Original scientific paper
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE RESEARCHES INTO THE SOCIAL ROLE OF DANCE IN CROATIA
Ivan Ivančan
Abstract
The folk-dance has today, and in the past it had much more, beside its entertaining and recreation role, beside its magic role in the past, some social functions too.
In northern regions of Croatia, especially in Slavonia, the dance is a public tribune on which numerous events in the life of village, country and all the world are analized. The love, the woman rival, the father, the mother, the priests, the landlords, the political conditions are talked about in couplets of the song accompanying dance. Those who are guilty of something do not approach the »kolo«, because the »počimalja«, who leads the song, would make a poignant verse on their account and they -would be made object of derision. Nondancers, children and old men, who come not only to see something but also to hear about the most recent events, gather around the »kolo«.
In Dinara region the bachelors choose in the »kolo« the future wives. In Lika
there were three fairs: on »Velika Gospa« — »zagledač« (of looking at girls), on
»Mala Gospa« — »probirač« (of selecting the girl), and on St. Petka day — »podmorač« (who ought to). At the first fair the bachelors look the girls, at the second they selecting and at the third they ought to choose one, as the names of the fairs themself tell us. And this choosing is made just in the »kolo«. They watch, which one of the girls will dance longest, which one will jump highest and even which one will dance longer than a boy. They will preferably and quickest marry such a girl.
In the same region the entering of a girl in a »kolo« signifiles that she is ready for matrimony, that she has prepared her »dota«, the dowry. A rigid sequence in marrying caused, that the younger sister could enter in a »kolo« only if the older one is married.
The initiation fests among many primitive peoples comprised the training of dances necessary for ceremony and for magic uses. Many of these were at the same time a teaching to work too, they contained working movements. And in our country a woman from Lika teaches her child the sowing movements dancing:
In this way the »kolo« is danced, jump and step,
In this way the grain is sown, take and throw.
Maybe and some other plays are rests of such teaching the working movements by means of a song and dance »Sejala sam lenek« (I sowed the flax) and so on.
Folk-dance gives opportunity for givig vent to some fundamental and inborn human characteristics. The dancer can improvise on the basic rhytmical sheme, he can excel in particular, he can display his individual skill, but his dancing ought to harmonize with the collective.
The national awakening expressed itself in the dance too. The folk-dances were danced at the parties from the time of Gaj's Illyrians till the last war. The dances get names from it, e. g. »Croatian« or from the appelation of political parties, as »radikalka« for example.
In the partisan struggle the dance played a very important role specially »Kozaračko kolo« (»kolo« from Kozara). The combatants from cities and from villages, of different nationalities and professions, found in it a simple means of expression, in which they all could jointly participate. Only the folk-dance, in course of centuries polished for collective expression, could supply a simple melody, a verse first told by an individual and then repeated easily by all, who listened to the voice, important and equal in the collective.
The social role of the dance manifests itself in a series of other modularities. In some regions the dance partialy serves as a means of earning material goods, it accomplishes important wedding tasks, it educates and soothes the social, religious, national and differences in age, it transfers in its civic couple form the urban civilization in the village, etc.
The social role of the folk-dance has today a particular importance. Dancing groups act all over the world. The dance with its simple beauty and immediateness is a medium for drawing near different nations, for their better mutual acquaintance.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
34446
URI
Publication date:
5.3.1964.
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