Zulfeta Rizvic: Transcript

Bosnian folk dance teacher
Close Window

My name is Zulfeta Rizvic, and originally I'm from Bosnia from a little town called Velika Kladusa. And the town is placed in Western Bosnia. I came here December 1996, and the first place was Chicago, Illinois. And then after a while we were informed that there is a company—at that time was IBP—and they said that they have a job for both of us, for me and for my husband, and then a group of 12 families. We just had enough courage, and we sit on a bus, and we came here.

I danced as a little girl, and I was really involved in that. And I danced at a high school, in high school, and later at college. And then later when I became a teacher, then I was involved in organizing a group, like an after-school activity. Dancing—and it is very important to our culture, and it's very popular. Every dance is a little story about us. So it's not just about dance; it's more about—it's much wider.

Asik is a dance, and it's—the background of that word is from Turkey. It's accepted in Bosnia, because in our language we have lots of Turkish words. The word stands for young people who gather together, and then usually there are young girls and young boys.

It starts with, like they’re gathering in some place. And they—after they found out who’s likes to each other, and they like to each other, they start to dance. And after that, two of them, they—we show the like, one of them say, "Do you want to marry me?" And then she said, "I'm too young." And he said, "If you are too young, I'll go find another girl." Then she said, "Oh, no, I'm just kidding." I mean it's just—it's very nice. I like that, and they like that also.

We are doing dances from Albania, from Kosovo, or from Serbia, or from Croatia, or from Macedonia. And this one from Albania, it’s especially interesting because it's about wedding. And before wedding, they gather all together. And then two boys, they actually fighting. It’s not actual fighting. Nobody is hurt, but it's just pretending. But they’re fighting for one girl. And then after that, the winner gets the girl. And they dance together, and their ending is happy. But it's a story.

I'm not doing the same choreographies what I did. I'm just adapting them to their abilities. And at the beginning, their ability was kind of low. But now they can do whatever we want. It's just amazing how they've just—how far they went. So choreographies are mostly— the basic elements for each dance. I kept the basic elements, and then I add my own ideas, or sometimes we talk. I talk to kids, and they get their own ideas, if they liked it.

We try to make our choreography interesting for our audience and for themselves. So sometimes we go from faster to slower rhythm. Or we go back to faster to—I mean it's a different variation of tunes and rhythms.

It is important, even if they came here—like my daughter, she was five years old when she came here, but still, she has that in her. I mean she feels that that's something is, but she belongs too. Maybe one day one of them will be—do the same job like I do. I'm just feeling that they need to learn something what is authentic, not just something what came from TV or—.

Everybody talks about Bosnia, it's just about—. When they ask us about questions, the most questions were about war, and now I would like to show them something else.