ADANA

a dance

Region: Macedonia

The international folk dance Adana came to America with Atanas Kolarovski in about 1964 as Rickey Holden and Dennis Boxell first toured Atanas to promote three Folkraft records of Macedonian music. Atanas had been lead dancer for Tanec, the Macedonian State Ensemble, and presented to folk dancers a version of the Adana stage choreography. Tanec presumably derived Adana from a men's dance from Veles, Macedonia.

One apocryphal story attributes Adana to a Turkish governor in the Skopje region who, homesick Adana, Turkey, asked local Gypsies for a dance of this nature. They did, and Adana resulted.

Other dances of the Muslim communities in Macedonia and Albania bear this name referring to a town in Turkey. Many Muslims moved from Macedonia and Albania to Turkey in the 1950s, taking their dances with them.

References:

• Dimcevski
• Jankovic, Narodne Igre, vol. 3, Adana from Rastak, Skopje

Last updated September 20 2009 22:05:14.