# Music and Dance of Southeast Asia



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I have always been enamored of southeast Asian "classical" dance. Much of it, if one reads something of its history, is actually rather recent in its current form. The dance of Cambodia/Kampuchea had to be reconstructed following the devastation of the Khmer Rouge horror, and the Bharatanatyam dance of India today is also a reconstruction of perceived "ancient" Indian dance of many centuries back in time, as is likely true for Balinese dance. Worldwide, a lot of "folkloric" dress, art, music, dance is in some sense a product of 19th or early 20th century re-imagination or even re-invention--the case of Scotland and Sir Walter Scott and friends, and George IV comes to mind. But that is no impediment to my enjoyment of the dancing in question. Attractive, supple, highly-trained, beautifully dressed young women gravely executing their memorized steps and poses in exacting detail, can never fail to interest me.

I'll start here with this Cambodian/Kampuchean example. It is very slow, calm, measured. The details of hand and foot position and attitude are obviously of central importance to the dance's proper execution, and it's interesting to compare this with, say, Irish dance where the body is held rigidly immobile and the focus is on footwork alone.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Here is an example of Indian Bharatanatyam dance. It is a long piece, telling a bit of the _Ramayana_. One can skip forward in the clip to about 5:00, where the narrator gives a brief summary in English of the story depicted. The dance itself is hypnotic. I am amazed at the training and the feat of memory involved in executing this dance. Enjoy! I do!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I'll finish this segment with an example of Balinese dance. Here we have two protagonists, a woman and man, both elaborately dressed, and showing a lot of body English in their interaction with one another. Watch especially the woman's hands and fingers--there are all kinds of messages being sent here. Fascinating!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I love these beautiful SE Asian women is their spectacular traditional garb. I lived with a Vietnamese woman for 25 years, and we attended many weddings, and she had a few of the beautiful dresses. That video looks more Indian. Sadly, like most people, the Vietnamese people I knew didn't have much interest in these traditions. They all listened to westernized Vietnamese pop music.

But anyway, the weddings and parties were always spectacular! And the food was out of this world! My ex-girlfriend is kind of a lone princess, and she maintains a healthy detachment from it all. She always said the Vietnamese Americans were always trying to out do each other, and spending way too much money on this stuff. Many of them left their country with nothing, so they go crazy in America working 80 hrs a week and buying BMWs, Mercedes, and Lexus automobiles. My girl Hai (number 2) came from a well to do family, so she didn't hunger for the material things.

In traditional societies where they repect their elders, parents are number one, and first born is number two. So many first born Vietnamese children are called Hai as a nickname. Second born get called Ba, or number 3.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Getting to know a little about another culture is one way of helping humans to evolve. It can make you sick and horrified to know your government bombed and murdered millions of these beautiful people.


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## Jay (Jul 21, 2014)




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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Here is an example of Indian Bharatanatyam dance. It is a long piece, telling a bit of the _Ramayana_. One can skip forward in the clip to about 5:00, where the narrator gives a brief summary in English of the story depicted. The dance itself is hypnotic. I am amazed at the training and the feat of memory involved in executing this dance. Enjoy! I do!


Love this one. Great rhythms also.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Casebearer said:


> Love this one. Great rhythms also.


Watching this dance, one speculates whether "thumbs up" originated with the Roman emperors in the Colosseum or with Bharatanatyam. I give her storytelling a big "thumbs up"; it seems to be an integral gesture in the tale.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

I enjoy Indonesia dance styles. Here is from Moluccas :


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I thought the dance from the Moluccas looked familiar. So I went into the memory banks and came up with an extraordinarily similar dance from Taiwan, allegedly of the aboriginal people of the central mountains there. Anthropologists now know that many of the populations of Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, and further east into the Pacific (Polynesia), share a common linguistic ancestry. So it is remotely possible that this similarity is genuine and very old. But my guess would be that both the Taiwanese and the Moluccan versions of this dance are quite modern inventions set up by impresarios hoping to craft an "authentic" folkloric tradition for a population with which to beguile tourists.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm no expert but somehow both dances somehow also seem quite similar to European folk dances or court dances (except for the use of these big sticks).


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)

Giving a bump to an interesting thread courtesy of Strange Magic -


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)

Indonesian Dance Part Two - 




Indonesian Dance Part Three -


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)

Sorry! - My apologies! - This one was supposed to be in the "Music and Dance of Central Los Angeles" thread and accidentally wandered into the "Music and Dance of Southeast Asia" thread by mistake when the video took a right turn instead of a left... Videos apparently drive on different sides of the road in Southeast Asia than they do in Los Angeles...


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)

Brunei Traditional Dance - Kayum O Ya Kayum -


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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)




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## Guest (Aug 7, 2018)

*This is a links only post for each of the embedded videos within this thread.

*Bandwidth issues prevent many users from being able to access the videos that we've been posting and it has been especially problematic for iPad users and so -

Gabor Dance Performance at Ubud Royal Palace






Indonesian Dance Part 2






Indonesian Dance Part 3






Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk






Traditional Dance of Brunei






Hmong Dance in Laos






Court Dance Myanmar Dance






Bulaklakan/Dance of Floral Garlands- Philippine Traditional Cultural/Rural/Folk Dance/Carassauga2017






Singapore Folk Dance Show in Dubai


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Syd, many thanks for the burgeoning examples of southeastern Asian dance. One can confine oneself to study and appreciation of the performers, the dance itself, the dress, the musical accompaniment, and draw what enjoyment from it that one experiences. The problem arises--if it is a problem--when considering the authenticity of such expressions as examples of "folk" or "court" or "classical" dance. Without detailed accounts centuries old by outside observers, perhaps accompanied by artists' sketches, we have no way of knowing how old such dances are, until the Time Machine that Mr. H.G. Wells hypothesizes is built and functioning. The case of the invention and wholesale embroidery of Scottish culture, including dress, by Sir Walter Scott and his cohorts in preparation for the visit by George IV is well known. Flamenco presents similar problems of determining its antiquity. We do have recognizable accounts of flamenco reaching back to the mid-19th century--beyond then, its past is essentially supposition. But we can put such caveats aside--we must put them aside--and just enjoy the dancing for what it is!


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