NIJEMO KOLO: THE CONCEPT OF KOLO, THE EXPERIENCE OF A DANCE
NIJEMO KOLO: THE CONCEPT OF KOLO, THE EXPERIENCE OF A DANCE

Summary/Abstract: The topic I have chosen is the Nijemo Kolo- a silent folk dance from the Dalmatian Hinterland in Croatia. In this essay, my inspiration is the concept of folk dance, where I focus on dance in text, while later I write about the experience of witnessing folk dance and I focus on dance performance. My main argument in this paper is that in the Balkans, during folk dance performances, the general audience is often only informed, therefore interested in the idea of the concept of the dance instead of its actual and physical performance. I will use Egil Bakka’s and Gediminas Karoblis’ theory of “concept and realization” when talking about the dance, as a starting point to demonstrate this phenomenon. Finally, I am testing my own different personas as a dancer, ethnochoreologist and as a tourist by approaching a performance of the Nijemo Kolo through three different, what Lena Hammergren calls personas. Starting with this question, I present three different explanations of experiencing the Nijemo Kolo as performed by “Lado” - the Croatian National Folk Dance Ensemble.

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