dance for the aristocracy/nobility. Some Romani performers
also travelled extensive distances, throughout the Ottoman
Empire as well as beyond its borders to places including
modern-day Egypt, working as professional entertainers.
The influence of Ottoman music and dance that Romani
performers carried with them can still be observed in several
Balkan countries. For example, in places like Vranje (Serbia),
Ottoman cultural forms are highlighted as important
and distinctive markers of regional identity. As Serbian
researcher Alexander Marković notes:
As professional entertainers, it is the Romani
community that has de facto maintained and performed
the repertoire associated with Vranje’s Ottoman past.
More importantly, the image of Roma as musicians
and dancers is the centerpiece of narratives of Vranje’s
“Eastern-influenced” culture, strongly ingrained in
the folklore of the nation through literature, film, and
the performative arts. For example, Vranje’s Roma
figure prominently as entertainers in the works of
playwright and novelist Bora Stanković; the heroine
of Stanković’s best-known play Koštana is based on
Malika Eminović, a Vranje Romani woman who sang
and danced professionally in taverns in the late 1800s.
Folk dance ensembles throughout Serbia further
perpetuate the discursive link between Vranje’s Roma
and “Oriental Turkish” culture at the national level.
by using melodies or tunes in Turkish music. …you
are improvising. That is Roman music; y