Dance among the Urban Gypsies of Romania

In Romania today, large groups of Gypsies have retained a nomadic existence in spite of consistent endeavor by the state to make them sedentary. These “Gypsies of the carts”, tiganii de cărute, or “Gypsies of the tents”, tiganii corturari, as they are called, retain the oldest Gypsy traditions in Romania and live largely apart from both the Romanian peasants and town dwellers. However, in the cities and towns of Romania there live groups of “urban” Gypsies engaged in various trades and professions, one of the most prominent and distinguished being music. These sedentary Gypsies live their lives almost entirely without any contact with the nomadic Gypsies. The urban Gypsies speak Romanian almost exclusively, although most still understand and speak a few phrases in Romani. They are, therefore, also linguistically isolated from their nomadic counterparts. While the nomadic Gypsies may regard their city counterparts with some disdain, the city Gypsies do, among themselves, recognize that they are Gypsies. They tend to socialize only with each other and generally marry only within the Gypsy group.

Today as at the time of the slobozie, it is difficult to know with any degree of accuracy the number of Gypsies in Romania. In 1856, it was estimated that there may have been as many as 500,000 Gypsies. At present, while official estimates are given at about 200,000, the number may be as high as 500,000. Until at least a few years ago, it was not possible or permitted to acknowledge Gypsy ethnic heritage in the official Romanian census. With the great number of urban Gypsies living in the larger cities of Romania and their general unwillingness to confirm their ethnicity to non-Gypsies, combined with the difficulty of keeping track of the nomads, it is not surprising that no accurate record of their number currently exists (ibid.).
During those long years in which the Gypsies lived in Romania, there developed a tendency for specialized professions among them. Particularly among the Gypsies attached to the households of the great landowners, a class of professional Gypsy musicians gradually developed. These musicians were required to provide entertainment for the lord and his guests, but they also provided this service for the peasants as well as for other Gypsies. Despite their small number within the Gypsy population of Romania, these professional musicians stand out in the records of the time because of their fame and prowess. Although there is little information about Gypsy life itself, travellers' descriptions from the 18th and 19th centuries abound in details of courtly and village dances at which Gypsy musicians entertained.
Gradually the differences between the urban and nomadic Gypsies of Romania increased to such a degree that today they are like two distinct groups of people who nonetheless share a common origin. The culture of the urban Gypsies evolved in the context of life in the monasteries, in the feudal households and finally, in the cities, and was subject to the influences, trends and changes that came from each of these places.
It is from among the families of professional musicians of the urban Gypsies that come the musicians who provide music for both the dominant Romanian society as well as for events at which only other Gypsies are in attendance. Gypsy musicians from the hereditary families of professionals, called liiutarii, fill the ranks of most of the state music ensembles. However, dancers attached to such official state performing groups rarely, if ever, include Gypsies." Music and dance among the urban Gypsies of the larger cities of Romania, such as Bucuresti (Bucharest), appear to provide the major impetus for the development of changes in the style of Gypsy music heard throughout the country. But while it is true that today the Bucuresti style sets the pace for most Gypsy musicians, it is also true that the musicians themselves still recognize the existence of special Gypsy styles of music from Dobrogea on the Black Sea coast area, from Craiova in Oltenia, as well as from the area in and around Tirgu [iu, also in Oltenia. Although there are many local regional musicians who can and do still provide the music for these regional styles, more and more, the state-sponsored recordings by Bucuresti musicians are having an effect on the music in other parts of the country.
Regional differences are largely a matter of preference for dance form and meter and of subtle differences in ornamentation of the melodic line. All of these urban Gypsy styles are drawn from a mixture of sources. Tracing these elements is a complex process because of the mixing back and forth which has occurred over the past one hundred years at least. But in general, one might say that much of the melodic quality of this music draws from the Turkish Makam or modal system. The harmonic system that provides the substructure for these melodies is a unique adaptation of the Western European harmonic system which accommodates the very special requirements of a melodic system heavily influenced by Turkish melodic types. The formal and rhythmic structure of this music, and consequently of the dances, appears to draw mostly from Romanian folk sources which, again, may have already been heavily influenced by a combination of Gypsy, Turkish, Western European, and Romanian folk elements. Added to this is the particular style of melodic as well as rhythmic phrasing and expression which seems to have been retained from elements in the music of the nomadic Gypsies.
It is important to reaffirm the uniqueness of the music and dance of the Romanian urban Gypsies. Although it is related formally both to Romanian folk music and dance as well as to the older popular styles of the big cities, stylistically, it can be considered truly Gypsy music and dance because its provenance is very specially urban Gypsy. It is very distinct from the dance and music of the nomadic Gypsies and it is distinct as well from the dance and music of the Romanian peasant, its close relation to this notwithstanding.
It is apparent that the professional Gypsy musicians were often required to perform for the boiers and voivods in the cities and at the feudal estates. In the beginning, these Gypsy musicians provided the ceremonial and entertainment music for the Turkish overlords, and apparently, the Romanian nobles soon began to model their courts on those of the Turks. In this manner, Turkish musical forms came into fashion. In the houses of the Romanian lords, Western European elements were brought into the music and those same Gypsy musicians were required to learn to perform this music as well. Gradually when the power of these houses waned, the Gypsy musicians went out into the villages and learned and adapted the music of the folk dances of the Romanian peasants. While the Romanian peasant traditionally performed his music on either the cirnpoi (bagpipe) or the fluier (an end-blown or fipple flute), the professional Gypsy musicians came to perform in small ensembles called tacim or taraf which consisted of mixed Turkish and European instruments. The smallest tacirn might consist of a violin, a set of panpipes called nai or rnuscal, and a small plucked lute called either l&ut& or cobza. Larger tarafs traditionally include one to three more violins with a single nai or cobza. Later, other instruments were gradually added to the ensemble so that today, the modern Gypsy taraf has changed somewhat.
The violin remains essential, but the cobza has largely been replaced by the mallet-struck dulcimer, the tambal (also known as cyrnbalorn), and a string bass and accordion are now most often encountered. Although the nai continues to be used prominently in Romanian Gypsy music, it does not figure as frequently as it appears to have done even as late as the turn of the century.
From the time during which the Gypsy musicians were required to perform Turkish classical and ceremonial music, through the required adaptation of Polish and German music under the Romanian landlords, to the taking up of the music of the Romanian peasant, the elements which helped to mold the contemporary Gypsy style have been many. The most important influence, however, would seem to have been the music of the large cities themselves during the last century. Here, in the largest ones like Bucuresti, there flourished a number of styles of modern urban music of which the most distinct elements were European "salon" and dance music and especially Greek and Turkish popular styles. Of these various styles, the Turkish, which had already certainly permeated the Greek music of the time, must have been the most prominent. The 19th century Romanian music critic, Nicolae Filimon, noted that so strong was the influence of Turkish music during the Fanariot period in Romania that it became necessary to invent a new system of harmony in order to accompany their melodies because the existing European system served them so poorly. 2 Gypsy musicians often travelled to the big cities to seek employment either voluntarily or under orders from the lord of the house. Gradually, increasing numbers of Gypsies-musicians as well as those from other professions-came to settle in these large cities. They tended to gather in the settlements which grew up on the edges of the city center. These neighborhoods were known as mahala (pl. mahalale). Although these mahalale were not specifically Gypsy slums, they were heavily populated by Gypsies. It is in these areas, surrounded by the Greek, Turkish, and European elements of the city nearby, that the special urban popular forms arose. The music of these districts came to be called cintec de mahala or "songs of the mahala", Today, the term is used almost synonymously with the term muzica lautareasca to mean urban Gypsy music although the two terms may have been more mutually exclusive before the turn of the century.
The entire repertoire of the urban Gypsies is most often referred to as muzica lautareasci: or music of the lautars, the professional or Gypsy musicians. Within this broad category are a number of different song and dance types. The dances are accompanied by an ensemble that is almost always strictly instrumental. The same instrumental combination accompanies songs which are known by various names: cintec liiutaresc (songs of the lautars) , cintec de pahar (drinking songs), or cintec de petrecere (songs of pleasure or relaxation). Although these songs are treated as one large general category, there are, in fact, certain important internal distinctions. Many of the vocal lines are sung in free rhythm in a style similar to the Romanian folk form, the doina. Among the urban Gypsies, however, the instrumental accompaniment to these songs in the doina style is in fixed, regular meter. The remainder of the vocal repertoire has both the melodic line and the accompaniment in fixed rhythmic patterns. But even those songs which maintain a fixed relationship to the meter retain a certain fluid quality which suggests a strong relationship to the freer doina-like song type. In this regard, these songs resemble the cintec de dragoste or "songs of love and longing" which are thought to have evolved as a result of a gradual rhythmic formalization of the doina form. Although all of the vocal repertoire of the urban Gypsy is set in a clear dance rhythm, much of it, at least in the vocal line, retains a fluid, free rhythmic characteristic. Furthermore, even though all of the music may use a fixed, regular meter in the accompaniment, the vocal pieces are traditionally never danced.
The dances may be broadly divided into two types: 1) those which use forms and patterns related but not identical to Romanian folk dances; and 2) those which appear to draw from Gypsy or Turkish sources and which are never used by non-Gypsies in Romania. In point of fact, during the period of my research in Romania, only one such exclusively Gypsy dance form came to light: the manea of which I shall have more to say later. Despite regular inquiries, I found no other dances of the second type in use. I also make a distinction, perhaps arbitrarily, between those dances, unique in form, which are not used by non-Gypsies and those other dances which, although interpreted in a distinctive manner by the Gypsies, are nonetheless also used widely by Romanian peasants. For example, the sirba and the hora are dances which are dominant among non-Gypsy and Gypsy Romanians alike. But although both dances are frequently encountered in performances by Romanian Gypsy musicians, the sirba is rarely danced by the Gypsies among themselves and I have not ever seen them dance it. At the same time, depending on how much importance one places on such matters as style, expression, and social context, the Gypsy and non-Gypsy forms of these dances may appear to be either roughly similar or totally alien to each other. Needless to say, the differences are readily apparent to the Gypsies themselves.
While the songs of the cintec lautaresc repertoire always have titles which are either taken from or relate to the text of the songs themselves, the dance pieces, not being associated with a song and therefore with a text, are always described in terms of the basic form of the dance which the melodies are intended to accompany. The most usual by far is the hora with the next most frequently encountered form being the sirba. Many of these dance melodies are further identified by the addition of either the name of the region of the country or town from which they may be thought to have originated or, as is most commonly the case with this urban music, the name of the particular musician, frequently the composer, with whom the piece is generally associated. For example, the Hora din Clejani is a hora from the town of Clejani, while the Hora lui Buica is Buica's horae Thus, it may be that it is the name of the musician from whom another musician may have learned the piece who is included in the title although he may not have been the actual composer. In this way, the same melody may occur with two different titles, each one attributing it to a different composer because it may have been transmitted by a different line or family of musicians. Such occurrences make it nearly impossible to know with any certainty who the original composer might have been.
In more recent times, this situation has been exacerbated because official Romanian policy states that folk music-meaning all that was not composed in the Western European fine art tradition-is a product of the people and, therefore, there can be no individual composer. As a consequence, when recordings are made today, if the composer's name is not already a part of the traditional title of the composition, it cannot be included in the information provided with the recording. Thus, unfortunately, information which is well-known to many professional Gypsy musicians in Romania today must be elicited by asking about each piece individually.
Among the Romanian peasants of Dobrogea, Muntenia, and Oltenia, both the sirba and the hora are usually circle dances. However, among the urban Gypsies, these dances are more often apt to be a solo dance, more personal and. expressive in style than the group-dance version of the Romanian peasant. The hora is perhaps never performed by the Gypsies as a circle or line dance; at least I have never seen it danced by the Gypsies in this manner. Today, perhaps as a result of the influence of Western social dancing in the large cities, these dances may also be danced by couples, either by male-female or by female pairs. At large social events such as weddings which are held in large banquet halls or restaurants, the dancing seems to be most often done by couples. However, in locations where the emphasis is on the musicians (for example, in a small restaurant or a drinking place), someone from the audience may spontaneously find himself overcome by the need to respond to the music. Such dances are not done for the pleasure of the audience, and there is little virtuosic display; one senses a quiet pleasure made more intense by dancing to the music rather than by just listening to it.
This type of solo dancing is the essence of the Hora tigiineasca, the "hora in the Gypsy style". A hora danced by a single dancer in a free improvisatory and very personal style is generally recognized as a Gypsy dance style in Romania. It flourishes not only in the large cities such as Bucuresti but throughout the entire region of the Cimpia Dunarii, the Danube plain of Muntenia and Dobrogea which in fact represents the area of immediate cultural influence of the urban Gypsy style of the capital. So popular is this style of dancing in this region around the Danube coast that it is frequently danced by non-Gypsies as well. Thus, one sometimes encounters Romanian peasants of this region dancing in a style which they refer to as a de unu signur, meaning "by one alone", to differentiate it from the more usual group circle hora of the Romanian peasant.
Ritual dances no longer appear to function as such among the citydwelling Gypsies of Romania. What does survive appears to be more a vestige of the past, albeit one still clearly remembered by many. These living vestiges frequently are preserved on phonograph records.
The recording and record-producing process for most music in Romania is rather strictly controlled, but one senses that Gypsy forms thrive despite the neglect from which records of Gypsy music suffer. Once the state record monopoly discovered that the Gypsies would buy records of their music and that, in fact, recordings by the most respected Gypsy artists could even turn a sizeable profit, the state record company, Electrecord, began issuing records of this music regularly. However, when records of Gypsy music appear, it is noticeable that there are no Da-ne 0 para, Da-ne 0 para Si ti-om juca 0 tanana. 90 / 1984 YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC descriptive notes provided and that there is a certain laxness in the details of production. I can only surmise that this laxness accounts for the very frequent use of the catch-all title, Hora tiganeasca or Hora Iautareasca, both of which imply a hora in the Gypsy style, for while it is true that the idea of describing this type of dance and its music as a Hora tiganeasca has been in existence in Romania for over one hundred years, this fact cannot explain why one comes across a specific ritual melody side by side with a title as general as Hora tigiuieasca.
The ritual melody in question remains popular, is frequently recorded, but to my knowledge, has not been played in its proper context in recent times. It is the special hora which was intended for the morning after a wedding if on that morning, it had been determined that the event was an appropriately joyous one. Known by many names, this composition is sometimes called Hora de dimineata (the hora of the morning) or Hora dupa nunta (the hora after the wedding) or Rachiu rO$U, meaning red raki or tuica, the Romanian plum brandy. Today, although the context in which it was traditionally played is still known to most of the musicians, the Hora de dimineatii has lost its contextual significance. This is also true of such compositions as the Cintec la masa mare, the song of the big table or the wedding banquet table. These were perhaps originally sung at the wedding feast while the guests were at the table. At present, these pieces are found only in instrumental settings.
Although it apparently no longer survives in Romania and is no longer remembered by everyone I asked, there is a unique song and dance form which was frequently mentioned in 19th-century writings and which was always clearly associated with Gypsies. This form was called the tanana. M. Kogalniceanu relates that when the boier went out of the city in his carriage, Gypsy children would run after the carriage singing: Give us a coin, Give us a coin, And we will dance a tanana. (From Tomescu 1973:344) In the story, Istoria unui galben, the Romanian author, Vasile Alecsandri, describes how after the tent has been put up, the men in the Gypsy family go out to try to sell something they have made, the old women head for town to tell fortunes, the young boys play with trained bears, and the children go out to the field to dance the tanana. George Potra in his history of the Gypsies in Romania (1939) says that the Gypsy bear trainers would travel around the country entertaining everyone with bears dancing the tanana.
Although it is difficult to guess what form the tanana may have had among the Gypsies, it seems probable that that form could have been Turkish in origin. This, one might surmise largely because the name tanana bears a strong resemblance to a form widespread in the Middle East, more specifically, to the Turkish tereniim and Persian tarana. These are generally vocal forms of a light and frequently improvisatory character which are sung to short phrases, often with meaningless syllables. It is possible that only the name was appropriated by the Romanian Gypsies and that the form to which it applies may have been one of nomadic Gypsy origin. This is now apparently impossible to verify. 3 The manea is another form exclusive to the Gypsies in Romania. It remains in strong evidence to this day. Very little information about the manea can be gleaned from existing sources. The form itself is of distinctly Turkish origin, coming originally from Turkish street vendors' cries (Turkish: manit and evolving in Turkey into a light classical improvisatory form. It is clear that the manea was popular in the rich Greek/Turkish climate of the big cities and particularly in the mahalale around Bucuresti. As a song form, the manea (pl. manele) retains the romantic, yet sensuous quality of old Turkish and Greek popular song. The distinctive element and identifying characteristic of the manea-that which sets it apart from all other forms found in Romania-is the use of the chiftitelli rhythm, that pattern so frequently associated with the stereotypical image of the Middle Eastern and Balkan belly dance. The appearance of this rhythm in Romania is unique to the urban Gypsies. It is not used in either the folk or regional music of any other area in the country.
The manea as it appears among the city Gypsies of Romania, is used in what might be described as a mixed social context. By this I mean a formal situation in which families or couples appear together, as opposed to the context one finds in a circiuma, a tavern, in which one might find couples, but much more likely, a large number of men, alone or in groups. A wedding party is the perfect context for the manea since it provides a wholesome, formal, yet intimate family setting even though many of the couples there, being friends or relatives of either the bride or the groom, might never have met each other before.
It is my strong impression that the manea is a women's dance although I have never heard it described as such. The beginning of a manea is announced by sounding the characteristic beat. Immediately, one notices that more women are dancing than before, and that often the women may dominate the dance area although usually, there are also a few men dancing. The pulse of the manea is slow, requiring as it does, four beats to complete the cycle, in contrast to the lighter and livelier hora which requires only two beats in each basic cycle. Although the rhythm pattern of the manea may resemble the one used for belly dancing in other areas of the Balkans, to compare the movements of the belly dance to the manea is to place a Timex beside a Piaget. In the manea, the arms are raised slightly and to the sides, the body pivots a little with the feet stationary, and there is just a slight suggestion of undulation. The effect is one of a powerful yet demure sensuousness, so affecting that the strong stable atmosphere of the wedding seems a safe place for such a display.
Along with the other stylistic developments from Bucuresti (e.g., the latest hora styles evolved by the city professionals), the manea makes its way into the repertoire of the lautarii of the vast region around the capital. The pieces heard by rural and village Gypsy musicians are taken up and may be included in the pieces they would use for a village dance or wedding celebration. They become particularly valuable, however, for performance at the rural Gypsy wedding, and only at such purely Gypsy affairs can the manea be heard.
The Romanian dance ethnographer, Anca Giurchescu, relates that in 1972 when she was doing field work in the Danube plains area, she stopped in a Gypsy village called Roseti in the [udet of Ialomita. This was an entirely-Gypsy village. She was invited in, and the Gypsy women began to dance what they called manea turceasca or the Turkish manea. It was danced only by the women, in an improvised style throughout, and with much encouragement from the other Gypsy women in the village. Singly and in pairs, the women danced, some only for a few moments, stopping even before the music ended, so overcome were they by the laughter and shouts of their companions. While the city versions of the manea which I witnessed were much more sedate than what I have described here, the important quality of spontaneity is nonetheless equallyevident.
It is difficult not to speculate on the context of the manea and its relationship to other Gypsy dances. There is evidence-inconclusive though it may be-that permits more than a few broad observations concerning the dances of the urban Gypsies in Romania. That a dance such as the manea, which allows a high degree of overt personal expression for women, should appear in the context of a wedding seems appropriate in a formal society such as that of the city Gypsies where very strict codes of formal behavior apply.
One incongruity concerning the manea does exist: whereas dance music is usually heard only in pure instrumental settings, the manea can be, and usually is a combination of song and instrumental accompaniment. Whether this vocal, instrumental and dance combination is characteristic and distinctive of this form, or whether this is the result of the gradually changing context in which urban Gypsy music exists today in Romania is difficult to say. Available evidence suggests, however, that more than likely the manea was always a vocal dance form, for not only is it found in this form throughout the Cimpia Dunarii. it is also an improvised song and dance form found among the Tatar ethnic minority community living in the Black Sea coast region of Dobrogea (Suliteanu 1964:545, 553, 555).
Today, the performance of the manea actually falls within the provenance of a single, extraordinary performer, the famous singer, Romica Puceanu. It is her versions of the manea which everyone sings, and even the occasional instrumental version of a manea is based on her singing. Since sporadic references to the manea in former times do exist, we may assume that it was always primarily a vocal form of a somewhat improvisatory character. What has happened recently is that one particular artist has so captured everyone's imagination with her interpretations of this form that she came to dominate it.
Many questions remain concerning this genre. It is not very clear at which particular time the style of the Gypsy hora or of the manea may have evolved in Romania among the Gypsy population of the cities and how each may have been influenced by the Greek music which flourished during the Fanariot period in Bucuresti, One might also wonder at the many similarities which this music bears to the music which was much played by Greek street musicians in Istanbul until the 1930s. Finally, while we can more easily extract the European, Turkish, and even the local Romanian elements from this complex music, it is much more difficult to isolate the nomadic Gypsy elements and to discover the ways in which the singing and dancing style of the nomadic Gypsies may have left their mark on this music and dance. While this genre is distinct from all others in Romania, and is distinctively Gypsy in character and feeling, it is nonetheless a uniquely Romanian tradition, combining as it does so many elements while drawing from the roots of Romanian folk music. NOTES 1.
I should point out here that most of my information concerning such matters as this is of necessity drawn from informal sources, from interpretations based on my own personal observations which were then checked in the meager historical resources, and subsequently, when possible, rechecked and corroborated through conversations with others, almost exclusively with Gypsies themselves. At the time of my research in Romania (1977), it was not regarded as officially "appropriate" to mention or refer to Gypsies in any formal or official report or discussion, and it was therefore only with considerable difficulty that this kind of general information could be gathered. 2. "Astfel sta musica noastra pe cand se stabili in tara domnia Fanariotilor ... adusera in tara 0 multime de cantareti de sarai ... ce strica cu totul musica bisericeasca si lautareasca, dar schimba chiar caracterul tonurilor, alterandu-l atat de mult, in cat astazi ar trebui sa inventarn un nou sistern de armonie ca sa putem acompania un mare nurnar din cantecele noastre, caci cu eel europenesc nu este cu putinta a ne servi" (quoted in Baiculescu 1941:61 and Cosma 1966:119).

3.
The description of the dancing of the tanana by Gypsy children may suggest to some the dancing by Gypsy children of the ritual rain dance in Romania, the paparuda. The paparuda, however, is not in itself a Gypsy dance nor is it, in origin, a Gypsy ritual. It probably comes from an older pre-Christian Romanian tradition.