Balkan Ball with Zakuska & Bettina Pinkert

The evening combines dancing, listening, and warming up together—accessible for the curious, yet challenging enough for anyone who loves to lose themselves in the rhythm. On Friday, November 27, 2026, the Kulturhaus Schwanen in Waiblingen will turn into a dance floor: At the **Balkan Ball** **Bettina Pinkert** will lead traditional Eastern European circle dances, accompanied by **Zakuska** with live music (starts at 7:30 p.m., doors open at 7:00 p.m.). The evening combines dancing, listening, and warming up together—accessible for the curious, challenging enough for anyone who loves to lose themselves in rhythm. Zakuska have been playing for over ten years out of pure love for the sounds of Southeast Europe—with accordion, violin, tapan, and darbouka, plus instruments rarely seen on stages here: cimbalom, finger cymbals, trumpet violin. This results in a journey from Roma songs to klezmer, from Hungarian csárdás to Greek syrtós, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and on toward the Caucasus. Sometimes lively, sometimes edgy, sometimes dignifiedly slow—often in “irregular” time signatures that stumble at first and then carry you along. Bettina Pinkert guides you through the steps with calm and humor: simple dances to get you started, more complex sequences for those who want to dive deeper. Those who don’t feel like dancing can just as easily listen, watch, and tap their feet along. Katharina Wibmer – violin, trumpet violin Frank Eisele – accordion Daniel Kartmann — tapan, cimbalom, darbouka Bettina Pinkert — dance instruction