Information: A dance.

Wayne, Pennsylvania version of Sadilo mome from Susan Anderson, Georgia Sloan-Roussos, Myra Rosenhaus, and Becky Davidson.

Translation: A girl was planting (lillies)

Pronunciation: sah-DEE-loh MOH-meh

Region: Macedonia

The hop-step-step on measures 1, 2, and 12 didn't follow the qqS rhythm of the music. Instead the steps had a slight counter-rhythm: the hop was a quick skip upbeat to an accented step. How to explain . . . sorta like the rhythm was 4+3, and the basic movement was 2 steps, then modify that with a slight skip into the 1st step, becoming almost a 1+3+3 rhythm.

What made this distinctive was that there were a number of other Macedonian dances with the hop-step-step motif, and in them it was done sort of lightly and quickly – the hop seemed to be the dominant accent. Sadilo mome, in contrast, was more grounded, and the 1st step was the dominant movement.

My memory (weaker here) was that measures 11/12 also had a distinctive flair. A number of other dances ended in 3 step-lifts, with the lifts done smoothly. In Sadilo measure 11 has a distinctive sharp hold on the qS. Then measure 12 (done to the same syncopation as meas 1-2) you quickly leap on L to the L (upbeat 1), come back to the R in place (beats 234), then sharply cross the L in front of the R, starting to turn R (beats 567).

Music is Sqq. Maybe a better description for dance would be sS – 3+4, since most measures only have 2 movements, and (as I remember it) those with 3 movements mostly syncopated against the beat.

Meas 1,2, as I remember, were basically 2 steps each, R,L, 3+4 rhythm, but there's a little upbeat skip before the 1st step in each measure.

What made life confusing are that measures 3 and 4 also syncopated the steps against the music rhythm. The steps were done qqS! I was always puzzled about why it worked and didn't feel too unnuatural . . .

Measure 12 also played against the beat: l,r,L but the l,r took up the S and the L took all the qq – sort of a 1+2+4 step rhythm.

I don't remember the counter-rhythm you remember. We've done this dance all along and have always done it as a regular hop-step-step at the beginning. The sharp hold in meas 11 seems correct.

–Sarada George < Michael Herman

Sadilo mome, as it's actually done, can include some, all, or none of the syncopations that you are describing (except in measures 5-6-7 – it's hard to syncopate a single step). If I were writing a syllabus (and I almost never use one), I'd probably stick to the straight Hop-step-step, Hop-step-step, R-L-R, L-R-L set up, because it describes the steps you have to take to do the dance. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how I learned it, even for the last measure. But once I'd been dancing for 10 to 15 years, and learned how to syncopate, from Pece Atanasovski and others, I'd use those steps at, say, measure 4, 8-9, and 12. And Pece used to flatten out his Hop-step-steps, until they were almost "kerplunk" steps.

Sadila moma krai more loze

          Refrain:
          Jedin den leten den
          To lek den, vezden den
          Jedin den leten den
          To lek den, vezden den
          Nad grada nad Soluna
          Pod taja sencha // (I) debela //

Kat go sadila jem narichala

Koi che ti bere beloto grozhde

Sadilo mome is one dance in a particular genre of similar running dances, of which there are many (and my personal favorites!) A few that come to mind: Tropnalo Oro, Berovka, Ovčepolsko Potrculka, Maleševsko Oro, and one of the popular line Rûઊenicas.

At the Illinden festival in Bitola (circa 1982), I saw several other variations from villages in Eastern Macedonia.html">Macedonia, such as Šop Gaida, from the Serres region, Trehatos, and others.

All of these dances seem to have a similar pattern, usually hop-step-step, run-run-run, etc.

In the stage versions, the movements seem to me to be very stylized, as this is probably how Atanas Kolarovski, Pece Atanasovski, and others in Tanec danced them, and it is how Pece taught, for example, Maleševsko Oro . . . I believe last time he toured the United States.

The various "gaida" dances from villages around Serres have the same foot patterns, but the style is much more fluid, the movements more natural. These Greek Macedonian running dances have been introduced by Yvonn Hunt, and some of her research has been in Greek Romani villages, where the dance style seems less rigid than that of other Balkan-Macedonia groups.

Theoretically speaking, it seems to me that these running dances may all have a common ancestor, but they have evolved differently in their movement style depending on cultural circumstances, the transfer to the stage as performance dances, and finally, to a continuation of the folk process here in the United States, evolving differently from coast-to-coast.

LYRICS

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• Macedonia, a country.

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