| Alternative Names |
'Syrtós Kítrinou' is the Latin alphabet transcription of the name from Dick. 'Syrtos Kitrinou' is it reduced to ASCII by missing off the accents. |
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| Ethnicity | Greek Gypsy/Roma. |
| Formation | Open circle lead by a leader on the right hand end. W-hold. |
| Dance Structure | One part with variations when indicated by the leader. |
| Music Structure | 4 counts/bar, 4 bar phrases. (But it sounds more complicated.) |
| Music Speed | 87 counts/min. |
| Music | 'O Bálamos', also known as 'To tragoudi ton gifton' (which translates as 'The song of the Gypsies'). Trediki's version thereof. |
| Choreographers | Maurits & Tineke van Geel. |
| Source | Dick van de Zwan at the 2008 Balkan Festival in Zetten in The Netherlands. |
Disclaimer: Mistakes are quite likely in the notes and no guarantees are made as to accuracy. There may be other versions of the same dance or other dances with the same name. Music may differ, particularly in speed, introduction and duration, between performers. The division into parts, bars & counts might not be standard. These notes of the dance are freely distributable (under GPL or CC-by-sa) in so much as the note's author's contribution but the choreography and/or collection were by other people and so their copyright might apply to the dance itself. Better than using notes, go to a dance class where it is taught by Dick van de Zwan or Maurits & Tineke van Geel.
A calm Greek dance to beautiful music. It does not have many steps but the timing relative to the highly syncopated music can be tricky.
It came into being when the van Geels & Dick heard the music in Greece and loved it so much that they wanted some dance to it and for that dance to be sufficient quality to do justice to the music. The van Geels choreographed such a dance ('Kítrinou' in Greek means yellow as does 'Geel' in Dutch). The version Dick taught had additional musical rearrangement by him and was beautifully played by Trediki (to much acclaim by the dancers present).
According to Dick, the rhythm was 1-a-2-4|1-2-3-a-4 and to me it sounded even more complicated (because I was basing it on the drum which syncopates a lot) but a friend who is better than me at music told me that there was an underlying simple regular 4 beats per bar rhythm that is detectable in the melody and I have used that, rather than how it was taught or how I naturally perceive it, in this description of the steps. Other complications in the music include the phrasing of the sung (but not instrumental) verses crossing the dance structure and the verses often starting on the second beat, not first, of the bar).
The form of the dance was a basic version with variations (giving 4 versions in total as the 2 variations could be done together). Typically it started with the Basic Version for about a third of the music then mixed in Variation 1 about equally in number with the Basic Version. Variation 2, whether combined with Variation 1 or not, was done much more rarely, typically only in the last third of the music and sometimes the dance went through completely without Dick using Variation 2.
As the choreographers, teachers, rearrangers & musicians are all from the Netherlands and Tineke van Geel is an authority in Armenian dance & culture, this could be said to be a Greek/Gypsy/Dutch/Armenian fusion in origin!
Style: Calm (even when doing the quick steps). Low flat footed steps. Upright posture but relaxed.
Summary: 4 bars.
Use the first 4 bars (16 counts) of music as an introduction and start dancing on the first beat of bar 5. This is disconcertingly half a bar before the main melody starts but by starting there the steps will fit the melody when it does come in.
Summary: R lift, R side, L across behind, R side, L forwards in slow-quick-quick-slow-slow. R close, pause, side, close. R lift, back, L lift, back. R lift, (R side, L across infront) x 2 in slow-slow-quick-quick-slow.
| Start | Facing the centre of the circle. Weight on R foot. | ||||||||||
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To me it feels as if the natural place to count as beginning of this sequence of steps is the standing on the spot moving the R foot part (bar 2 above) so the sequence would be bars 2-3-4-1 above and end with the 2 travelling step bars. However Dick consistently started the dance as above half way through the travelling and that is where the phrases & verses of music broke.
Summary: Bar 3 counts 3-4: pause. Bar 4 counts 1-2: sweep L leg R & L.
Replace the L lift & step backwards with a pause and the subsequent R lift & R side with sweeping the L leg R & L infront. Details follow.
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Summary: Turn 360 deg cw in bar 4.
Release hand hold, turn 360 deg cw whilst travelling around the circle (same distance as before & same foot sequence & timing) in bar 4 and regain hand hold.