France 1981 - EUROPA, Folklore

Date of Issued: 02 May 1981
Design: Jean Delpech
Perforation: 13

EUROPA 1981 - Folklore

If the bourrée of Auvergne is known for its hard pace and its muscular momentum, the cross bourrée of Berry, slower, requires flexibility, ease and more lightness. THE word "bourrée" first designated the bundle of small wood used for lighting hearths and heating ovens. It then applied itself to a dance performed first around a bundle, then, as in a novel by George Sand, around the last sheaf, the "gerbaude" of the Harvest Festival. The Berrichons call it "crossed" because of its characteristic figure: the dancer passes from the facing position to a "turn of 45 degrees, of the leg and the body, before returning to the primitive position, or "carrement. The men have an austere jacket and "barrage" or drugget breeches; women, a petticoat of the same fabric, a linen apron and a headdress called "grand capichon"

The sardana, coming from beyond the Pyrenees, unites Spanish Catalonia with our Catalan countries: Roussillon, Cerda Gene and Vallespir. At first religious and masculine, the sardanas took on more lightness, elegance... and pas- sion when women associated with it. We see on the figurine the dancers who wear the picturesque local costumes. The relations of folklore and music are often discussed in connection with Chopin or Bartok and many other composers. The combination of these two regional dances cannot fail to evoke the name of a great French musician, Emmanuel Chabrier. The author of "Bour-rée fantasque", himself a cabrette player, admitted "rhythmizing his music with his clogs; and a critic hears, in his "'Espana", the striking of the heels of Spanish gypsies and the slipping of Catalan sandals...