised on contra dance, I thought I knew what to expect. When I first arrived and opened the door, almost 10 minutes late (thanks to the tribulations of foreign-language transit navigation), I thought I was in the wrong place. Yes, there was an accordion player with his back to me producing strands of Bulgarian tunes, but the 30 or so dancers were dressed in classical dance attire (ie: black leotards for women and sweatpants for men) and standing around the barre that lined three of the room’s walls.
Observing for half a second, I could tell that they all definitely knew what they were doing. I quickly backed out, sorry to have interrupted their rehearsal, and then I looked around for a moment to figure out what to do next. My project mentor had told me which building to come to, but not which room…
Two men emerged from that same studio to rescue me. They both spoke some English, and pretty soon I understood that I was in the right place after all. One of them was the ensemble director/instructor, and he explained that it is a professional ensemble and that the other man would help guide me. They sent me to the dressing room to change (though I had only brought my dance shoes), and then I joined the others at the barre, suddenly grateful for the three semesters of ballet I had taken in university.
Some of the exercises were familiar from ballet – pliés, different foot positions, something approximating a degage, passé, relevé, etc. But it was almost surreal to be remembering these exercises and executing them to music in uneven 5/8 or 7/8 meters rather than beginning ballet’s 3/4 and 4/4. Plus, there was stamping and kicking involved that would have horrified any of my ballet teachers (were it ballet, of course). As I struggled to imitate the dancers to either side of me, something clicked – this was an example of the style of dance that was developed during the Communist period.
After World War II, Bulgaria’s then-communist government created national music and dance ensembles. These ensembles inco
rporated folk traditions, in the attempt to appeal to villagers and promote nationalism, but blended them with Russian and Western European conventions, in the attempt to appeal to city-dwellers and to create what was considered a cleaner and more refined aesthetic. Choreographers were sent to Russia for training before they returned to Bulgaria to work with the dancers.
The large-scale success of this cultural project was, well, not really a success, but out of it emerged new art forms – large choirs and orchestras that perform harmonized arrangements of tunes both new and old, and formal dance (a term I just made up to distinguish it from social dance). Dance was relocated from houses and village squares onto stages, so the circles in which these dances were originally danced (and still are at the social dances I have attended) were remolded into lines. Hence the spotting – or fixation of the dancer’s gaze on a point in space while turning in a circle – that the dancers in my class were doing during across-the-floor exercises.
I am definitely in over my head, but why else would I be in Bulgaria? The other dancers are friendly (we had a brief conversation as they took a smoke break) and seem supportive of my presence in their midst, which made it easier to laugh at myself rather than feeling embarrassed. I’m looking forward to going back next week! One thing I know for sure: next time, I will not be rehearsing in blue jeans and a magenta T-shirt ;).