Balkan Folk Arts 2018
About the Residency
Guest artists Kalin Kirilov, Alex Marković, and Carol Silverman joined the UWC-USA 2018 Annual Conference (Change the Conversation) to explore the boundaries and interstices of contemporary Balkan Folk Art practice. The artists taught workshops in music, dance, and culture, with special emphasis on issues of representation and appropriation. The conference program culminated in a performance and dance party with Santa Fe-based folk band EVET.
Residency Workshops
Balkan Arts, Folklore, Culture, and History with Carol and Kalin (2 February)
Balkan Dance Workshop #1 with Alex (2 February)
Balkan Dance Workshop #2 with Alex (2 February)
Student Silk Road Collective Ensemble Coaching with Kalin and Carol (2 February)
Balkan Romani Music: Representation and Appropriation with Carol, Kalin, and Alex (3 February)
Balkan Music and Dance Party with Kalin, Carol, Alex, and EVET
About the Artists
Kalin Kirilov is an Associate Professor of Music Theory. Before coming to Towson University, he taught at the University of Oregon and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Kirilov received his BA from the Academy of Music and Dance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, an interdisciplinary MA in Folklore from the University of Oregon, and a PhD in Music Theory from the University of Oregon. Kirilov’s research explores the boundaries between two often compartmentalized fields, music theory and ethnomusicology, and his innovative analytical perspectives on Eastern European music have been well-received at national and international conferences. A master of multiple instruments, Kirilov has performed extensively in Bulgaria, Western Europe, and the United States. In 2003 and 2005, he toured the United States with Ivo Papazov, recipient of the 2005 BBC audience award in the “world music” category. In addition to being a teacher, scholar, and active performer, Kirilov is one of the main organizers of the international conferences Analytical Approaches to World Music (AAWM 2010, AAWM 2012, and AAWM 2014).
Carol Silverman, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon, has engaged in research on Balkan music and folklore for over 30 years. With a focus on Roma in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Western Europe and the US, she has explored music, politics, human rights, gender, migration and state policy with a focus on representation. Her 2012 book Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora won the Merriam Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology. Her recent research, supported by the Guggenheim foundation, examines issues of migration, labor, and appropriation in the globalization of Romani culture. She has written numerous articles, works with the organization Voice of Roma, and serves as co-curator of the music division of the new RomArchive. She is also a professional vocalist and teacher of Balkan music, and toured for a decade and recorded with the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble.
Alexander Marković holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is interested in ethnicity, nationalism, and the cultural politics of music and dance in the Balkans. His dissertation research involved 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Romani musicians in southeastern Serbia. Relevant publications include a 2015 article in Ethnomusicology Forum on Romani brass musicians’ performative strategies for World Music markets, as well as a 2012 chapter in the edited volume Labour Migrations in the Balkans (Berlin: Otto Sagner Press) that examines how neoliberal capitalist shifts have affected Romani musical livelihoods and social standing in post-socialist Vranje. Alex has also actively researched, performed, and taught folk dances from various Balkan regions for the past 15 years. His specialties include Serbian music and dance traditions of southeastern Serbia and Kosovo; Romani music and dance culture in southern Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia; and various Greek regional dance traditions. His Ph.D. research in Vranje, Serbia, allowed him to conduct in-depth fieldwork on dance in the Romani and Serb communities of that area. In addition to dancing, Alex plays Balkan percussion instruments like the tapan/goč, tarabuka (doumbek), and dajre/def (frame drum).