By Arben Iliazi

"Amaneti" by Professor Ramadan Sokoli, for the dance of Osman Taka

In 1984, when I began working on my diploma thesis, entitled "The Values ​​of Cham Folk Poetry", my friend Llazar Siliqi, then secretary of the League of Writers and Artists, recommended that I meet Ramadan Sokoli, who only two years earlier had published the book "Folklore Traces", Tirana 1982. Thus, I was fortunate to get to know closely this colossus of our spiritual heritage, the prominent Albanologist, folklorist and musicologist, the founder of Albanian ethnomusicology, Prof. Ramadan Sokoli, author of over 1200 scientific works.

Prof. Ramadan Sokoli congratulated me on the choice of my thesis topic. He had extensive knowledge of culture, customs, traditions and folklore, from the extreme southern regions of Thesprotia (ancient Chameria) to the northern tip of Dardania. He then began to speak nostalgically about the joint German-Albanian exploratory expedition of 1957, which came to take notes on the folk music of three Albanian groups in the South: the Tosks, the Labs and the Chams.

The professor had a rare passion and love for the values ​​of our cultural heritage, with great respect he spoke to me for minutes about the folklore of the Cham region, about the meetings of the international expedition with the Chams of Fier, Vlora and Saranda and the popularization of the values ​​of Cham musical folklore, in Europe and beyond. He saw polyphonic folk songs, such as those of “Çelo Mezan”, “Tanë, moj Tanë” and those of Osman Taka as the most beautiful songs of the Chams.

From Ramadan Sokoli I learned that the Song of Çelo Mezan was planned to be sung at the National Folklore Festival of Gjirokastra in 1973, but the political regime censored it. This song was one of the best ways for the Albanian public to get to know the Cham region and its history better. But it only managed to enter the festival in 1978, sung by the famous group of Rrogozhina, accompanied by violin, clarinet, lute and tambourine.

From Professor Ramadan Sokoli I learned how much effort it took him and his colleagues to introduce Osman Taka's dance, one of the most beautiful and manly of Chameria, to the '73 Festival. It was the first time that Osman Taka's legendary dance was danced at a nationwide festival, which left an entire nation amazed, magically danced by the great Taip Madani!

In early September 2006, I met again with Professor Ramadan Sokoli, two months after the American Biographical Institute (ABI) included him in the “List of the Most Respected Experts in the World”. He lived alone not far from the center of the capital, near the “Barricade Street”, on the ground floor, or rather in the basement, of an old house in Tirana, owned by the well-known Petrela family. Prof. Sokoli, with knees that trembled from age, poor health, could barely stand.

Extremely tired from the vicissitudes of a life full of suffering and endless stress, the professor continued to work on his creativity, although he felt marginalized and without any kind of support from the state authorities of art and culture. He told me that he had in his hands a monograph on Cham musicology and folklore.

He spoke more emotionally about the originality of Osman Taka's dance, which, according to him, deserves to be in the golden fund of culture, of intangible heritage, not only Albanian, but also UNESCO's world heritage, as one of the most precious treasures of cultural identity, of extraordinary value.

And he began describing the dance, as if giving a lecture to his students: "It is danced with great elegance. The start is calm, it follows the orchestra, completely harmonizing with it. The dance begins with a simple step and you really say that you are going to do something. At the end of the first musical verse, the dancer, with his head and hand moving slightly forward, gives you the impression that something is going to be done.

Surprisingly, the more confined the environment, the more beautiful and better this dance is danced, even on a table. It is an epic dance, but within this epicism there is a lyricism, there is a freedom that the whole body dances organically with the soul of the one who dances the dance, but also with those who play the musical instruments. This dance is also performed by Greeks, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Yugoslavs, but they all call it “Osman Taka's Dance”. The choreographic school of Ioannina even provided the Albanian text.

The dance has several climaxes. The climax is when you acrobatically turn into a bridge and two or three dancers dance on your stomach, meaning you are able to hold two or three dancers with your abdominal muscles, dancing one after the other for about a minute and a half. Here we are dealing with the historical side of the dance. We are not dealing with an ordinary bridge, but with what is called the bridge of generations, of history, of efforts, of sacrifices, of blood and of folk wisdom.

Prof. Ramadan Sokoli, taking on a solemn look, almost as if he were leaving a legacy, said: "This dance is identity. And identity is the definition of oneself, it is self-identification, it is a sense of belonging of individuals to a group that reaffirms itself."

Osman Taka's dance is a magnificent art that never fades, a great cultural asset of the Albanian nation, with rare authenticity and beauty. It inspires many artists and ordinary people, as a metaphor for endurance, freedom and humanism.

A monumental choreographic work, where time and art express each other brilliantly. Let us hope that the National Council for Intangible Cultural Heritage and the National Center for Traditional Activities will give this unique and epochal work the place it deserves in our cultural heritage./ Memorie.al