Suleiman Aga

The tradition & historical record

Karsilamas (Turkish: karşılama; Greek: καρσιλαμάς) is a folk dance spread all over Northwest Turkey and carried to Greece by Anatolian Greek immigrants. The term "karşılama" means "encounter, welcoming, greeting" in Turkish. The dance is popular in Northwestern areas of Turkey, especially on wedding parties and festivals. This dance is also found in many areas of Greece, such as the Aegean islands (Syros, Kythnos, Lesvos, etc.) as well as in Thrace and Macedonia. Apart from Karsilamas, in Greece and Cyprus there is a similar dance named Antikrystos. Antikrystos, translates also, as "anti-face", i.e., face-to-face. Karsilamas is a couple dance that is still danced in what was the Ottoman Empire, from Persia to Serbia, and in the Macedonia and Thrace regions of Northern Greece. Figures of the dance may vary from region to region, but the main theme is two people face each other, and music rhythmically controls their next moves. Traditionally, people dance without any figure on their minds, just figures they have seen from their elders. The meter is 98, and the basic move is danced in four small steps with durations 2+2+2+3, respectively. ¹

Kanto was heavily influenced by musical theatre, Balkan and Byzantine or Anatolian music (Karsilamas) (which was however often a subject of satire in kanto songs). ¹

The kyuchek (köçekçe), as a common musical form in the Balkans (primarily Bulgaria and North Macedonia), is typically a dance with a 98 time signature; two variant forms have the beats divided 2+2+2+3 and 2+2+3+2. (This latter meter is sometimes referred to as "gypsy 9".) ¹

Entarisi ala benziyor (Turkish: Entarisi ala benziyor),(Greek: Αραμπάς περνά(Arabas perna)), (Greek: Δημητρούλα μου(Dimitrula mou)), (Greek: Το Μαρουλιώ(Maroulio)),(Albanian: Lule malësore), (Armenian: Aman Ağavni) is a form of the Balkan folk dance karşılama. Entarisi ala benziyor is a folk dance spread all over Greece, Turkey, Armenia and Albania. The meter is 98, and the basic move is danced in four small steps with durations 2, 3, 2 and 2 respectively. ¹

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

Suleiman Aga is 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