Kolo ( sr-Cyrl, Коло) is a UNESCO List of Intagible Cultural Heritage inscribed South Slavic circle dance, found under this name in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.

History

According to Wilkes (1995), the kolo has an Illyrian origin as the dance seems to resemble dances depicted on funeral monuments of the Roman era.

Description

The circle dance is usually performed amongst groups of at least three people and up to several dozen people.

Dancers Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

hold each other's hands or each other's waists. They form a circle, a single chain or multiple parallel lines. Kolo requires almost no movement above the waist. The basic steps are easy to learn. Experienced dancers demonstrate virtuosity by adding different ornamental elements, such as

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...

steps. Each region has at least one unique kolo. It is difficult to master the dance and even most experienced dancers cannot master all of them. Kolo is performed at weddings, social, cultural, and religious ceremonies."kolo"
(2009). ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved March 26, 2009. Some dances require both men and women to dance together, others require only the men or only the women.

Music

The music is generally fast-paced. The dance was used by

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...

in his '' Slavonic Dances'' – the Serbian kolo is the seventh dance from opus 72.

Traditional dance costume

Traditional dance costumes vary from region to region. Bordering regions are mostly more similar to each other. Various kolos are performed at social ceremonies. Often traditional clothing, which is unique to a region, is worn. The most common kolo is the ''narodno kolo'' or ''drmeš''; a standard step followed by accordion music.

Other South Slavic circle dances

Elsewhere in South Slavic countries, there is horo ( bg, хоро) in Bulgaria and

oro Oro or ORO, meaning gold in Spanish and Italian, may refer to: Music and dance * Oro (dance), a Balkan circle dance * Oro (eagle dance), an eagle dance from Montenegro and Herzegovina * "Oro" (song), the Serbian entry in the 2008 Eurovision S ...

( mk, оро) in North Macedonia and Montenegro.

References

External links

Music and video of the basic Kolo

Kolo, traditional folk dance
on the Unesco YouTube channel {{List of intangible cultural heritage of Serbia Bosnian dances Croatian folk dances Serbian folk dances European folk dances Dance forms in classical music Circle dances