Serbian Dance and Dress
I first encountered the traditional arts and dance of the Balkans, whilst a student of Fine Art at Oxford. I joined the Balkan Dance group which in the late 1960s included mostly Serbs who had been refugees from the Second World War and their families. University staff and students with an interest in Slavonic languages or ethnography and local people who had become interested in learning more about the Balkans also joined. I was the first new member for some years and was daunted by the expertise of the group and by needing to learn by ‘watching and joining in’ these very complex dances. This was the traditional mode of learning – go behind the line and copy the dancers, go to the end of the line and try to catch the steps, the rhythm and relate to the powerful music. Occasionally a kind experienced dancer would break off and show the steps a few times, then it was up to me to practise and struggle.
The group maintained its links with Serbian culture, especially Saints’ Days, Christmas (7thJanuary) and Easter – this being the most important festival in the Orthodox calendar. I was drawn further into this experience, learning not only about the dances, festivals and history but also the traditional costumes.
The group performed at several events during the year, when these costumes would be worn. Some group members had their own costumes, others were owned by the group or lent. Every August some of the group would go to Serbia, usually Belgrade, to refresh relations with family or friends, or to visit festivals. I was overjoyed when I was invited to join the group at one of their performances and offered one of these incredible costumes to wear. The advice was to join in when I felt confident and not to worry too much. Of course I was terrified but the warmth and acceptance of the group was reassuring. I recall this first tentative performance was at an event to celebrate and Orthodox Saint’s Day organised by the British Bulgarian Friendship Society, where I first met my future husband Danny Lumley, then leader of the Bulgarian Dance Group, and my lifelong friend, the late Dr Mercia MacDermott who had been a teacher of Slavonic Studies from Oxford and an enthusiastic dancer. Mercia and Danny had been members of the post-war Brigades who had helped with the rebuilding of the destroyed wartime infrastructure in former Jugoslavia and Bulgaria and had themselves been drawn into the traditional arts of both countries. At the same time I was studying fine art and art history at Oxford yet I was spending a lot of time in the Institute of Ethnography, realising that had I known about the existence of the disciplines of Anthropology and Ethnography, I would have chosen to study them with art and design as subsidiary as opposed to the other way round. My art practice and my interests were much more about the role of the arts in society, hence I was a good candidate for the very much emerging practice of art therapy when I heard about it. After Oxford, and a three year period of work at the Royal College of Art, followed by the MA there, I put in an application to the Leverhulme Trust for a year long European Scholarship—to study the role of the traditional arts in rapidly changing societies, namely in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Skopje, now North Macedonia. To my astonishment (and also that of the RCA) I was awarded one of these 8 scholarships. I was able to be joined by Danny who took a year’s unpaid leave from his art teaching job and so began an extraordinary year (1972) exploring this project and at the same time learning from experience of what it was like to live in Bulgaria and Jugoslavia at a time of very rapid change, to manage the political and cultural differences and to witness the living arts in the form of people actually wearing the beautiful costumes that I had first come across in Oxford and performing the dances at weddings, festivals, christenings and any other opportunity. But, with rapid industrialisation came the sad realisation that these traditions were no longer much appreciated in the cities, young people were moving from the villages, and older people would prefer to sell their costumes to buy a television for their grandchildren. The traditions were linked with the harsh life in the villages, the struggles for women, managing life without the men who went to the cities for work, or went further to Germany, Sweden or even Australia. I could not look at the costumes without understanding the massive deprivations of especially village life and the need for change. Nevertheless during that year I was offered to buy costumes from many regions in exchange for cash which would be used to buy items that the children and grandchildren would appreciate. There are so many stories I could tell about the purchase of costumes which was never a straightforward issue. I used up most of my grant in these transactions, and bought as many as I could for both the former Jugoslav Dance Group (Zivko Firfov) in London and the Bulgarian Dance Group.
Art Therapy Programme Samoranovo 1983
A lot of time was spent in travelling around, visiting the villages of Macedonia, going up to the mountains before they were cut off by snow, attending festivals and going to ethnographic museums in various parts of former Jugoslavia. Visiting dance groups, ethnographers, people keen to share their knowledge, artists, families whose relatives had gone to Australia, anyone prepared to talk about their lives, attempting to shop in the markets, appreciating seasonal food yet missing familiar items like oranges and even attending Skopje-style ‘ideal homes’ fairs where somewhat heavy furniture from Italy was all the range, spending all evenings with our landlord in the bungalow where we had a room, this made up the year and a half of the scholarship. I had had Bulgarian lessons in London before leaving, and that added to my knowledge of the then Serbo-Croat, plus Macedonian lessons in Skopje and talking to the landlord and his family who spoke no English, resulted in me acquiring what very amused friends there called ‘real South-Slav’ and Bulgarians asking why I had a ‘Macedonian accent’. Political considerations aside, it was odd for an English person to communicate in this way. Danny avoided all of it by claiming to be ‘no good at languages’. Hours of watching television in both countries was useful in learning, and even when certain British comedies were shown (‘On the buses’ being a great hit in Jugoslavia) they had subtitles so it was another opportunity to learn. Talking to art teachers in both countries showed that they were quite restricted in how their teaching was prescribed and very formal, although they themselves wanted to open up the curriculum and to encourage more expression from their students. Using art in therapy was a new concept but they could understand how it could be but not in a school context.
I think this experience of having to adapt to living and studying in Sofia and Skopje changed me greatly and on writing this realise that it has been a major influence on my life and career ever since. I returned to Bulgaria to help start a training in art therapy in the 1980s, at the Medical Academy in Sofia, contacts lasting to this day, and maintained a strong relationship with my Serbian art therapy graduates based in Belgrade. Sadly, the Balkan War, stopped other developments in Serbia and Croatia but hopefully the seeds were sown.
Skopje Black Men Chemise Back
Black Apron, Belgrade
Woman’s Coat, Galicnik
Back Apron Edge, Belgrade 1930’s
I was delighted when the British Museum, lacking any significant traditional costumes and textiles from the Balkans, appointed a curator to start a department. My 32 complete costumes, from former Jugoslavia, and Bulgaria (which include ones from the Vlach, Karakachani and Albanian people) are now safely in the British Museum, along with a few items from Romania and Greece. I have been able to exhibit them prior to and since they have been in the Museum at the University of Brighton’s exhibition centre, galleries in Bath, Lincoln, Goldsmiths College and the Museum of Mankind, and along with elements from other collections, notably the Bulgarian Ethnographic Institute at the Museum. I have been able to help design and build the models for the clothes and help the Museum identify their early donations from boxes of items with unknown provenance. Very few of these turned out to be from the Balkans.
Exhibition Figures at Museum of Mankind
My most important project has been a commissioned book by the BM, Textiles from the Balkans’ in BMs Fabric Folios Series, 2010. My sadness is that Danny Lumley, who played such an important role in the collecting and exhibiting of the costumes died before the book was published. His role in this work and indeed in my career in art therapy cannot be underestimated.
I am including here a few examples of the items, some with me wearing them, and a picture of myself with the art therapy trainees, mostly psychiatrists and psychologists, from the first Sofia group.
This is a brief attempt to show how important my still incomplete study and understanding of the role of these beautiful costumes and textiles and indeed of the socio-cultural and political history of the Balkans has been in my life and work as an art and group psychotherapist.
Diane Waller OBE
Art Psychotherapist, Group Psychotherapist and student of Balkan ethnography
Emeritus Professor of Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths, University of London