Music in Bulgaria and Switzerland ...

... is a topic I wish I could write about here at length, but unfortunately I didn't go to any wild Bulgarian techno parties this year.  But I did get to see a Bulgarian fire dancing performance.  It's not uncommon to  and while it might have been tailored for an audience of mostly tourists (and performed by professionals who aren't necessarily connected to the original fire dancing traditions), the music that accompanied the dancing (think shuffling one's way through hot coals, not twirling torches in one's hands) was hypnotic and trance-inducing in a quite literal sense.  According to the story, the dancers enter something of a trance via the music, causing them to feel little to no pain when they dance on the coals.  I finally came to understood why some Bulgarian music resembles Greek and Turkish music, which of course is completely obvious in retrospect.  This video will give you a fairly good idea of what fire dancing is all about.  


I haven't the faintest idea what is popular on Swiss radio, but then again, neither do the foreigners I talked to who are living there.  At the Lausanne city festival, I did see a man doing somersaults while suspended high in the air on ropes while two pantomiming guitarists flanked him on colourful bubble shaped stages, but that's about it.


Not the most fascinating return to posting, I admit.