Songs, music, dance, and celebration were central activities of collective life in the mountain communities of the Tzoumerka region. Community rituals and celebrations coincided with the agricultural calendar to commemorate important moments in individual and collective life. The festivities organized during these periods, with the participation of musicians from the surrounding area, were a reference […]
Songs, music, dance, and celebration were central activities of collective life in the mountain communities of the Tzoumerka region. Community rituals and celebrations coincided with the agricultural calendar to commemorate important moments in individual and collective life. The festivities organized during these periods, with the participation of musicians from the surrounding area, were a reference point for the community. The main core of the songs includes songs dominated by emotion and a direct relationship with everyday life, the joys and sorrows of the people who created them. Songs of love and affection, melodies that praise the bravery and rebellious spirit of the inhabitants, as well as sitting songs, table songs, and free improvisations. Performed by local bands that maintain the typical organic structure of the region, clarinet, violin, lute, and tambourine. The dance forms are equally simple. Dances in threes, flat and seated, always integrated into a set of formal rules dictated by community ethics.
Tzoumerka Mountains, examined in terms of its musical and dance tradition, present some peculiarities. The music and dance tradition of the region, with its internal differentiations, which are more intense in the Vlach villages, constitutes a distinct subset within the framework of Epirus tradition, influenced both by the Sarakatsani tradition and that of Xirokambos. It is an area open to various influences that travel, following the paths of merchants, shepherds, and even musicians themselves, who gradually enrich the local repertoire over time.
Local bands are formed in the renowned Vlach villages of Syrrako and Kalarrites. The rest of the area is supplied with bands from Ioannina, Arta, and Trikala, which come to assist the local ones. The longest-lasting band in the region was that of Gerodimaios, followed by those of Besirai, based in Trikala, and Diamanteioi, from Pramanta. The local repertoire insists on heavy tsamika dances, with references to klephtic songs. It seems that the origin of this style is influenced by the neighboring Xirokambos, from which it passed through Arta.
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