Musings on the Big Folklore Event in Čilipi

In 2024, we will remember the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (15 Aug.) for the great folklore event that took place on the occasion of the combined 70th anniversary of KUD [1] Čilipi, the 30th anniversary of Klapa Čilipi, and the 50th anniversary of Konavle County Museum. As night fell in front of the Čilipi church, various groups of dancers, musicians and observers came to mark this great anniversary. From young to old, many in Konavle folk costumes, sometimes three generations together, there were rare scenes, and from the very beginning it was clear that it would be a night to remember.

The organizers, KUD Čilipi, designed a program in which not only they performed, but also guests such as KUD Stjepan Radić from Pridvorje, KUD Marko Marojica from Župa Dubrovačka, and the Linđo Folklore Ensemble from Dubrovnik. We could see in one place what our folklore groups had to offer, how they differ and what distinguishes them. For those with a deep interest in the folklore heritage of Konavle, a real moment of retrospection happened. For others it was simply a performance that could be enjoyed.

Folklore Ensemble Čilipi

After introductory speeches, the program started with the hosts in a scene from a Konavle wedding, and part of a Konavle toast to the married couple. Children from the audience grabbed the candies thrown by the bride and enđija [2], and right after that, veterans of KUD Čilipi performed and were greatly cheered by the audience. Shouts from the audience: Well done, grandma! whistling and chanting encouraged these older Čilipi dancers. Among them were Mrs. Stanković and Mr. Novaković, the oldest dancers of this KUD, for whom time seems to have stood still. They danced the Potkolo [3] as they did more than fifty years ago. These are the moments when tradition makes institutions out of people. When heritage becomes individualized and when the entire audience is enthusiastic.

After these oldest dancers, Namiguša [4] and Konavoska poskočica [5] were performed, in which the primary members line-up of KUD Čilipi and numerous dancers of the post-war Čilipi generations alternated. Men performed figures holding their partners in the so-called “eye in the head”, staring at them, looking for a smile, which reminds us of the times of chivalry, in which the women repel with a gentle smile and a posture in which all female passion is restrained, revealing nothing but their beauty.

The KUD Čilipi performance was crowned by Čičak [6] danced by the youngest members. Some Konavle girls (as one girl complained to us) had to be a little masculine, a little feminine, and then a little masculine again, and some held their male partners tightly. We enjoyed watching a great new generation growing up and being shaped into that lovely Konavle expression that speaks a hundred languages and everyone understands.

After the Čilipi dancers, the bright, smiling and colorful Župa dancers took to the stage. They presented themselves and were greeted with applause. They danced everything with Lala's lyre, which allowed us to compare expressions of the same dances in Konavle and Župa. KUD Čilipi introduced themselves with musicians, klapa [7] and lyre. They danced to the accompaniment of a tambura ensemble, which gave some dances a different flavor. KUD Župa, on the contrary, accompanied their urban dances, such as the Mazurka [8], with the lyre. The lyre was harmonious and calm, and for a moment it seemed as if it had many more strings than it actually had.

Folklore Ensemble Pridvorje, "lijerica"

Then we returned to Konavle, that old Konavle that few people can witness anymore. The leader of the company, and for this occasion the toastmaster, Pavo Đukan, started the performance of KUD Stjepan Radić Pridvorje by thunderously addressing the audience with that Konavle shout by which heroes greet each other, and immediately made it known that his Konavle is something different and that this performance will lack elements which define Konavle to be in the Adriatic area. He greeted and toasted with full vigor where they hear him and do not hear him [9] in another village. Ilija Kesovija is not the only thunderous toastmaster. They seem to grow in Gornja Banda [10].

Just when we were hoping that we would see variations of what we had already seen at the beginning of the performance when KUD Čilipi were dancing, the young beautiful Ilija Letunić, a bride for this occasion, appeared in front of the audience. With her voice only, without accompaniment, she sang an istresalica [11], a song similar to those that were sung by the late Nike Peškareva, and recorded by maestro Krešimir Magdić in Konavoska Duba before the war. And if he hadn't recorded them, maybe we couldn’t even believe that a young girl was singing in an archaic Konavle style.

Her outbursts in tones and semitones of the melody tore through the Čilipi sky like a force of nature, and the skin of everyone in the audience tingled. In Čilipi, a young Konavle girl with full control demonstrated the strength of the Konavle being, the Dinaric [12] one, like a blast of wind from Snježnica (the tallest mountain in Konavle), painful as a fado [13] but much stronger, and at the same time fragile and sensitive as a gentle female. There was nothing ordinary nor anything that wanted to please the audience in that thin fairy with a booming voice. There was no klapa to support her nor another to replace her in those precarious heights where she climbed with her voice, from which there was always the danger of falling into the abyss. She was left alone in the splendor of her song and lit like a flame every thought that came near to her that was not pure admiration.

To those who don't know Konavle heritage, it might have felt foreign, but only to the extent that they are estranged from their own past.

After the bride left us surprised and amazed, the Konavle reapers took the stage. Harvest songs have been preserved in many parts of Croatia and are part of folklore heritage everywhere. Simply put, until recently in Konavle folklore groups, there has not been much interest in this type of material. And without interest there is no preservation, so knowledge about heritage treasures of this kind has almost disappeared.

Young women of Pridvorje sang verses portraying a long-lived reality in Konavle that disappeared less than a hundred years ago. They brought us back to Konavle’s past when it was a Dubrovnik granary and depended on the sickles of the reapers. Better an hour in the shade than two when the sun heats up [14] ... rang out for the first time from Čilipi towards Gornja Banda and the Konavle hills, and the ancestors above in the sky were surely rejoicing.

After them, the Pridvorje dancers trotted, and danced both Potkolo and Poskočica; however not on their toes, but strongly with their soles on the ground. The stage shook, the area in front of the church resounded so much that a stone threshing floor was needed for the dancing.

Folklore Ensemble Župa Dubrovačka

The strength of the Gornja Banda of Konavle, the strength of the ancestors, unconditional dedication to the homeland and heritage emanated from those young people. A big, wide step, just like the one that had been taken countless times down the steep slopes of the Konavle hills and Gornja Banda. It was exactly at that step that the weight was felt, when a bride gets married from Donja Banda [15] to Gornja Banda of Konavle.

This Donja Banda where everyone is light-footed, they dance on their toes and skillfully spin clockwise to sweet-sounding tambourines or gentle lyres. Where words are light as a feather, where greetings are lovely and responses are even more lovely. Where people speak quietly and pray to God loudly. In our recent history this region has become more pleasant for life and more similar to the neighboring world and to our white city of Dubrovnik than to Gornja Banda. However, Gornja Banda kept what is deep in Konavle’s being — the archaic Dinaric spirit that we share with the entire Dinaric area, but which in Konavle was determined in a specific way by the Republic. It is evident from these dances that Konavle is the only Dinaric area that was not under Turkish influence, that there was no need for Nijemo kolo [16], nor for adorning with coins. A gray falcon flies from their performance, the Konavle toasts have meaning and every blessing has a foothold. Today’s people have little understanding of that world.

In Konavle, the dances in both Gornja and Donja Banda are the same, but their heritage is different. And just as the loveliness of the suburban form of these dances as nurtured by KUD Čilipi binds us to the Adriatic region, the performance of the Pridvorje group in its archaic thunderous nature binds us to the Dinaric region. Thus, the youngest KUD of Konavle preserves the oldest forms of Konavle’s heritage.

The Pridvorje dancers were replaced on the stage by the Linđo Folklore Ensemble dancers and brought us back to the present. And we returned from old Konavle to the audience in front of the church, and enjoyed the attractive choreographies of Dubrovnik professionals.

This was an evening that must be repeated.

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[1.] KUD = Kulturno umjetničko društvo - Cultural and Artistic Society

[2.] Enđija - an older woman from the bride’s house who accompanies the bride through the steps of the wedding ceremony.

[3.] Potkolo - a Konavle folk dance.

[4.] Namiguša - a Konavle folk dance.

[5.] Poskočica - a Konavle folk dance.

[6.] Čičak – a Konavle folk dance.

[7.] Klapa - an organized singing group with an a cappella repertoire of Dalmatian klapa songs.

[8.] Mazurka - a dance in pairs originating from Poland.

[9.] Where they hear him… - Gdje ga čuju i nečuju in Konavle dialect means to say something loud and clear. To express loudly.

[10.] Gornja Banda - northeast part of Konavle. In between Gornja and Donja Banda is the large Konavle valley.

[11.] Istresalica - a type of vocal singing with distinct tremolos of some individual notes, producing a trembling effect.

[12.] Dinaric - of, near, or relating to the Dinaric Alps; these mountains are in the hinterland from east of Zadar in the north to Montenegro and Kosovo in the south. People living in this mountain chain share some identity similarities, from clothes to dances. In their presentations these forms are more archaic and robust than forms developed on the coastal Adriatic region.

[13.] Fado - a type of Portuguese soul song.

[14.] Better an hour… - Bolje ura po ladu nego dvije kad sunce ogrije is a well known part from the reaper’s song. Girls were singing while harvesting and they would start before dawn because the summer heat was hard to bear in the fields.

[15.] Donja Banda - southwest part of Konavle.

[16.] Nijemo kolo - a dance without music or singing where both men and women dance individually, not as couples.