Grancharsko horo

The tradition & historical record

Bulgarian folk dances are intimately related to the music of Bulgaria. This distinctive feature of Balkan folk music is the asymmetrical meter, built up around various combinations of 'quick' and 'slow' beats. The music, in Western musical notation, is often described using compound meter notation, where the notational meter accents, i.e., the heard beats, can be of different lengths, usually 1, 2, 3, or 4. Many Bulgarian dances are line dances, in which the dancers dance in a straight or curved line, holding hands. ¹

Many Bulgarian dances are line dances, with the dancers holding hands in a straight or curved line, facing in toward the center of the dance space. Originally men and women danced in separate lines, or in a gender-segregated line in which the last woman and first man held opposite ends of a handkerchief, to avoid gender contact but today men and women often dance in mixed lines. Several different handholds are used in the different dances: ¹

Holding hands down at waist level, the arms of adjacent dancers in the shape of a "V", right hand facing forward, left hand facing back Holding hands at shoulder level, with the arms of adjacent dancers in the shape of a "W", right hand palm up, left hand palm down "Teacup hold", in which each dancer places his left hand on his stomach making a "handle" with his left arm, and loops his right hand loosely through the arm of the right-hand dancer Shoulder hold, with the arms held out straight horizontally to the sides, the hands resting on the near shoulders of the adjacent dancers. This was originally a men's hold, used only in the men's line. Belt hold (na lesa), with each dancer holding the front of the belt or sash of the two adjacent dancers, left arm over right Bulgarian dances are distinctive for their subtle rhythms and intricate footwork. In some dances, the dancers repeat the same pattern of steps throughout the dance, while others are "called" dances with several different steps in which the leader calls out changes in the steps at his discretion. Still, others have a basic step which individual dancers may embellish at specific points with variations like stamps and foot slaps. In dances in which the line moves to the right or left, the dancer at the head of the line is the "leader". ¹

Bulgaria is divided into seven ethnographic regions: Northern Bulgaria, Dobruja, Shopluk, Thrace, Strandzha, Macedonia and the Rhodopes. Each region has its own distinctive style of dance, to the extent that a knowledgeable observer can often tell which region a group of Bulgarians comes from by how they perform a popular dance like the pravo. In addition, due to the intricate ethnic mix in the Balkans, each locality and even each village may have its own variation of a dance, different enough that it amounts to a distinct dance. In Bulgarian folk dance literature, local variations are often differentiated by adding the geographical origin to the dance name: for example pravo plovdivsko horo means "the pravo dance from the town of Plovdiv". ¹

The proportions of the beats do not follow any exact rational proportions. For example, the well-known tune "Eleno Mome" (Елено Моме) exists written in three forms: (1) 7 = 2+2+1+2, (2) 13 = 4+4+2+3, and (3) 12 = 3+4+2+3 times. Here, the latter two forms exist both as a musicologist's way to attempt to indicate the tendency of speeding up the last and first beats, as well as in the formal version, where the musician plays 3 or 4 about equal length notes on the beat. In music band playing, the meter 7 = 2+2+1+2 seems favored, thus skipping some of the time-bending subtleties. Given this fact, though, some meters are more common or popular, but there is a wide variation of less frequent combinations, as well. There is also disagreement about whether one should use 18 or 116 as meter denominator, but this is just a notational convenience. In the list below, the denominator follows in part notational practice of the region, and in part the speed of the type of tune, giving the 14 note a reasonable number of beats per minute (as on a metronome). Folk dancers often speak in terms of "quick" and "slow" instead of a steady meter "1, 2, 3," etc. These dance rhythms may not agree with the rhythms and meters performed by the musicians. For example, the 1116 rhythm of the dance kopanitsa is often described as quick-quick-slow-quick-quick, (2+2+3+2+2) whereas the tune may be played in what may be written as (2+2)+(2+1)+(2+2), i.e., an 11 time with primary accent at 1, secondary accents at 5 and 8, and tertiary accents at 3, 7, and 10. ¹

Below is a list of some Bulgarian folk dances, along with their commonly written rhythms and time signatures. The word horo means "dance" and is sometimes added to the name of the dance. Since the transliteration of Bulgarian is problematic, the official Bulgarian transliteration is used, which can be checked at Transliteration of proper names in Bulgaria, followed within parenthesizes by the Bulgarian name and, after a semicolon, (for searchability) alternative transliterations. Following a Bulgarian sheet music practice, more complex meters generally appear later in the list. ¹

Trite pati (Трите пъти; Trite puti, Trite pŭti) in 24: Line dance with rapid feet movement; step rhythm quick-quick-slow = 1+1+2. Tropanka (Тропанка) in 24: Stampy Dobrudzha men's dance, V handhold, with swinging and pumping arm motions. Opas (Опас) in 24: A varied dance often done with hands across the chest of the person next to you with the next in line. Pravo horo (Право хоро) in 24 or 68, counted as 3+3: Often in music for the Pravo, both 24 and 68 time signatures will be used where 24 is used for the singing and 68 is used for the slightly faster instrumental portions. In Bulgaria, the 68 portion is also transcribed in 24 using triplets.Pravo is characterised by left-over-right arms "belt-hold" (in lieu of hand hold), a beginning right foot diving step toward the center of from one to many concentric broken circles, traveling ultimately counterclockwise. ¹

Yove male mome and sedi donka can be thought of as a compound of common 7 (chetvorno) and 11 (kopanitsa) meters, but it is more unclear what sandansko horo should be: possibilities are a compound 9+13, where 9 is the daychovo meter, and 13 the Krivo plovdivsko horo meter, or 9+9+4, where 9 is the daychovo meter. A ruchenitsa can, in slower tempo, have a distinctive 2+2+3 rhythm, but in a quicker pace, it may only be perceived as a 4+3. Thus, even though these are well-known rhythmic patterns, one may not arrive at an unambiguous meter interpretation, the way listeners of Western music are used to. Many of the dances are formed by each person holding the belt or sash of the dancer on either side. These belts are typically fit loosely around the waist so that each person can move easily within the belt, while the overall line can stay together. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Bulgarian folk dance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Grancharsko horo is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²