Песен синур няма (Изборът на чужденците: властната красота на българския музикален фолклор)
Pesen Sinur Nyama / The Song has no Frontiers (The Choice of Foreigners: the Conquering Beauty of Bulgarian Music Folklore)

Summary/Abstract: In the times which we call post-modem, folk music and dances from Bulgaria are among the choices of people who are not of Bulgarian origin, and who have chosen to be interested in them out of free will. This interest is fed by many hard-working people, who form innumerable communities with a built structure of self-dependant centres. These communities are situated on four continents (Europe, America, Australia and Asia); they don’t have clear boundaries, the membership in them is vaguely defined and everything is organized and coordi­nated by many various organizational cores, which work for the sake of the shared communal values. A start point of the meditations is in various talks with people from Nether­ lands, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Hungary, USA, Japan and Australia, in observations on the work of foreigners who have performed and recorded Bulga­rian folk music, as well as in publications on the relations between Bulgarian music folklore and foreigners. The text is built up as a puzzle of voices. The goal that is sought in it is not a generalizing point of view presented by the author, but a representation of the dialogue in the talks and the observed phenomena. Choice 1: The activities (singing, playing, dancing) There are emotions in all of the foreigners’ tales about (attraction, liking, falling in love, loving), which are a basis for the choice of the particular activity, representing the Bulgarian folk music: listening, singing, playing, dancing, producing and popularization. In the words of foreign performers (singers and players) there are two things which are worth mentioning in order to explain their personal motivation for performing Bulgarian folk music. In emotional aspect their tales represent the evolution of the attraction thorough the verbs: feel, be excited, be attracted, fall in love, like, love. The emotional themes are predominant, but one could also see that some tries are made for objective rationalization. Except for the personal excitement and attraction, the foreigners mention one more reason for their movement closer to the Bulgarian musical folklore - the possibility which it gives them to touch something important, ancient, and antique. The group of the amateur dancers is the largest among the foreigners, who like and perform Bulgarian folklore. This is to a great extent due to the group character of the Bulgarian dances and the practice of dancing in large groups, organized in dance clubs and folklore camps in Europe and America. Choice 2: The repertoires As a whole, the language of Bulgarian folk music is spread mainly in a comparatively limited local-regional repertoire. The foreigners who have any interests in Bulgarian folk music extract very little from this repertoire bank and recreate it in their doings. In the scope of this repertoire field there are various examples of different regions and times. There are foreigners who are mainly interested in certain local or regional musical-folk st

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