Dasme!

Since most of my close friends here are either already married or in high school, (and thank god I'm not going to their weddings yet) until this weekend, I had only been able to go to one wedding in Albania (in my first summer, my language teacher Ola), so I was really excited when I found out that one of my coworkers, Marijana would celebrate her marriage right before I left Peshkopi. An Albanian wedding is pretty similar to what I imagine many wedding celebrations around the world- lots of food, drinking and dancing. Usually, an Albanian wedding will be at least two parties, one for the bride's family and one for the groom's family. As far as I understand, unlike in the American tradition where there is a "ceremony" with the exchanging of vows, rings and kisses, usually in Albania there is only parties and the official marriage (signing of the marriage certificate) is done privately. This wedding was a little bit special because the bride and groom are Christian, so they did a sort of modified Christian ceremony with rings (but strangely no kissing . . . hmmmm). Other than that, it was basically like any other Albanian party, in other words, circle dancing.

The Valle Shqiptare, or the traditional Albanian circle dance has it's equivalent in many other Balkan/Mediterranean countries. You find it in Macedonia as the Ora and Greece as the Choreia and even in Jewish tradition as the Hora. The dance can range from simple to complicated and slow and easy to a jumping heart racer. The most basic form involves the repetition of a few simple steps- basically, step, touch, step, cross. The first few times you try, you find yourself staring down at the floor in front of you trying to stay on step with the person you are following. After a while you are finally able to look up and enjoy the dizzying effects of the dance. In Albania, every region or town has their own traditional valle. Many of them use the basic step, but a few, like the high spirited Valle Kuksi (from the northern city of Kukes) includes a running jump step that only energetic youth or very experienced dancers should attempt. My favorite is probably the Valle Kosovari because the music has this great drum beat that I just can't resist. I love the way that the circle dance involves the whole community in the dance together. At the wedding, each dance was taken in turn by a different group; the DJ would announce "this is the turn for the Uncles of the bride on the mom's side" and that part of the family would rise up and dance. By the end of the night, no matter who's turn it was, most people joined the dance. You would think that going around in a circle would get old after a while, but somehow it doesn't. Somehow, it's just comforting to be part of the circle and part of the community that formed it.