Folk festival Koprivshtitsa
Folk festival Koprivshtitsa
The Koprivshtitsa folk festival is probably the biggest in Bulgaria.
It takes place once every five years for one weekend in August, extending throughout the beautiful Revival town of Koprivshtitsa into the surrounding mountain valleys and meadows.
The last festival was summer 2005 so the next one is due in August 2010.
Thousands of amateur Bulgarian folk music, song and dance groups as well as solo performers turn out for the festival.
There are lots of stages plus informal activity going on in every available space from morning till night.
The sight, sound and atmosphere of it all is fantastic: the performers in colourful traditional costume, the wonderful singing and music, the thrilling dances, the trance-like zurnas compelling the hips to snake and the shoulders to shimmer to their rhythm.
It is exhilarating.
