This is a brief snippet of the 30-45 minute documentary we are preparing about what remains of authentic (non-performance style) Hutsul dance in the villages of Hutsulshchyna (for more information, see the following site: www.hutsul-project.com).
In particular, this is footage of the dance arkan/argan/vargan (*see below) as it is still danced in parts of Hutsulshchyna. In particular, this is the arkan as it is danced in the villages of Rungury and Sloboba, which are in the Kolomyjskyj rajon (county) in the Ivano-Frankivska oblast (state of Ivano-Frankivsk). Sloboda and Rungury are twin villages; the former grew out of the latter. They are located on the northern slopes of the Carpathians, about 30km from Kolomyja.
We were told by many various people that the arkan as danced in Rungury and Sloboda is very authentic--"They have a very strong argan there. . ."
*Argan? According to Mykola Savchuk (see him dancing in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQmbmxTr3xI )
"arkan" is a mis-pronunciation of the original Hutsul words for the dance, which are "vargan" or "argan." Mykola Savchuk is of Hutsul descent and is a journalist, musician (he played accordion in a wedding band for years, and has made a very good recording of authentic-style Hutsul music), "humoryst" (a comedian with some degree of regional recognition in Ukraine), and is a self-trained, amateur folklorist who has written articles about Hutsul folk culture and a pamphlet about the dance "Hutsulka." He says that either early folklorists, mostly from Halychyna, mis-heard how the Hutsuls pronounced the name of the dance or deliberately "Ukrainianized" it's pronunciation, or the word was unconsciously "Ukrainianized" by people writing about the Hutsuls over a period of time.
Though people in Rungury did use the term "arkan," it was surprising to me to hear how many still used "argan" or "vargan." No surprise that those using those variants tended to be a bit older. . .
They say that the Hutsuls have, best of all of Ukraine's various sub-cultural groups, preserved their folk culture, including their traditional dances. If this is so, then the situation in other parts of the country must be dire from the viewpoint of folk dance, because even in Hutsulshchyna, lots of music and dance has already been forgotten and lost. We heard, over and over again, that there are dances the names of which people remember, but which no one remembers how to dance, or how to play the melody. Argan, thankfully, is still going strong and has not been corrupted by the performance style, which only vaguely resembles the real thing as is still done in places like Rungury. . .
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