episode 8 - a Devetorka lesson (MySpace 5/09/2009)

Subject	Where's the kef? - episode 8 - a Devetorka lesson
DateCreated	5/9/2009 2:07:00 AM
PostedDate	5/9/2009 1:49:00 AM
Body	Another Friday at the international folk dance club weekly session... I'm waiting for "E" to arrive, so we can go downstairs and practice our tupan and kaval music thing. Small turnout this evening, and "B" is about to start teaching. An amazing person. She is far older than most everyone, yet still youthfully light in step, an excellent dancer, a joyous dancer, and a very good teacher. On the blackboard are the dances to be taught. Among them "Devetorka". From the name, it's Bulgarian or Macedonian to a nine-beat rhythm. Do I know it? "B" obliges by playing the record cut she will use, and then demos the basic step and a couple of variations. Ah, yes. The basic step is a common nine-beat line dance that's done at live music events. I tell her, "Yeah, two forward and one back" - the direction of line movement in measures. She responds with a "yes-but" - stresses and insists that the first two measures are quite distinct. For one, they start on different feet. O.k., but I counter that for practical purposes, the first two measures are the same. We are both right. But good-golly, here it is again... this disagreement is iconic. Though I am not a real dance teacher, I actually teach this dance very often in the trenches - meaning, in the dance line - to the "clueless newbies" who are sometimes in the line next to me. My usual aim is to try to get them to walk in time with the music, and I temporarily simplify my own steps to better serve as a model. "Walk-walk-walk walk, walk-walk-walk walk, back-two-three walk"... or something like that. Forget the left-foot right-foot niceties - just learning to move in sync with the line and the music is a powerful achievement. In this setting, being on the wrong foot is so trivial compared to being off rhythm. This is not rocket science - once you are moving in time, you may be able to find the proper "footedness" on your own. When "TK" leads dance lines at live music scenes, she often starts by walking in time to the rhythm. "How democratic! What a wonderful teacher!," I initially thought. But when I offered my compliments, she related that walking in time to the music was the way some dances are started in her native part of Bulgaria. Whoa! So real Bulgarian dancing with Bulgarians can sometimes be more accessible than Bulgarian dancing taught by American folk dance teachers. But no wonder. Next: episode 9 - the Opa Cupa conundrum Previous: episode 7 - different strokes Start: episode 1 - the Peninsula