Kochari (; ; ; ) is a folk dance originating in the Armenian Highlands.
Each region in the Armenian Highlands had its own Kochari, with its unique way of both dancing and music.
Etymology
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In Armenian, "Kochari" literally means "knee-come". Գուճ (gudj or goudj) means "knee" and արի (ari) means "come".
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In Azerbaijani Turkish, "köç" means "to move" used both as a verb and as a noun,
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In Pontic Greek, from the Greek language "κότσι" (in Pontic Greek "κοτς") meaning "heel" (from Medieval Greek "κόττιον" meaning the same) and "αίρω" meaning "raise", all together "raising the heel", since the Greeks consider the heel to be the main part of the foot which the dancer uses.
Versions
John Blacking describes Kochari as follows:
Armenian
Armenians have been dancing Kochari for over a thousand years.
[Kochari // Music encyclopedic dictionary / Yu.V. Keldysh, M.G. Aranovsky, L.Z. Korabelnikova — Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990. — p. 275.] The dance is danced by both men and women and is intended to be intimidating. More modern forms of Kochari have added a "tremolo step", which involves shaking the whole body. It spread to the eastern part of Armenia after the Armenian genocide. The Armenian Kochari has been included to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding of
UNESCO in 2017.
Azerbaijani
Today this dancing is played in the Nakhchivan land of which Sharur,
Sadarak District, Kangarli, Julfa and
Shahbuz District regions' folklore collectives and it is performed at weddings.
Kochari along with tenzere has been included to the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding of UNESCO in November 2018 as versions of Yalli dance.
Pontic Greek Kόtsari
The
Pontic Greeks and
Armenians have many vigorous warlike dances such as the Kochari.
[ Greece - Page 67 by Paul Hellander, Kate Armstrong, Michael Clark, Des Hannigan, Victoria Kyriakopoulos, Miriam Raphael, Andrew Ston]
Unlike most Pontic dances, the Kotsari is in an even rhythm (), originally danced in a closed circle.
See also
==Gallery==
External links
