Dancing on the Offbeat Travels in Greece

The Greece of fun-loving waiters, sun-drenched beaches, the breaking of plates, and big fat weddings only scratches the surface of the real Greece. In this account of a woman traveling solo throughout the Greek mainland, Joan Carol Friedberg uncovers a glimpse into the tragic history of modern Greece as it is reflected in the music, and she provides a context for understanding Greece's compelling and unique musical expressions. In 1982, the author spent three months traveling in the Balkans, through Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. Drawn to Greece's traditional music and dances, she returned to Greece in 1993. During several subsequent trips, as a foreigner in search of Greece's village music and dance traditions, she collected and in Dancing on the Off Beat - Travels in Greece shares her observations with humor, clarity, insight and wisdom. Though many books have been written about Greece, few foreigners have uncovered the more unusual aspects of this ancient land. Like Patrick LeighFermor's Roumeli, Joan Carol Friedberg takes the reader along as she discovers Greece's back roads and hidden folkways. She found the old tradition of offering hospitality to strangers still survives, as she was welcomed like a long-lost relative in rural villages and offered food and drink. She has delved deep into modern Greek history to find the wellspring behind the inherent melancholy that often pervades Greek folk music. .In a village hidden in the hills outside of the legendary Thebes, older men recall and sing a song in the 14th Century dialect of their Albanian ancestors. .In a high mountain village in Epirus, in search of a festival of nomads, the author is offered hospitality in theGreek tradition. .At a concert of polyphonic music, in a village near the Albanian border, the voices produce animal-like howls, odd harmonies and unusual intervals in these rarely heard musical expressions. .In a visit to a village high in the mountains of Epirus, the authoFriedberg, Joan Carol is the author of 'Dancing on the Offbeat Travels in Greece', published 2005 under ISBN 9781413484182 and ISBN 1413484182.