The Society of Folk Dance Historians
Buchimish
a dance
Background:
Pronunciation: boo-chee-MEESH
Other names: Buchemish, Buchinish
Region: Western Thrace, Bulgaria
Translation: hemlock
The tune is also known in Greek Macedonia as Kathistos (sitting). This is a slow men's dance with many squats.
Documents:
Buchimish. From: Houston, Ron. Folk Dance Problem Solver (1987).
CD PAN-2007 "Čalgija: Music from the Balkans and Anatolia #2", Dutch ethnomusicologist Wouter Swets says of the Macedonian dance genre "Posednica" (a member of the Bulgarian "Buchimish" family, like the Egejsko Oro recently taught by Atanas Kolarovski):
"The name posednica means two things: dance of land-owners or dance with sitting or squatting movements. Its translation into Greek, kathistos, refers only to the squatting.
In 1964 I saw this dance being performed in the village of Misimeri, near Edhessa. It was performed with squatting movements in a proud and confident way beginning slowly and gradually accelerating. It is very well imaginable that the owner's pride of his 'possession', the land on which he 'sits' (session) is the foundation for this squatting." [page 15]