Kochari is an Armenian folk dance, danced today by Armenians, Assyrians, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Pontic Greeks and Turks. It is a form of circle dance.
Kochari is a type of dance, not a specific dance. Each region in the Armenian Highlands had its own Kochari, with its unique way of both dancing and music.[One type of „Yalli”, a dance common to Azerbaijanis, Assyrians, and Kurds has different forms known as Kochari.
In Armenian, Kochari literally means „knee-come”. Koch means „knee” and ari means „come”.
Armenians have been dancing Kochari for over a thousand years. Dancers form a closed circle, putting their hands on each other’s shoulders.
The dance is danced by both men and women and is intended to be intimidating. More modern forms of Kochari have added a „tremolo step,” which involves shaking the whole body. It spread to the eastern part of Armenia after the Armenian Genocide.