METRELOS

Armenian dance collected by Karen Bennett in 1989–90 from Aida Frankian and Armineh Shahverdian, Armenian women who emigrated to Canada in 1978 and 1988 from Lebanon and Iran, respectively, and subsequently learned the dance in the Toronto Armenian community. They did not have a name for this dance, so Karen called it after the tune they used, "Metrelos," which is a Greek song recorded in 1989 by a multi-ethnic ensemble that included some Armenians.

Original recording: "Dark Eyes" cassette, PE-KO 1169-89, Side 1 # 2, "Metrelos."

Formation: Open circle, leader on R end, arms in W position with little-finger hold. If the leader is a woman, she rotates her R hand in the air in standard Armenian style (example: Tom Bozigian’s dance "Sweet Girl") when dancing in place (meas. 1-3) and puts her R arm behind her back when travelling (meas. 4). The rest of the line either keeps their arms up at all times or swings them down for travelling, then back up. The arm-swing version is the one Karen taught when she introduced the dance to the international folk dance community.

Introduction: 8 meas. Begin dance with singing.

Meas.       Ct.           Movements

1              1-4           Facing centre, step R to R (ct. 1), hold (ct. 2), L behind R (ct.
                                 3), R in place. (This is a pas-de-basque; slow-quick-quick
                                 timing.)

2               5-8         Repeat meas. 1 to L, opposite footwork.

3               9-12       Repeat meas. 1. On ct. 4, step R to R instead of in place, and
                                 pivot body to face R.

4             13-16       Continuing to travel R, step L across R (ct. 1), R to R (ct. 2), L
                                 across R (ct. 3), hold (ct. 4), swinging arms down and up on
                                 cts. 1-3. (The travelling sequence, L-together-L, is done with
                                 quick-quick-slow timing.)