Encyclopedic Dictionary for the Ethnic Dance Arts» Romany Dance and Music

Romany (Gypsy) Dance, Music and Culture

Roma music and dance is a community expression, where both performer and onlooker experience the lamentations and celebrations of Roma life. " -- WorldArtsWest.org.

Follow along the Romany Trail, the migration route followed by the original Rroma fleeing India, and sample the dance and music and costuming of the Rrom from India to America. Keep in mind that this is not a scholarly tour, but just for fun, using resources around the Internet. Always keep in mind the following caveat: "For centuries these people have confounded philogogists, anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologists, musicologists, historians. Gypsies resist formal study; ask them questions and you often get answers fanciful or false - or no answer at all. Evasion is their tactic of survival." --B. McDowell Good Reading Short descriptions of Rajasthani, Turkish Rom, Russian Rom and Flamenco at worldartswest.org. The Pariah Syndrome, a book written by Ian Hancock, a rare - and famous - Romany academic. Gypsy Lore Society founded in 1888 in the United Kingdom. Smithsonian online has several short articles about Gypsies in American.. need to keep clicking on the different links to see them all. US Holocast Museum online has some articles on the destruction of the Gypsies by the Nazis. National Geographic map of Romany migration over the centuries. Lacio Drom website Patrin Web Journal: Romani Culture and History.

Image source: Wikipedia Commons.

Media

• Photo gallery.
• Bulgarian music and dance.
• Talk about a Brass Menagerie!
• Romafest Gypsy Dance Theatre performing a Hungarian folk dance.
• Sophie Armoza starts out in male costume and switches to a skirt.
• Romafest Gypsy Dance Theatre out of Rumania with a branch in .. Japan! Not a lot of info on the site, visitors are advised "You can see lots of Romafest in YouTube."
• Starts with an awesome old movie clip with rroma social dancing, then it moves to recent clips of people dancing in social situations: parties and weddings.

Turkish Romany (Gypsy)Dance and Music "Sulukule is a legendary district of Istanbul known for centuries for its famous Romani musicians and dancers. Foreign visitors writing of the exotic dancing reported of "suggestive contortions, a good deal of stomach play and twisting of the body, falling upon the knees with the trunk held back to the extent that the spectators were encouraged to put a coin on their forehead." Expressing passion and joy, this lively dance in a 9/8 rhythm is characterized by playful hand gestures that often mimic events from daily life. " -- worldartswest.org A few notes from a National Geographic book written forty years ago about European Rom: In Istanbul, the Sulukule colony had long been famous for belly dancing. The women taught professional artists for a few lira a lesson. Gypsies greatly influenced the belly dance, and also the arts of conjuring and the jigging of puppets. The area had a reputation with the police as the place where the honest musicians lived. However, much of Sulukele was torn down by municiple authorities in 1966 because the houses were crumbling.

Turkish Rom Videos

1. Ahmet Ogren promotes himself as a Turkish Roman dancer on his website. He also has a minute or two of a dance class on You Tube as a promotion.
2. Fatima Serin performs a roman havasi. Cute costume. I wonder how she would have danced this in bare feet.
3. Jennet Shook. I love this.
4. Ozgen: this guy is just too charming!
5. More Ozgen.
6. Reyhan set the gold standard for female solo with this clip, IMO.
7. Cayo found this documentary on Turkish Roma music and dance, what a find!
8. Looks like a school festival here with great dancing by kids. another one, the same group..
9. More Roman Havasi on You Tube. Here is another one, maybe of the same party.
10. Kurtlar vadisi roman roman show. The last dancer, the middle-aged fellow in green shirt, is outstanding.

Turkish Rom Teachers and Performers.

Teachers who specialize in Turkish dance often understand Turkish Romany dance. Ruric has taken workshops from several of these teachers, so if you are a student and want Ruric's recommendation before investing money, ask her!

• Elizabeth Artemis Mourat is a dance legend whose best known specialties are Turkish Romany (Gypsy) dance and its "daughter dance" the Turkish Oriental. Both Ruric-Amari and Anna took workshops with her in Louisville when MEDSOK brought her to town in 2006, at the Folk tours dance camp in 2007 and 2008, plus a week-long intensive in Maryland in 2010. You can buy her DVD Turkish Style Belly Dance from her web site or on Amazon.com.
• Tayyar Adkeniz is also a highly praised Turkish music and dance teacher. Ruric has taken workshops from him at Folk tours in 2006 and 2007. He has a small amount of information on his web site.
• Eva Cernik is also a a highly regarded specialist in Turkish dance, including Romany dances. Here is a recent video of her dancing.
• Elizabeth Strong is an American dancer who has studied and performs Turkish Romany dance. Ruric took a workshop with her when Mecca brought her to Lexington in 2006.
• Armani Ali, based in Goshen IN, teaches and performs Turkish Romany dance. Ruric took a workshop with her in 2007.
• Reyhan and her husband, Romany music and dance partners.
• Ahmet Ogren. Like many dancers and teachers, he has a web site but not much on it. He did take the time to post the following on Tribe.net:
  • Roman Dance is an individual dance and is a dance of improvisation. Roman Dancer dances according to what one feels within the music that is being played.
  • In order to dance Romany dance one must do a research on Roman Dance. Their life style and mentality must be taken to consideration. If you want to really learn Roman Dance then research on your teachers as well, swirling the skirts does not make a Roman Dancer!
  • The difference between Karsilama and Roman dance is;
    Karsilama has 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3 as a measuring rhythm (Never can be danced as a Solo)
    In Roman, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-3 as a measuring rhythm more simplified 1-2-3-4-5
    One step, two step, three step, Four; (Skip) Jump, Five a step.

A few notes gathered from Bhuz.com

1. Gestures made while dancing:
   • Romani gestures unlike...say...Indian dance gestures...don't have set narrative meanings.
   • Added to this is the fact that what you will be told are the meanings will vary greatly depending on who you talk to, what their relationship is to Romani culture, what they might judge YOUR relation to Romani culture to be..yadda yadda yadda. Some gestures (skirt wringing, scrubbing, instruments mimed, making bread) are drawn from real-life, some gestures do have multiple meanings (sweeping the arms in some ways can mean anything from "look at how well I am provided for, my bangles; to... where ARE my bangles?... why aren't you providing more? and then there are cuts and hits. Cuts and hits are usually primarily to somewhat show percussive sounds, accents, and can be used over most of the body...sometimes a hit to the hip might indicate your powerful baby-capable hips but might also just mean the music is playing a "Dun"...
   • Adding to what's already been said -- the fist-bumping is part of Turkish-style belly dance, which comes from the Turkish Romani ("Gypsy") style in particular. You will see it used during a Turkish song in a 9/8 rhythm that is often danced in more or less Romani style.
   • I wouldn't just add fist-bumping into my dancing unless I was doing Romani-style movement at the same time. Romani style dance is very specific and different from typical belly dance.
2. Skirt work:
   • If you bring in a lot of skirt work into your solo, be aware that skirt work and skirt choreography to Turkish/Romani music generally comes from American Cabaret interpretation and is not traditionally part of Turkish Romani dance. There are some Russian Romani who do a dance of displaying large skirts (but it isn't that swooshy) and there is some skirt in Flamenco which also has Romani roots, but some Romani do consider the skirt touching and flipping about to be unclean.
   • Not to say that you can't touch your skirt, or even that you can't do American Cabaret skirt work, just that it isn't Turkish ”Gypsy”/Romani and shouldn't be presented as such.
3. Male dancing:
   • I've been watching videos of Ozgen on you tube, and there are two videos of him doing Turkish Roman where towards the end he takes off one shoe, shoves it in his trousers and waggles it about. When he was here he explained that this is not uncommon in Romani dance. Anything that emphasizes the pelvic movements can be used (i.e. shoe, knotted sweater or jacket, belt etc). Romani dance as performed by men is rather more overtly sexual & ”macho” than what we are used to.
   • If you watch Romani dancing, it is quite common that guys tie their jacket around their hips and make the sleeves flip around a lot. Eva Cernik mentioned the Ozgen clip in a workshop, and also shared that during Hedereljezi, it is common that men put an (open) water bottle into their pants, just like the shoe, which is gonna lead to spillage. During a spring festival that is related to fertility celebrations, it is hard not to come to a fairly clear interpretation ..., and Eva thought that the shoe thing has similar roots.
4. David of Davr:
   • Roman musicians play many kinds of music. mostly for restaurant gigs and non-roman events they will play all kinds of standard Turkish folk, pop and even classical and many play a little Arabic music too. essentially, they are paid musicians and are going to play what most people in turkey want: turkish music(with a little roman thrown in). Basically, it's a gig.
   • Now, that has nothing to do with what they consider to be Roman music and dance or 'Roma Oyun Havasi', as it is called. this music and dance features exclusively(at this time) 9/8 music and the movements you will see from Reyhan. this is what they play and dance at their events and weddings. and is seen all over inside the old Ottoman borders of Trakya/Thrace - now Turkey, eastern Greece, southern Bulgaria. the music and dance are completely their own thing and have very specific tendencies with room for improv as the art progresses.
   • If a Roman person dances to non-Roman(non- Roman 9/8) music, it is just called "dance" ! ; ) it is no longer Roman oyun havasi.
   • The word you guys want is Karsilama(Pronounced Karshilama) in Turkish. it has nothing specific to do with Roman Oyun Havasi. Karsilama is a Turkish/Greek partner folk dance that has many variations around Turkey and is done commonly to the standard turkish 9/8 (D-T-D-TT-) that everyone knows, but also to many other rhythms including 3,5,7,10. the steps in Roman Oyun Havasi dance may be similar to some versions of karsilama dance but are not necessarily used. Wiki says: Karsilamas is a Turkish folk dance spread all over Northwest Asia Minor and carried to Greece by Asia Minor refugees.
   • So, the rhythms: that standard Turkish 9/8, (which is often called karsilama in the USA, not in Turkey), is almost never used in Roman songs. The main forms of 9/8 used in the majority of Roman music, there are many many variations of these rhythms, as a percussionist, i would say there are about 8 to 10 standard variations of 2 or 3 main forms that i generally hear and use. they are weird and do not sound like the 9/8 we all know and love!

Ahmet Ogren on Roman Dance and Karsilama

Dear Dancers, Thank you very much for sharing your prespectives about me. I would like to share my 30 years of Dance experience and 20 years of my research on Roman Dance with you.

1. KARSILAMA is not a Roman Dance.
2. No Oriental Dancer in Turkey, will ever do KARSILAMA dance as part of their dance routine. The reason of similarity between Karsilama and the Roman dance is the fact that they both share 9/8 rhytem. All music that has 9/8 ryhtem is not a Roman music.
3. Karsilama Dance has rules and regulations, without these rules there wont be a Karsilama Dance! These Rules are:
   • measures must be within 9
   • Handkircief must be used.
   • Most important part of the dance is that it must be danced with at least two or more people. It is never done as a Solo Dance.
4. Roman Dance is an indivudual dance and is a dance of improvisation. Roman Dancer dances according to what one feels with in the music that is being played.
5. In order to dance Romany dance one must do a research on Roman Dance. Their life style and mentallity must be taken to consideration.
6. If you want to really learn Roman Dance then research on your teachers as well, swirling the skirts does not make a Roman Dancer!
7. Of course you can dance to 9/8 but do not say, " I am dancing to Karsilama or Roman." The difference between Karsilama and Roman dance is;
   • Karsilama has 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3 as a muasuring ryhtem (Never can be danced as a Solo)
   • In Roman, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-3 as a measuring rhytem more simplified 1-2-3-4-5
     One step, two step, three step, Four; (Skip) Jump, Five a step.

Indian

The popular image of the "snake charmer" originates from the Kalbeliya tribe of Rajasthan in Northern India, thought to be the "Gateway of the Gypsies" due to the belief that the Roma diaspora began there in the 11th century. Kalbeliya dancers wear black in homage to the Mother Goddess Kali, from whom the tribe derives their name. In this dance, performers twirl ecstatically and stomp the earth in costumes of ornate embroidery and intricate beadwork while conjuring "kundalini" or "serpent power." -- worldartswest.org

Videos: Indian Rajasthan Gypsy dance

1. Duet to folk song from Rajasthan
2. Latcho Drom: famous clip of Rjasthan dance and song.

Russian Rom

British Rom

1. Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month website.
2. Romany life, experienced and observed during many years of friendly intercourse with the Gypsies published in 1915, author Frank Cuttriss.
3. Romany Road UK
4. The Gypsy Lore Society, founded in 1888 in Great Britain. One hundred years later, it moved headquarters to the US in 1989.
   • Home page
   • Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 1888 -1999.

Spanish Flamenco

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