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Advanced Folk Dance Class
Final Examination

The original version of the following was hastily written by Professor R. Bregovich (an extremely close relative of the maintainer of this web site) on April 13, 1995 for the last session of a special series of "advanced" dance classes conducted by the IFDA.  Somebody suggested that it should go on the Internet, so here it is.  Some minor revisions have been made by the author.

Instructions:  Closed books and notes.  You have until Pasarelska has been played 29 times to complete this exam.  Write all answers on this page.

  1. What would have replaced the phrases "hopa" and "eee-ha" if Shopsko Petorka had originated in
    1. Mezõség?
    2. Valdres?
    3. South Central Los Angeles?
    4. Discuss the advantages or disadvantages of replacing "Hoooooooo-pa!" by the more descriptive phrase "Timmmmmmm-ber!".

  2. Choose your favorite dance of the ones taught, and describe how Lt. Commander Data of the U.S.S. Enterprise would do it, assuming that he has studied and assimilated the styles of all folk dancers that have ever existed in Earth's recorded history.

  3. Describe how all of the dances covered in this class would have differed if the Balkans had been occupied by the Chinese for 500 years instead of by the Turks.

  4. Estimate the number of arm swings per minute per person per arm in Trite Puti.  From this, calculate the total number of arm swings done by a village dancing continuously for 8 hours, assuming that there are 245 people in the village each having an average of 1.993 arms.  Discuss whether your answer was worth calculating.

  5. Considering that the Kopanica rhythm (2 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2) remains the same when time is run backwards, discuss the possibility that the early Bulgarians who developed it may have actually been Time Lords.

  6. Design ANY TWO of the following:
    1. A version of Logovac for 3 men and 5 women (for extra credit, generalize to M men and N women).
    2. A version of Bistrica Kopanica for 4 couples in square-dance formation (for extra credit, make up a script for the caller, preferably in Bulgarian).
    3. A version of Shopsko Petorka based on imitations of more modern activities including driving a tractor, firing a machine gun, and programming a computer.
    4. A version of Zonoradikos that could be taught to formless energy beings of the type commonly encountered when people seek out new life and new civilizations.

  7. If you have time left over, formulate and answer any other questions that come to mind.  Make sure that they are as relevant as the above ones.
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed on this page are not necessarily those of anybody, not even the International Folk Dance Association of University City, and certainly not Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.  The IFDA is not sponsored by or otherwise connected with SIUE.

URL for this site (home page):  http://www.stlouisfolkdance.org
URL for this page:  http://www.siue.edu/folkdance/humor/exam.html
Written by Roger Hill (rhill@siue.edu), revised 2003 Nov 3