Thread: Music and Dance of Southeast Asia

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.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VCLq-3PjtEE

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.

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.