Kurdish Halay! Is there a common link in folk dancing in the Balkans?

I found this video about Kurdish Folk Dancing on-line. The type of Folk dancing is originally called Halay which is also claimed by the Turks (I seriously don't want to judge the origins of Halay, but I think its suffice to say its from the Middle East and Balkans). If you look at the responses to halay online all they do is argue about the origin of the folk dancing.

What really struck me about this particular video are the number of views (1.3 million) and the hip-hop style the young women bring to the traditional folk dancing. Frankly, it just looks cool and certainly looks transferable to the western hip-hop society


A male version of the Halay, still informal


Also another male example of the dancing.

Now I want to compare the first video to the video of Halay below. As you can see, this form of dancing has a more traditional. The first video was probably filmed at a wedding, festival or a private party outdoors informally whereas this video is filmed indoors and is an organized dance troupe. What is being highlighted in the informal dancing is just part of the organized structure of the halay dance. If you go to to the end of clip (about 70%) you see the same format used in the formal and informal halay dancing (women in a line, holding hands, indescribable leg movements in unison).




Here is an example of the Halay dance making inroad into the Hip-Hop and MTV world. The real halay is the women together dancing throughout the video. Its an example of Halay beginning the cross over to western dance and music.




What's interesting about Halay is the striking similarity to most other forms of Balkan and Middle Eastern folk dancing but with distinct evolutions in each country. This music, created by a drum, duval and zurna, is rather simplistic with an overpowering and danceable beat.