SOVIET UNION REGIONAL SET 23 - 26 (4 DVD/1 BOOK)

Four DVDs illustrate 88 music and dance performances of all of the former Soviet republics and territories.

Vol 1 features Russia and lyric folk songs, group dance songs, village chorus and spinning song, a wood trumpet ensemble, children's pliaska (fast dance), an historical song and a wedding song.

Vol 2 visits Latvia for folk songs and instrument ensembles and an antiphonal song from Alsunga; Estonia for a medley of ethnic dances; Lithuania for a waltz, wedding song, male chorus, and folk ensemble polkas and waltzes, along with game songs; Belorussia for a folk dance medley and folk songs; Ukraine and Moldavia for duma (narrative song), plus ethnic dance medleys and a wedding song.

Vol 3 features Azerbaijan and its lute, shawm and plucked lute music; Armenia's wedding dance and song, a shawm solo and folk song; a Georgian male chorus, songs, dances and part-singing from the Adzhar region plus ethnic dance performances from Dagestan.

Vol 4 includes ethnic instruments, and folk song and dance from Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kirgiz, Kalmyk, Mari, Bashkir and Siberia, featuring musical children's stories, Eskimo song and dance and a Kamchatkan ensemble.

A 94-page book rounds out this collection with descriptions, maps, glossaries and essays.

Part of the JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance. Also available as individual DVDs.