This book is an archeologist's ode to her passion for Eastern European folk dance. Parts are erudite, and full of fascinating facts about the region's culture and history. She explains, for instance, why the colors of white, red and black are so popular. Why embroidery goes around the neck and sleeves (to protect the wearer from evil spirits), why some dances go clockwise and others the reverse, why dances from some regions have "regular" beats, such as 3/4 or 4/4, and other regions have odder ones like 7/8, 9/8, etc. Why Western Europe does partner dances, and Eastern Europe does line dances.
My favorite parts of the book, however, and the ones that will stick most in my mind, are about Balkan dances themselves. As an avid folk dancer in my teens, I had an intuitive understanding of the sacredness of these dances. Barber explains where this comes from, namely the ritual nature of the dances themselves, which were used to ensure fertility and connect with earth and water goddesses.
She had two quotes in the book from William McNeill, author of Keeping Together in Time, about the psychological effects of soldiers marching together. I absolutely loved these, because it was the first time I had ever seen anybody describe the magic of moving in unison with a group of people -- in the case of dancing, to timeless tunes and rhythms:
"Marching aimlessly about on the drill field, swaggering in conformity with prescribed military postures, conscious only of keeping in step so as to make the next move correctly and in time somehow felt good... A sense of pervasive well-being is what I recall; more specifically, a strange sense of personal enlargement; a sort of swelling out, becoming bigger than life, thanks to participation in collective ritual... It was something felt, not talked about ... Moving briskly and keeping in time was enough to make us feel good about ourselves, satisfied to be moving together, and vaguely pleased with the world at large."
"the emotion it arouses constitutes an indefinitely expansible basis for social cohesion among any and every group that keeps together in time,moving big muscles together and chanting, singing, or shouting rhythmically. 'Muscular bonding' is the most economical label I could find for this phenomenon, and I hope the phrase will be understood to mean the euphoric fellow feeling that prolonged and rhythmic muscular movement arouses in nearly all participants in such exercises."
Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that exactly what a person feels in something like folk dance?
I will keep this book as a reference for a long time.
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- CoveredinCatHairReviewed in Canada on May 6, 2015
Wonderful book. Written in a clear easy-reading style
