5 COUNTRIES AND THEIR FAMOUS

DANCE

JOSHUA L.VELASCO
12 HUMSS FREUD
Khon (Thailand)
Khon (Thai: โขน, pronounced [kʰǒːn]) is a dance drama genre from Thailand. Khon has been
performed since the Ayutthaya Kingdom.

It is traditionally performed solely in the royal court by men in masks accompanied by narrators
and a traditional piphat ensemble. A variation of this genre with female performers is called
khon phu ying (โขนผู ้หญิง).

Involve graceful dance movements, instrumental and vocal renditions and glittering costumes –
depict the glory of Rama, the hero and incarnation of the god Vishnu, who brings order and
justice to the world.

One of the standard topics of Thai theatre studies is the origin of khon. Rama II (1809–1824)
has often been mentioned as its creator, but it is now believed to be much older. The first
written reference to this genre is an account of a khon play recorded by a French delegation
visiting Ayutthaya in 1691.

EXAMPLE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/-FLLOQ45Fag

Srimpi (Indonesia)
Srimpi (Javanese: ꦱꦿꦶꦩ꧀ꦥꦶ, romanized: Srimpi) (also written as Serimpi) is a
ritualized dance of Java, Indonesia, associated with the royal palaces of Yogyakarta and
Surakarta. The srimpi dance is one of the classical dance of Central Java.[1][2] Along with the
bedhaya, srimpi epitomized the elegance (Javanese: alus) character of the royal Javanese court,
and the dance became a symbol of the ruler's power as well as the refinement of Javanese
culture.

The srimpi dance usually performed by four female dancers, however other numbers such as
two, six or eight dancers is also possible, depends to the type of srimpi being performed.
Similarity in looks, height and body type among dancers is preferred to achieve better aesthetic.
Srimpi demonstrate soft and slow movements and a highly stylized hands positions, stances and
body poses with graceful movement to describes modesty, refinement, beauty and grace. The
dancer moves slowly accompanied with serene gamelan music

EXAMPLE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/55JWE0if4ZM

Tinikling (Philippines)
Tinikling is a traditional Philippine folk dance which originated during the Spanish colonial era.
The dance involves two people beating, tapping, and sliding bamboo poles on the ground and
against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the
poles in a dance.

According to historical accounts, the Tinikling dance originated during the Spanish occupation
in the Philippines—particularly on the island of Leyte. Rice farmers on the Visayan Islands
usually set up bamboo traps to protect their fields, yet tikling birds dodged their traps. Locals
imitated the birds’ movement, and supposedly, that’s how this dramatic traditional folk dance
was born.

Someone who dances the Tinikling imitates the movements of a tikling bird (hence, tikling-like)
as the bird walks over the grass or dodges bamboo traps set by Filipino farmers on vast rice
fields.

EXAMPLE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/_WLfqDMwA_o

Square Dance (United States of America)
A square dance is a dance for four couples -eight dancers in total- arranged in a square, with one
couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from
numerous traditional dances and were first documented in 16th-century England[citation
needed], but they were also quite common in France and throughout Europe. Early square
dances, particularly English country dances and French quadrilles, traveled to North America
with the European settlers and developed significantly there.

In some countries and regions, through preservation and repetition, square dances have attained
the status of a folk dance. Square dancing is strongly associated with the United States, in part
due to its association with the romanticized image of the American cowboy in the 20th
century,and 31 states have designated it as their official state dance. The main North American
types of square dances include traditional square dance and modern western square dance,
which is widely known and danced worldwide. Other main types popular in England, Ireland,
and Scotland include Playford dances, regional folk dances, ceili, Irish set dances, and Scottish
country dances.

The couples in a square are numbered, although numbering varies among different types. In
many of the types, two of the couples are known as heads and the other two are called sides. In
most American forms of square dance, the dancers are prompted or cued through a sequence of
steps by a caller to the beat (and, in some traditions, the phrasing) of music. In other variations,
dancers have no caller and instead memorize and perform a specific routine and sequence of
steps. Square dance music varies widely, with some forms using traditional tunes and others
employing more modern types.
EXAMPLE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/JHqS1bOOLVc

Kamarinskaya (Russia)
Kamarinskaya is a Russian traditional folk dance, which is mostly known today as the Russian
composer Mikhail Glinka's composition of the same name. Glinka's Kamarinskaya, written in
1848, was the first orchestral work based entirely on Russian folk song and to use the
compositional principles of that genre to dictate the form of the music. It premiered on 15
March 1850.[1] It became a touchstone for the following generation of Russian composers
ranging from the Western-oriented Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to the group of nationalists known
collectively as The Five and was also lauded abroad, most notably by French composer Hector
Berlioz.

According to musicologist Richard Taruskin, the traditional Kamarinskaya is "a quick dance
tune" otherwise known as a naigrish, distinctive for its three-bar phrase lengths, which are
played in an endless number of variations in moto perpetuo fashion by an instrumentalist. This
tune usually accompanies a squatting dance often called a Kazatsky (especially since in the
West it has been associated in romantic fashion with Cossacks) and is played traditionally by a
fiddler, a balalika player or a concertina player

EXAMPLE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/mSlrnh-nXEs

0