I had a taste of Romanian song and dance last night at Shatin. When the show opened, we had a small group of musicians on the left of the stage: two violins ( one of which has only 3 strings, used not for playing melodies but only for complementing the rhythm of the main melodic line from the first violin and/or accordion) one viola (played surprisingly vertically, held upon its side between the chin and shoulder instead of upon the top left corner of the bat-like surface of its body!), one doublebass and an accordion and a male singer. They started playing a song full of minor notes. The the male voice sang in a deep voice with the kind of variation somewhat like the glissando on the violin. What struck me instantly was how like the flamenco jondo style of singing it was. It made sense, the flamenco style moved West with the gypsies from Northern India.Whatever the true reason might be, after the singer had sung his soul out, there was a complete switch of mood: it became gay and exciting as he was joined by a troupe of male dancers all dressed in colorful floral patterned shirt and black trousers the same way and some female singers/dancers each in her own colorful flowing dresses with emphasized hemlines and fluffy underdress which they would lift from time to time but all with two ribboned braids one on each side of their shoulders. It's as if after lamenting the sorrow of leaving their home thousands of miles away or some more recent misfortunes they've decided that there's enough of that sadness which is eating into their here and now and that they really must make a virtue of necessity and concentrate in making the most of their present and to find such ephemeral joy as they can the living present. I turned to the Programme Notes. That opening piece is called "Gelem, gelem--Gypsy Anthem", a song written by Zarko Novanovic which he himself calls "Opre Roma "("roma"" the Gypsy term for "human") , often used by gypsies in different countries as the anthem of the Roma. The song was written in 1949 after the Gypsies were massacred by the Nazis in the Porajmos (The Romani Holocaust in World War II) and was adopted as the anthem of the Gypsies everywhere in first World Romani Congress in 1971.
Throughout the performance we had a fair sample of songs and dances from the Romania by the male dancers, like the "Gypsy Verbunk" ( an 18th century Hungarian music and dance performed as pastimes in military conscriptions, the word "Verbunk" coming from the German word "Webung" meaning "to enrol in the army") and some by the female singers/ dancers like the "Mahala Dance"( from my knowledge of Buddhism, I think "maha" means "big/great/grand, like "Mahayana", the "Big Vehicle"), a dance with graceful arm and waist movements in which one can clearly detect the influence Indian dance forms in the way they thrust their hips left and right , forward and backwards and in circular swings, the way they they move their feet in tiny but quick rhythmic up and down movements with their heels and the tips of their toes and the way the ladies move and twist their fingers up in subtle and graceful curved gestures etc.
We also had solos and some duos of either sex alone, some quartets and some ensemble by all together like "Fabián Ház " from the Szatmari Gypsies of Nagyenyed, a kind of dance which boys and girls dance together during celebrations in which the boys would dance with wooden sticks and shout the bass rhythms. We also had a Gypsy Party Song in which the dancers kept up the rhythmic play with Kanna (or cans) and spoons.The Kannas are just hollow metallic vessels with a curved handle and a round mouth on top of a tapered body normally used for holding water or other liquid. When hit quickly across the top with the palm of the hand, it produces a muffled sound. Its use is a clear demonstration of the creativity and ingenuity of the human mind: objects originally produced for one purpose can often be adapted for use for some other purpose in a completely different context. Here we have a common domestic item found in kitchen which is used to make rhythm to accompany the lively music from the strings and accordion. It made a lot of sense. The gypsies are a roving people, constantly on the move: all their musical instruments must be portable and they must if needed, improvise with such everyday objects as they may carry with them in their caravans to make sound or rhythms. Another such common item is the cajon, which the African slaves would use to build up rhythm for their music in the Carribeans. It's can be a wooden box or crate or a barrel or a drawer or even a pan and now even a big tin can or petrol drum which is adapted for use as a percussive instrument or a drum when hit with the palm or fingers and which is now sometimes also used in beating the flamenco rhythm in some Spanish flamenco number in South America.
We also had some songs called "cafe bar" (heaven knows why?) which is a kind of song with a rather soulful sadness and also another Hungarian Czarda zene ("czardas" being the name of a Hungarian dance form. ). Many would already have heard a violin piece called the Czardas. There's is also a farce-like dance called down to earth enough "A boy and three girls" in which a boy has to choose one of 3 girls to dance with him, a dance number with incorporates elements of a song type called Csingerálas (or Gypsy Paradise) which is the type of song played at weddings by the Transylvanian Gypsies, a feast which might last three days!
The songs and dance numbers, like the Spanish flamenco dance, are all characterized by strong rhythms which can be produced by the men hitting their chests, their thighs, their lower legs, their shins, their ankles, and sometimes for comical effect, even their faces and mouths combined with basic palm clapping! I know that in Flamenco, the method of production of rhythms by hand clapping in various combination of 2 long and 4 quick beats or in rhythms of 2's and 3's with emphasis on the first two long beats by one person or one person with another clapping a different rhythm is called "Palmas". In the dance of the Roma, it's more or less the same for perhaps the same reason: their Indian origin. But the music is usually fast with occasional pauses which after slowing down a bit , will then resume the broken rhythm.
As the music is mainly rhythmic, it was very very exciting indeed, especially with the dazzling visual and aural display of speed and complexity by the male dancers hitting various parts of the human body. Their hand movements resemble the those of the dances of the Cossacks, as if they were waving or hitting their short horse whip to make the horse go faster, something common to the dance forms of all the horse riding roving tribes of Central Asia. It was quite an eye opener for me. What makes it more fun is that during one of the numbers, the audience was asked to join in by clapping their hands together with the performers on stage: the audience on the right hand side were to do one type of rhythm and those on the right another and the whole hall were to clap together in unison each according to their assigned rhythm so as to create an atmosphere of complex and unified complementarity. The audience clapped their hands so long at the end of the performances that the song and dance troupe rewarded us with 2 extra numbers! Everybody left the concert hall happy, including I think the performers. We all had an excellent time.
I manage to scour the U-tube for several excerpts so that those who haven't had the chance to see and hear them may have an idea and get a bit of the flavor of what I'm writing about. But one really has to actually "experience" live to be able to fully feel and understand what I mean. The second video relates to an exercise in learning how different kind of rhythms may be produced and is often done by gypsies whenever they gather to practice how the relevant "palmas" may be combined with foot tapping to produce different rhythms. One is amazed at versatile is the human mind and body parts.
The group will perform again tonight at the Tsuen Wan Town Hall. If you have time, don't miss it or you'll only have yourself to blame. It's not as if your can find such a performance in Hong Kong every year .
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