Voices of Buryatia: the Baikal Theatre and Namgar

Buryat music means long steppe songs, the yokhor circle dance, the sound of the morin khuur and throat singing. If you want to hear it live or find something to play on the road along Baikal, start with these two names.

Baikal Song and Dance Theatre

The theatre’s history began in 1939, when an ensemble was created for the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR arts festival in Moscow. Its orchestra of Buryat folk instruments was led by Isidor Ryk and its choreographer was Igor Moiseyev. In 1942 it became a state ensemble and later toured many countries in Europe and Asia.

Today Baikal is a professional theatre in Ulan-Ude presenting songs, music and dances of the Buryats, Mongols and other peoples of Asia. In 2005 it united the Baikal ensemble, the Badma Seseg dance theatre and the Chingis Pavlov Orchestra of Buryat Folk Instruments under choreographer Dandar Badluev.

Traveller’s tip: check the theatre’s schedule before your trip — one Baikal concert shows Buryat costume, dance and folk instruments in a single evening.

Namgar

Namgar Lkhasaranova has performed Buryat traditional repertoire at international festivals since the mid-1980s and is one of the Baikal theatre’s soloists. In 2001, with Evgeny Zolotarev (chanza) and producer Artur Pilyavin, she founded the band Namgar.

The band performs traditional Buryat and Mongolian songs and its own interpretations of Mongolic folklore: nerien and yokhor dance songs, game songs and long songs. Acoustic and revivalist at first, since 2007–2008 its sound has placed traditional motifs in a modern world ethno-fusion context, with yatga, morin khuur and throat singing.

A mini glossary

Yokhor — a Buryat circle dance with song. Morin khuur — a two-string bowed instrument with a horse head on the neck. Chanza — a three-string lute. Yatga — a Far Eastern zither.

Photos: Erzhena Zhambalova, CC BY-SA 4.0; Arkady Zarubin, CC BY-SA 3.0 — Wikimedia Commons.