Teškoto
Teškoto or Teshkoto, is a folk dance from the Mijak ethnographic region, located in western Macedonia.History
The dance represents the hard life of people from the region. Its origins come from the period when locals were leaving their country for a better life, but over the years it has also grown as a symbol for all the pain caused in the region in the past. The dance has inspired Blaže Koneski's 1948 poem Teškoto. It has been the signature dance of Tanec after its formation in 1949. Teškoto has been traditionally performed in the western Macedonian mountainous region of Reka, as well as the villages of Galičnik, Lazaropole, and Gari. Apart from Eastern Orthodox people, dancers of Teškoto have also been the Torbeši. Traditionally, Albanian-speaking Muslim Romani people from Debar have been the performers of the music for the dance. It is a line dance in which the leader requires skills of improvisation. The dance begins with a slow and non-metric section where the dancers perform with precise lifts, steps, and leaps. The musicians must follow the leader, picking up on visual embodied cues. The music builds with a tempo, ending in a fast 2/4 section. Macedonia attempted to include the dance in UNESCO's UNESCO [Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists#Proclaimed masterpieces|Masterpiece of Intangible Cultural Heritage list] twice, in 2002 and 2004. A monument of the dance is in Skopje.Galičnik Wedding Festival
One of the most prominent festivals that feature the dance is the Galičnik Wedding Festival, an annual event in the Galičnik, one of the oldest villages in North Macedonia.