Article contents
“Drive-Ethno-Dance” and “Hutzul Punk“: Ukrainian-Associated Popular Music and (GEO)Politics in a Post-Soviet Context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2019
Extract
The style [of Ruslana's song “Wild Dances“] can be called “drive-ethno-dance,” a combination of ethnic sounds of the mountain people of the Hutsuls with modern rock, pop and dance elements. (Ruslana n.d.a)
Ruslana's winning performance of “Dyki Tantsi” (Wild Dances) at the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 opened with trembity (plural; sing. trembita), alpine horns linked to, inter alia, the Hutsuls (a Ukrainian ethnic minority). However, trembity are not only used by Ruslana, but also incorporated into songs by other Ukrainian groups like Mad Heads XL's “Smereka” (2005) and Haydamaky's “Tini zabutykh predkiv” (2002). The use of local instruments and melodies in the music which Ruslana in the opening quote labels “drive-ethno-dance” is a way in which some groups from Ukraine anchor themselves. According to Armin Siebert, one of the directors of the Berlin Label Eastblok Music, which specializes in music from Eastern Europe, it is also an exciting element of Russian and Ukrainian popular music:
A lot of Russian and—even stronger in Ukraine—Ukrainian groups try to use the profoundness of their culture [e.g., folklore] in their modem rock music … And yeah, that's of course something which we especially think is very exciting, because we think that the Slavic culture, roughly speaking, is very profound and that one should not negate that, because it is really something special, which does not exist in the West. (interview, 19 July 2006; my translation)
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2008 By The International Council for Traditional Music
References
References Cited
Discography
- 5
- Cited by