Articles: journals, proceedings and books

What is an (ideal) international folk dance festival? Voices of participants and organisers in international folk dance festivals in Romania and beyond

This chapter explores the question of what is considered as an (ideal) international folk dance festival by drawing from longitudinal ethnography among festival organisers in Romania, participants in international folk dance in festivals within Romania and Romanian participants in festivals elsewhere, as well as from archival and published sources. It …read more

Social dancers in Balkan folk dance performance: communities, traditions and sensory concepts?

This paper considers perspectives from dancers within a particular genre of recreational dance known as “Balkan folk dance” in the UK. Through asking participants about their understanding of dancing I consider, firstly their preference to Bulgarian dances over Romanian dances, secondly their lack of relationship to Bulgarian dance groups in …read more

Dancing the Balkans in the UK or a being a little Balkan in London, Manchester, Edinburgh

The UK “Balkan dance scene” is an urban based activity. Although it built on longer term connections between the UK and dances from the Balkan area, the majority of the participants were born and grew up in the “West” and have no genealogical connections to southeastern Europe. Drawing on anthropological …read more

Fieldwork recordings and visual dance: questioning methodologies for analysing the process of local dancing

What we ‘see’ in a dance depends on who we are, but is this reflected in how we analyse the visual recording? When such video data is of a social activity, then the ‘context’ and ‘people’ are frequently part of anthropology papers, but dance is also about the moving. We …read more

The south east Europeans are (still) dancing: recent dance trends in Romania and among south east Europeans in London

Twenty five years since the changes in regimes in southeastern Europe, local dance is still thriving and has even taken on a new vibrancy both within this area and among southeast European economic migrants. This paper evaluates these trends by focussing on two examples, recreational dance groups for adults in …read more

Bulgarian tracks: the road to the Koprivshtitsa Festival (and back again, and again)

The Koprivshtitsa, National Festival of Bulgarian Folklore, has been held (around) every five years since 1965, and throughout its fifty-year history has drawn an ever-increasing audience of Bulgarian music and dance enthusiasts from all corners of the globe. This paper asks why many participants travel to this festival for every …read more

Placing of Svinița’s identity as seen from the perspective of community dance culture

The paper aims to situate the dance practices in contemporary Svinița (Serbian: Svinica) within the surrounding regions. During the short time the research group spent in Svinița, we attended and participated in two evening dance events. These events were in many ways typical of community festival occasions found across the …read more

Joc de pomană dance for commemorating the dead in Svinița and beyond

This paper concentrates on the joc de pomană in Svinița that formed one of the focal points of the May 2013 fieldwork by the visiting researchers from the ICTM Sub-Study Group on Field Research Theory and Methods. My broader concern is with rituals for commemorating the dead that include dance …read more

Dance, field research and intercultural perspectives: The Easter customs in the village of Svinița: Introduction

Mellish, Liz and Rakočević, Selena (2016). “Introduction.” Dance, field research and intercultural perspectives: The Easter customs in the village of Svinița: pages 9–20. Pančevo: Selena Rakočević, Kulturi centar Pančevo. ISBN 978–86–918261–1–6.

Professionalism of Romanian ensemble dancers: performances and presentation

This paper explores the meaning of being a professional ensemble dancer in Romania and whether this is the same as professionalism in Romanian dance performance. It investigates whether there is a clear cut distinction based on remuneration or are there other criteria that can be used to distinguish ‘professional’ dancers …read more

Liz and Nick

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