Hulu/Chulu/Chloeloe

Breaking the Israeli dance code of the name of choreographer being more important than the name of the dance, this little ditty remains of unknown origin. Ira Weisburd says in his video description he “learned HULU back in 1987 in New Zealand in a folkdance class he was giving a workshop to. He introduced it in the U.S. to the International Folkdancers and it has remained a popular beginner circle dance all these years.” Hora Shel Sarid is a dance circa 1945, also of unknow/traditional origin. It shares the music and some of the movements. I prefer Hulu over old-school Hora Shel Sarid (Rokdim video).

There are a couple of minor variations to Hulu movements on YouTube. The first half of the dance is usually the same. Part 2 comes in two flavors, as described on Folk Dance Musings. The so-called “Tucson” version (“Lunge” version) is strange in that you end Part 2 bunched in the center of the circle. Andrew suggests that you do 2x rocks (R Tcherkessia) in place while bunched and then expand during the grapevines, although I don’t see that in any video, and people are generally confused about how to expand the circle for the Mayim. The Henry/Crab version skips the lunge and keeps the pattern of doing movements twice or for two bars. The Ira Weisburd version is a hybrid of the two, but I don’t really know how how he expands the circle between repetitions, because the video only captures the last time through, and they just keep going to the center for a finish. I like versions with 4 counts in and 4 counts back out at the end, so you are not pilled up in the center of the circle at the end of the phrase.

The music is tricky to track down. You have to “know a guy” (or a gal), or go to a workshop that sells the music. The Dutch folkdance label Hakketoon has it on Dansen voor ouderen, Vol. 6, CD 1990.1036, but where do you get such a thing? There are some other Dutch labels putting out digital downloads, but I haven’t found Chloeloe as a track. Someone uploaded to YouTube a digitization of a tape of an LP. Better than nothing. Even better, there’s an 1950 Folk Dancer 78 rpm MH-1053-A “Circle From Sarid” on the Internet Archive, but maybe not better than getting a clean Chloeloe from the Netherlands.