The Looks and Sounds of Old Russia : Music and dance: Lively performances of the Tziganka ensemble feature soulful Gypsy songs and traditional instruments.

Kicking up its Cossack heels, the Tziganka Russian Folk Ensemble will bring raucous dancing, exotic costumes and soulful Gypsy songs to Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre in Costa Mesa on Saturday night.

The troupe also will feature performances by Bibs Ekkel, Tziganka’s leader, considered by many the greatest balalaika and dombra virtuoso outside of the former Soviet Union. Reached by phone at a tour stop in Oregon, Ekkel (whose base is London) offered a colorful capsule history of both instruments.

“The balalaika may have come to Russia with Genghis Kahn and the Tartars,” he began. “It’s a triangular-shaped instrument with three strings, two tuned to the same note. The dombra, called domra in Russia, is believed to have arrived in the 11th Century. Also a three-stringed instrument but tuned differently, the domra was very popular until 1641 when the czar banned it, which of course is the typical Russian way of doing things.

“Minstrels going from town to town, besides doing cartwheels, used the domra to accompany songs which as a rule poked at fun at the church. The church went to the czar and said ‘Playing these instruments is leading to debauchery and drunkenness,’ and the czar banned it.”

Ekkel said anyone caught playing the domra was severely beaten, and his or her instrument was burned.

“One suspects that the balalaika was invented, again in typical Russian fashion, to get around the rules,” he continued. “They simply changed the shape a little. To the east, you can find Tartar tribes that play dombra the same way to this day. (The instruments) usually have a round body, but occasionally (are seen) with triangular bodies.”

According to Ekkel, the balalaika ultimately underwent a substantial redesign at the hands of violinist Vasily Vasil’yevich Andreyev--but Ekkel said that was another story entirely, and he launched instead into the similarly convoluted evolution of the Russian Gypsy song.

“The Gypsies in Europe picked up the local style wherever they went. In Russia, they became very famous for playing the Russian seven-string guitar and in fact, about 150 years ago, Gypsy music became very high fashion. Every time the nobility would have a function or a ‘do,’ they’d invite the Gypsies while they got drunk on champagne. At the height of the popularity, anything Gypsy became fashionable among the nobility, including marrying them.

“A very fashionable kind of song appeared, called the Gypsy romance, but they were really just Russian songs that sang of heartache, loneliness and love. If you look at these songs today, half of them seem to have been written by a prince or count or duke.”

Ekkel said Tziganka plays very few recent compositions. “We tend to concentrate on the old, forgotten and ignored, or even banned.” Faina Zinova, a Gypsy from Odessa, sings all the songs in the show except for one written by Ekkel: “Hoika Hoika, Santa Pinched My Troika.”

* The Tziganka Russian Folk Ensemble performs Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Robert B. Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. SOLD OUT. (714) 432-5880.