Ropoțelul (Romania)

Formation	Circle. Shoulder hold.
Alternative Names	'Ropoțelul' is the original name. 'Ropoţelul' is it Romanian accents commonly missing from fonts substituted. 'Ropotelul' is it reduced to ASCII by removing the accents. 'Ropotselul' is an English transcription.
Dance Structure	(A + B + C), mirror all. Repeat throughout music.
Music Structure	4 counts/bar, 2 bar phrases except Part C which is 7 individual bars.
Music Speed	140 counts/min.
Region Detail	Bucovina.
Source	Sonia Dion & Cristian Florescu at Rivieradance in Torquay, UK, in 2025.

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 Sonia Dion & Cristian Florescu.

A light jolly tune with most parts of the dance of common steps separated by sways. Parts A & B are based on cherkessias & reeders and fit the music. Part C though is a 6 count figure that crosses the music.

For more detail (and a more count-by-count way of describing the steps), seen Sonia & Cristian's commercial notes in their "Romanian Realm Vol. 13" album.

Style: Jolly, upright & happy. Light & fairly lively but tidy rather running around the room. Knee bounces in the sways, elsewhere the bounces are heel bounces.

Introduction

Summary: 2 bars.

Start dancing after a 2 bar (1 phrase) introduction. This is unusual as Romanian dances usually have either the music of 2 sequences of dance or no introduction.

Lift the R foot infront in preparation at towards end of the introduction.

Part A

Summary: Cherkessia starting R across infront, lift. Mirror. Repeat all. Sway & bounce R L R L.

Start

Facing the centre of the circle. Weight on left foot. R foot raised.

1	R across infront.
2	L in place.
3	R close. (Counts 1-3 comprise a Cherkessia.)
4	L lift with an up-down bounce by raising & lowering the R heel.

Repeat bar 1 in mirror image. (L across infront, R in place, L close, R lift; i.e. L Cherkessia and lift.)

3-4

Repeat bars 1-2. (R & L Cherkessia with lifts.)

1	R to the side & sway R. Slightly flex the knees in preparation for the following bounce.
2	Bounce slightly by straightening & flexing the knees. This is a smoothly continuation of the sway.
3-4	Mirror counts 1-2 (sway to the L & bounce).

Repeat bar 5 (R & L sways with bounces) except in the final count 4 bounce, raise the R foot in preparation for Part B.

Part B

Summary: (Reeder starting R side, L across behind.) * 3.5, L lift/kick. Mirror. Sways as in Part A.

Start

Facing the centre of the circle. Weight on left foot. R foot raised.

1	R side.
2	L across behind. (Counts 1-2 comprise a Reeder step.)
3-4	Repeat counts 1-2 (Reeder step to the R.)

1-3	As bar 1 counts 1-3 (2 Reeder steps to the R; making 3.5 in total.)
4	Lift L infront in a kicking motion of first raising the thigh with knee bending then straightening the knee ending with L leg about 15 deg infront. At the same time bounce on the R leg by raising & lowering the heel.

3-4

Repeat bars 1-2 in mirror image. (3.5 Reeders L, R lift.)

5-6

As Part A bars 5-6 (R L R L sways with bounces ending in R lift)

Part C

Summary: (R side, L close, R lift, R side, L lift, L across infront) repeated until music changes (3 2/3 times).

The steps to this are simple (virtually a Grapevine with a couple of bounces inserted) but it can confuse some dancers because it crosses the music (6 count figure over 4 count musical bars) and the verse is 7 bars long which both contrasts with the 2 bar phrasing of the rest of music and does not fit an integral number of repeats of the figure. The simple solution is to just keep repeating the figure until the music changes (it is a very clear change is this music is so differently structured).

Start

Facing the centre of the circle. Weight on left foot. R foot raised.

1-2

1	R side.
2	L close.
3	R lift behind by flexing knee, whilst heel bounce on L.
4	R side.
1	L lift infront by flexing knee, whilst heel bounce on R.
2	L across infront.

2-7

Keep repeating the 6 steps of bar 1 count 1 to bar 2 count 2 until the music changes (3 2/3 times in total). It naturally ends with the L foot raised ready for the next part of the dance (which is Part A in mirror image).

Mirroring

The whole dance then repeats in mirror image (Cherkessias starting L, sways starting L, Reeders L & R, sways starting L and travelling L crossing the music). It then repeats the original way around, and so on.