Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sergei and Ivan (a.k.a. Caity and Michelle) Dance the Barynya!

For this blog Caity (Sergei) and Michelle (Ivan) will dance for you the traditional Russian dance, the Barynya!

In old times in Russia the word barynya (Landlady) was used by simple folk as a form of addressing to a woman of higher class. Barynya - original fast Russian folk dance with fancy foot stomping and traditional Russian squatwork ("prisyadka", "vprisyadku"), sudden knee-bending and jumps. The Barynya dance is an alternation of chastushkas and frenetic dancing......lots of frenetic dancing....

The Barynya chastuskas used to have the refrain, kind of "Barynya, barynya, sudarynya-barynya", or "Barynya ty moya, sudarynya ty moya". The content is always humoristic. The country dancing was without special choreography. There are a number of scenic, more refined versions of the dance, but our version is the best of all!

Here is the inspiration for our dance!





Now, for your viewing pleasure, Sergei and Ivan dance for you, on the inter-web-net, the Barynya!!!! Отлично!

6 comments:

Ophelia said...

Lol! Awesome guys

Dr. Michael A. Denner said...

oh, god... боже мой! мне нечего сказать! did you guys sample some "russian hemp" before doing this?

hilarious! and not bad, as far as dancing goes. i love the fact that the woman studying doesn't seem to notice the loud russian music and dancing.

it's still (somewhat demotic, somewhat condescending) to say барышня (a form of барыня) when speaking about a young woman.

частушки are sort of Russian limericks. I've been told that they arose as rhymed couplets that peddlers would sing -- "get your fresh beets here!".

Mikhail Smirnov said...

good dancing!

Thank you for using our video as inspiration

Mikhail Smirnov
Ensemble Barynya
http://www.barynya.com

GraceyK said...

You guys are AMAZING! Love it!

Courtland said...

Haha, that was great, how awkward does that woman feel?!

Mikhail Smirnov said...

God stuff!
Spasibo!
Misha Smirnov
Ensemble Barynya from New York