The dance we tried out on Wednesday, 8/10/2011 was called Sighanon. It comes from the Pontos region which is now part of present day Turkey, the southern coast of the Black Sea.
"40 Red Apples"
The actual name of the song that we danced Sighanon to, is "Seranda mila kokina" or "Saranta Mila kokkina" which translates to "40 Red Apples".
We learned this in the village of Prochoma in Northern Greece which is populated mainly by refugees from Pontos and Kars. Kars is a present day city in Turkey.
Greek Genocide
The refugees were from the Greek Genocide carried out by the Turks during the years of 1914 to 1923 when the worlds attention at the time was focused on the aftermath of WW I. Explains the sometimes derogatory references to Turks in some of the lyrics of other Greek dances.
Links
I don't at present have a video link to the dance Sighanon but do have some links to performances of "Saranta Mila kokkina", "40 Red Apples".
Modern Acoustic Session. Recorded 16.10.2006 live at at Octalogic Studio (GER)
http://youtu.be/7oXm_BeQrm4
Very dated ( 60's ??) black & white movie with people singing to lone bagpipe version of the song. They appear to be drinking Ouzo.
http://youtu.be/HIIhkYzBf4I
Some lyrics from "Saranta Mila kokkina"
saranta mila kokkina pouli m'
saranta mila kokkina giavri m'
s' ena mantil demena
s' ena mantil demena
saranta sevtas ki' an eftas pouli m'
saranta sevtas ki' an eftas giavri m'
k' evrik's ki amon emena
k' evrik's ki amon emena
gia ela ela pouli m'
me temen ela giavri m'
This is a 'latin alphabet' based version of Greek words.
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