[Sanida Palavra & Nicole Musgrave]

Nicole Musgrave: “Can you just talk a little bit about how you got into dancing, how you started dancing?”

Sanida Palavra: “Yes, so in Bosnia, we had this group called folklore, where we would meet like a couple times a week and we would practice the traditional type of Bosnian dances and then we would perform in traditional Bosnian outfits. Um, either – in any sort of ceremony – um, regarding inside of school or out of school or competitions. There are competitions between different teams and so, I got into that. Um, I forgot what grade I was in exactly, and so, uh. The traditional dance, the most popular, I guess, is kolo, and that’s the dance where you dance in either a circle, or a line, or double line, and everyone holds their hands and most of the dances – the footwork – it doesn’t require much movement above the waist. It’s more about moving your feet according to certain steps. There are different kolos. Some of them have small variations depending on certain regions, even certain cities, they have their own versions. So yeah, and in the past, actually, the, uh, men and woman, when they would dance next to each other, they would hold handkerchiefs, sort of like a handkerchief, separating them so they wouldn’t touch directly. Um, kolo and generally music, such as sevdalinka, the old traditional, um, songs, um, they were the main form of entertainment in the past so it got stuck around so now today you’ll see at weddings or ceremonies, you’ll see people dancing kolo. Yeah, that’s kind of the main dance, um, but is has its own variations.”