Thread: Dancing for a Bulgarian Crowd

I have a Bulgarian wedding coming up and I'm curious to see if any of you have performed for Bulgarian audiences before. The bride's side is Bulgarian and the groom's side will be an Eastern European/Russian mix. I know belly dance is huge in Bulgaria, and the bride chose a belly dancer for her reception because she and her friends used to enjoy watching belly dancers in the Bulgarian nightclubs.

Anyone care to share any firsthand experiences, anecdotes or observations?

Bulgarians are wonderful audiences,cheery crowds...love zil playing and to be dragged up..g.:

Bring on the wild turkish moves and gypsy music with clarinets,trumpets&saxophone.
Most have been exposed to turkish rather than egyptian,but any drum solo works.

My best friend is Bulgarian so I kind of have a bit of insight into their culture.

From what she told me bellydance is being associated with gypsy culture in their country at what lots of people looks down, but obviously that is not a case of this family. :-)


They have great songs, some are bulgarian pop and some are more gypsy-like, my friend plays them in a car and I always say we need to do choreo for one of those, they have great beat and are different from traditional bellydance pop songs.

Maybe would be fun for you to choose one of their contemporaty songs to dance. I am sure you would win over their hearts. :-)

Other than that, they love to dance and have fun and lots of them sort of bellydance naturally, I am so jelaous of my friend cos I had to learn everything from scratch.

If you are not far from the city (NYC) you can go check out their bar Mehenata, its lots of fun.

Lovely,CoralSugar!
The bulgarians I´ve met have been so warm and funny<3

I love the singer Amet,he´s popular all over Balkan...but I don´t understand his lyrics:(

Remember several of his songs played live at a bulgarian party(not sure how "nice" his songs are for using at weddings though)...check out the bellay dääncers i his videos;D

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related[/ame]"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related[/url][/URL]


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTPqitH8Qds&feature=related]YouTube - AMET - NE NE[/ame]p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6yHMcSWCc&feature=related[/URL]

Originally Posted by CoralSugar

If you are not far from the city (NYC) you can go check out their bar Mehenata, its lots of fun.

Side note: I LOVE Mehenata (Especially the Ice Room ..l;, )

I can't find the clip right now, but there was a video posted of a Bulgarian dancer at a wedding in the States. I thought she was fabulous. She did a candle tray or fire tray as part of the routine, with floorwork. People were throwing money all around. Later she got the audience up to dance a line dance.

I'd love to see that clip again, I hope somebody will post the link.

Thanks for all the insights, everyone. This client has been so much fun to work with, and if her friends and fam are as delightful as she is, I'm in for a treat.

Bulgarian crowds sound pretty similar to the Russian, Bosnian and Albanian crowds I've danced for! And the music sounds really fun - very similar to Albanian music. Hopefully somebody who speaks the language can chime in and give us a loose translation to work with. I can definitely see where they would enjoy the nutzo Turkish moves.

Oh, and I'm dying to go to Mehenata one of these days!

I uderstad some of the lyrics ,r:; but not everything. I am better at catching bulgarian conversation, but these songs are too fast.

I will ask my friend for some other songs and post them later this wekk.

Yuri Yunakov!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOvwTdpqiY"]YouTube- Yuri-Sal-Alfred Mehanata Rehearsal[/ame]

mehenata is funnnn :) went there last year

Mehenata is really fun but IMHO the older Mehenata was way more better. Actually 2 times I went there during this summer, there was barely any Bulgarian music, or Turkish or Polish or Indian and no Arabic at all. I remember the old Mehenata in Chinatown playing all of those.
Last time we went there my Bulgarian friend got annoyed because all what they were playing was Russian or Spanish.

Still lots of fun.

Originally Posted by CoralSugar

Mehenata is really fun but IMHO the older Mehenata was way more better. Actually 2 times I went there during this summer, there was barely any Bulgarian music, or Turkish or Polish or Indian and no Arabic at all. I remember the old Mehenata in Chinatown playing all of those.
Last time we went there my Bulgarian friend got annoyed because all what they were playing was Russian or Spanish.

Still lots of fun.

Old Mehenata was better but the later you stay at the new one the more likely you are to hear the music you are looking for. These days they have a brass band on early and then transition to American music after that it's back to the ethnic music.

But at the old one thre were dancers and a live band, but rumor has it there is another ME band playing there Thursday nights now.

I am so intrigued by Mehenata now. Hey, who knows - it may be valuable "market research" to help me understand my clients, right

CoralSugar, that would be awesome if you could get me even a loosey-goosey translation for those songs. Obviously, I want to make sure the lyrics are kosher!

Hi Satin!

I've been reading your posts here on Bhuz and I really enjoy your style in writing. I'm a huge fan of balkan gypsy music, I have travelled around the balkans and been to many great concerts and festivals. I like to dance and perform to balkan brass music.

I remember reading from the internet about bulgarian popular music at several different resources that sometimes the lyrics can be harsh and distasteful, even if the music is composed like other balkan songs. So I advise you to be really careful in picking out the right song and to be sure about the lyrics. Here's some wikipedia links on bulgarian music:

Check out the part "critisism" on this article: [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalga]Chalga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Bulgaria]Music of Bulgaria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Čo�ek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .p::

I also have to congratulate you on your upcoming wedding gig, that would be a dream gig for me!

Just adding some links here if you would like to perform to balkan gypsy music, the following groups are well known and you should be able to find lyrics translations in english:

Goran Bregovic
Taraf De Haidouks
Kocani Orkestar
Mahala Rai Banda

and yes, I confess, I'm a gypsy music geek, so I had to engage in this thread!