I’ve put several links (most to very short vids) in this post since I’d like to take a short break to study the Bulgarian music which suprachakra introduced this week (thankfully – I was running out of ideas. Wasn’t that song beautiful?).
For anyone interested in the ancient and pre-history of different peoples, music can be a great tool to use as musical styles change more slowly than even language does.
There are “informal” traditional dance videos in the group I’m posting today, all from the Republic of Georgia (which the residents call Sakartvelo) in the Southern Caucasus, or Transcaucasus, Mts on the Black Sea Coast. By “informal”, I mean everyday people dancing in restaurants and such.
In Georgia, everyone sings and dances, cradle to grave, traditional songs and dances. The most common traditional wedding gift in a village is a musical instrument for the home (usually the 3-string panduri). Westerners who visit Georgia comment that it’s abnormal if you go to a restaurant, or someone’s home for dinner, or an airport terminal, etc, and some people don’t break out in song and dance. Doesn’t that sound wonderful, almost like an old Hollywood musical?
These dances and songs represent an unbroken tradition going back to perhaps as early as 2500 BC (the dating of the earliest high civilization artefact found thus far in Georgia). However, wine making in Georgia dates back to at least 6000 BC – I believe Georgia is now considered the cradle of wine and viticulture. They grow over 500 varieties of grapes.
As noted in a previous post, Georgia was the ancient kingdom of Colchis, the “mythical” land of mystery and magic, to which Jason and the Argonauts sailed (this is now undisputed, mainstream scholarship). The first high kingdom of Colchis probably goes back to at least 1500 BC; there were strong ties with the earliest Mediterranean civilization, the ancient Minoans, as well as the later Mycenaeans and Greeks. Jason and the Argonauts probably did find a golden fleece in Colchis, since the residents in the high mts of the Svaneti region still use rams’ fleeces to pan the streams for flecks of gold.
One of the most unique aspects of Georgian culture is the polyphonic (multiple voices, harmony) singing, believed to predate any other known polyphonic tradition in the world by 300 to 500 years. There are no clues as to where this musical tradition came from, since all of Georgia’s neighbors have a monophonic (one voice) tradition. The musical scale and style is an isolate, different from any other known tradition (at least in their origins), as are the Georgian language, alphabet, and genetics.
Videos made professionally:
Georgian Legend – A fantastic introduction to Georgian music produced by the concert group Erisioni.
youtube.com/watch?v=-AqwY9XLAZA
Dance Shejibri – a short video of a thrilling competitive male dance –
They compete for the love of a lady, who has the power to stop any fight simply by walking between them.
When watching it, you find yourself saying “ouch” “ouch” “ouch”.
youtube.com/watch?v=2XJx-9uGG94
A haunting story-music video about medieval tribal warfare in the Caucasus Mts –
The Svaneti high mt region alone has over 900 defense towers guarding roads that are snowed-in half the year.
youtube.com/watch?v=nNOvytSBg-4
The First Lady of Georgia -- really, the President's wife, Sandra Roelefs Saakashvili. She is Dutch, a former international human rights attorney for the U.N. -- now a nurse and mother of 3, and informal international diplomat.
She is singing (with the group Basiani) the popular Georgian song "Suliko", which means "soul". It's based on the old Eurasian legend of the star-crossed love between the rose and the nightingale, but in Suliko, the lovers are human beings. The lost beloved sleeps beneath the rose, the bereaved talks to the nightingale who sings in the rose's branches.
Suliko was the favorite song of Josef Stalin (he was Georgian). When his first wife died, he said that all human feeling inside him died. In later years, he spent his evenings walking in his private garden alone -- it had beautiful roses -- talking to the birds and squirrels, his only friends, feeding them from a small bag of seeds he carried with him on these walks.
youtube.com/watch?v=YH6U4BEprHg
INFORMAL VIDEOS
Westerners at a benefit trying to sing and, surprisingly, dance Shina Vorgil –
I’m convinced there’s not a man, woman, child or goat in Georgia who doesn’t sing and dance Shina Vorgil
youtube.com/watch?v=IdGVbrBtvEg
Little kids dancing Shina Vorgil around the house –
I love how fast dad reacts when the little guy goes splat.
youtube.com/watch?v=5nxC_Hx2xDI
A baby not old enough to walk, but old enough to dance –
He’s dancing to a song similar to Shina Vorgil, from the Svaneti high mt region.
youtube.com/watch?v=Ave3JddHnj4
Georgians in a U.S. restaurant in Philly, dancing –
NOTE: in public traditional dancing, men never touch women, it’s considered disrespectful;
In lowland cosmopolitan trad. dance, men and women wear overlong sleeves to prevent accidental hand touching.
youtube.com/watch?v=HMXO8XHez30
Georgians in Toronto restaurant, dancing
youtube.com/watch?v=PZPACZzLtE0
Georgians in a restaurant dancing the Parikaoba, which includes swordfighting – usually over a woman –
As above, the woman can stop these dance-duels anytime by simply walking between the two men.
Note that the men do that Georgian thing where men dance on their toe knuckles – ouch! ouch!
youtube.com/watch?v=B5MYA_F-Zbw
the end rebecca
Starting to get pretty lonely in here.
