Dance Kavkaz

Out taking photos of people enjoying the Nowruz Bayiram, i came across this dashing young man in the Old City sporting a traditional piece of headwear. Azeris do seem to love items from their traditional cultures, even if today they prefer to embrace knock-off's of modern, upscale chic. i've had a couple of souvenir sellers try to get me to buy one of these, but my hunch that they were not made for women turns out to be correct. Always eager to assure me that doesn't matter, they are suddenly less immune to gender expectations if i do something radical like accidentally flash a pack of cigs or add to confirmation of my single status that i'm not at all interested in finding a husband, Azeri or otherwise. Yet i digress.

Last week one of my students showed me a fantastic video he'd taken of dancers at a wedding (on his blackberry! god, my life is so technologically deprived) but since the file was far too big to email, i started checking out what youtube has to offer in the way of Lezgi dance. This ended up being a relatively long indulgence, as i found the array of commentary threads more interesting than the dance clips, themselves. Many of the comments are in Russian, Azeri and who knows what other languages (Armenian? transliterated Georgian?) but here are a couple examples, just to give my readers an idea of where/how dance and national identities mix (or don't) in regional minds..

Actually Lezginka is a national dance of many people from the Caucasus. It's name comes from the Lezgin people; nevertheless, Chechens, Lezghins, Ossetians, Circassians, Karachays, Balkars, Abkhazians, Kabardins, Ingush, Georgians, Ingilos, Azerbaijanis, Iranian Azerbaijan the Russian Kuban and Terek Cossacks and the various ethnicities of Dagestan have their own versions of Lezginka.

Another comment:

I'm sorry to disappoint all those thinking it's Dagestani dance, costumes and music. They were altered (for the worse) with significant Russified elements, which true Dagestani dance, constumes and music do NOT have. Dagestan has a very distinct from Russia culture. This "concert" was obvioulsy targeting some Russian Russians and foreigners liking/familiar with Russian culture. In sum, this circus is misrepresenting of truly Dagestani culture (dance constumes, music). What a circus!

This time, snippets from a discussion thread:

(1) This is not sukashvili, I have most of sukashvili's DVDs. This is from Dagestan. Of course georgians as usual make every good thing that comes out of caucas look as if it was theirs. Sukashvili is an amazing ensemble too but this one for sure isn't sukashvili. Dagistanis do it well Georgians take the credit for.

(2) what? this is not Georgian dance? are you out of your mind? haha this is an outrage man somebody on the youtube must make policy and stop graud like this it is fuckin desgusting..... change the title (its real name is Parikaoba) or I am reporting this video and reporting your profile both

(3) This is not georgian dance. It is chechen lezginka. Shame on you!

At this point, i don't know which dance truly and unadulteratedly represents which culture; even if i wanted to put the time in to sort out the differences in costumes (easiest) and associated music (doable but time-consuming), being able to distinguish dance styles, which many seem to believe have infinite overlap, is quite honestly beyond my terpsichorean capabilities. Originally planning to call this post 'Lesginka', i humbly bow to my own confusion, only able to say for sure that the following clips and links are from the Caucasus region.

This one has a great opening, with the knife dancing and is an 'official' dance company, so i want to trust that the cultural representation is accurate (trust is all i've got here, sorry). Check this out to seem some knife throwing.



Here we've got men in the sheepskin hats, filmed at a wedding, which captures a certain in situ atmosphere.



Lastly, i just love this frenetic video from southern Azerbaijan, which focuses a bit more on the musicians and is called Shalaxo.



In a couple weeks i'll have left this country, so trying my best to introduce my far flung readership to some of the more interesting and unique features of Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, i've hardly been able to get out of Baku (6 day work weeks have that effect) but i follow hints from people i meet as much as possible... this whole dance world sent my into a spin. Hope you enjoy!