Tag Archives | Roma

Lots of Love for Lautari

All Around This World adores lautari, and so should you.

The Romani are an ethnic group generally believed to have originated in northwestern India over 2300 years ago and to have migrated westward, ending up in most regions of Europe. For centuries many European Roma lived outside the mainstream, dwelling in impermanent “squatter” communities or in small, economically depressed villages — sometimes due to discrimination, other times, to maintain their own culture, by choice. Despite being held at arms’ length, Roma musicians, especially those from a sprawling “clan” of virtuosos known as “lautari,” like those see in this video, who earned respect due to their their musical prowess. All Around This World certainly respects them; especially the way they carry two millennia of music wherever the go.

Klezmer is Cool and the Roma Rock

This week in our online class we depart from our usual country-by-country routine to go off the beaten track with the Roma/Romani people and with Ashkenazic (Central and Eastern European-descended) Jews. Both groups have lived at one point or another in almost ever corner of Eastern Europe, and have been evicted from the same. Both groups have long histories full of unfathomable struggle, yet have somehow managed to survive. Both make music that bursts with joy and at the very same time can be so, so sad.

Snapping, Clapping and Slapping our Shoes

Romani dancing in traditional Roma communities is ubiquitous, an overflowing embodiment of joy.

There are organized Roma dances but the informal and improvised snapping, clapping and general glee we see in this video make us want to dance too. This video of Roma dancing in Transylvania, Hungary, will inspire you to hop to your feet. (A note: the term “gypsy,” long associated with the Roma and included in this video title, is pejorative and one we don’t use in class.)

Bravo for the Brigands

In class this week we raved about Roma musicians and may have even name-checked one of our very favorite Roma band, Taraf de Haidouks — “Band of Brigands.”

Taraf de Haidiouks is composed of 11 Roma musicians from the town of Clejani, Romania. Celebrating Roma music gives us a chance to marvel at our friendly brigands’ spirit as they channel centuries of Roma survival in every song. In this video, “Rustem,” these virtuosos strut their stuff.

We Traffic in Joy

This week in class we we learned about two infamously musical peoples, the Roma and the Jews, so how can we not dance? In this video I do some informal Romani-style dancing — ’tis true, I do it terribly — and teach “the grapevine,” the most basic of basic steps one may use to dance to klezmer. Remember, our mission when we dance in class is not perfection! Technically we’re terrible; we traffic in joy.

Classic Klezmer Standoff from “Train of Life”

Today we ride the “Train of Life,” and make joyous music as we do.

We can surely all get along, at least if we’re making music! In this exuberant clip from “Zug des Lebens” (“Train of Life,”) Jewish and non-Jewish, presumably Roma, musicians find common ground in song. (The party really kicks in at about 1:30.) The 1998 film, a French-language collaboration between French, Belgian, Dutch, Israeli and Romanian filmmakers and musicians, tells the tale of Jewish village’s attempt to escape the Holocaust by masquerading as a Nazi transport train while really heading away from the concentration camps, toward Palestine.

Ukrainian Roma Singing in the Street

What better reason to travel to Bilky, Ukraine, than to sing in the street with this Ukrainian Roma band?

Beyond a robust minority of Russians, who compose approximately 20% of the population, Ukraine boasts a diversity of people, cultures and music that may be surprising to those who equate the nation with its rapidly modernizing, increasingly European capital of Kiev. For example Ukraine is home to a variety of mountain-dwelling ethnic groups, such as the Boikians, Lemkians and Hutsuls (who we’ll meet later this week). There is also a small but active population of Romani, such as the Ukrainian Roma members of the band in this video.