Here’s your obscure cultural education for the weekend.
I found this while looking for a simple kolo for my husband and I to learn. Kolo is a fast, traditional folk dance/music from the Balkans, and we both fool around with the accordion (badly). I grew up listening and dancing to this stuff. But this young band kicks it up a notch, to put it mildly. I think you’ll enjoy this video, even if you have no idea what I’m talking about.
It is impossible to be in a bad mood listening to this stuff.
For reference, this is the traditional form (and even one of the songs and choreography I had to learn as a young lady):
I worked in an office next to one occupied by a Serbian petroleum engineer a few years back. He was very fond of Serbian folk music and had a whole collection of CDs. It took a little getting used to first thing in the morning - lol - but eventually I learned to kind of like it. It’s energetic, peppy and full of verve, or else deeply steeped in bathos, depending on the tempo. Timid, it is not.
I had a conference call scheduled in my office one morning with two colleagues visiting from another city joining me. Dragan was going to town with his music next door. One of my colleagues, rather seriously, asked “Is someone torturing a goat in there?” That got a laugh all around, even from Dragan when I told him about it later.
From that day forward, the goat had an apocryphal existence all its own. Whenever one of my colleagues would call, he or she would always inquire after the health of the goat.
