2024 / 4 – From Fieldwork to Theory. Edited by Anna Shtarbanova, Ivaylo Parvanov

The issue is dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Prof. Anna Ilieva, D. Sc. and reflects the thematic scope of the National Round Table “From Fieldwork to Theory – Contemporary Scholarly Paradigms in Bulgarian Ethno-Choreology”, held in October 2023.
The articles seem quite different in nature, but actually present a wide variety of original ways in which the authors re-read certain aspects of Prof. Ilieva’s numerous contributions. The issue offers an insight into the ways the traditional dances and plays are documented by using kinestenography – a special dance writing system created by Rayna Katsarova and further developed by Anna Ilieva. Fieldwork observations and analytical thoughts on the traditional dance lexica and its contemporary interpretations are presented also within the theoretical paradigm of Prof. Ilieva. The ethnomusicological scholarly contributions by Prof. Ilieva are reviewed including her studies “Musical and Folkloristic Investigations in the Region of Svoge” (1964) and “The Bulgarian Folk Dances and Their Music” (1971). Rayna Katsarova’s substantial contributions for the description of the content and function of the folk dances of the Bulgarians in Bessarabia are outlined while analyzing archival fieldwork data from her expedition to Ukraine and Moldova in 1958. The ritual of Mevlid is presented as an important religious practice in the system of the local calendar and family rites, as well as an expression of the local identity of the Bulgarian Muslims in the town of Madan. On the intersection of folklore and the present, the life and the artistic development of the composer, kaval player and director Zhivko Zhelev is traced.