Dance Culture
There are many different Afghan dance styles, but Attan is considered as the national one. It is performed by groups of men or women who dance following the rhytm of a music instrument called dhol. Attan also has its variations – urban, suburban or village.
This dance begins with the sound of drums and the movement of people slowly accelerates. During the dance they sing, clap their hands and snap their fingers. It’s not unusual to see dancers waving a red handkechief.
It’s interesting that throughout the history it was a disgrace for a woman to dance in public. It was only acceptable for women to dance privately while with family. Today, women can dance together with men and that type of attan is called ghberg.
It’s interesting that throughout the history it was a disgrace for a woman to dance in public. It was only acceptable for women to dance privately while with family. Today, women can dance together with men and that type of attan is called ghberg.
In Kutina we met an Afghan family that showed us the attan dance. They spent a couple of months in Austria, but had to come back to Croatia. They have been in Croatian refugee reception centre for 11 months. Still, they are not losing hope. The father has managed to learn some Croatian during his stay at Kutina whereas his daughter specialized in English.
Although we couldn't understand each other based on language only, we found out that we shared some of the cultural heritage - the dances! So the Serbian and Croatian part of our crew showed him and his daughter some similiarities in the moves of our national dance - kolo.
Both Afghan dance and Serbo-Croatian one bring people together and put smile on their faces - even a hundred people can perform at the same time.
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