STORY NAME: BULGARIA NESTINARI DANCERS FESTIVAL

DURATION: 2.28

STORYLINE

The annual Nestinari dancers festival took place in the small Bulgarian Strandzha mountain villages of Brodilovo and Varvara on Saturday and Sunday as drawing visitors from all around the Balkan country.

Nestinari dancers perform a ritual fire dance originally performed in several Bulgarian and Greek speaking villages in the Strandzha Mountains close to the Black Sea coast in the southeast part of Bulgaria. It involves a barefooted dance on smouldering embers performed by nestinari.

The dances were mentioned for the first time in writings from 1862. Some historians believe that the ritual has pagan origin, despite the fact that the firedancers carry icons in their hands. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church persecuted Nestinari and claimed that they were possessed by the devil.