THE BURMAN;

HIS LIFE AND NOTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

DANCING.

DANCING, though an accomplishment in which every Burmese man or woman is more or less proficient, is, as elsewhere in the East, never carried on simply for personal amusement. That custom, together with elaboration of the two sexes dancing in couples, is entirely a western invention. If a great man wants dancing he hires people to do it for him. If indeed he becomes greatly excited at a boat race, a buffalo fight, or a religious procession on its way through the town to the pagoda, he may tuck up his pasoh tightly round his thighs and caper away till his bare legs tire, but he does so ordinarily with a ludicrously solemn aspect, as if the performance were a part of his official duties, and to be got through with as much stately dignity as the dispensing of justice from the magisterial bench. It is a concession to the excitability of his nature, and he would be very much offended if next day, when he had calmed down to his ordinary composed demeanour, an

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Englishman were to compliment him on the agility he displayed, or the complexity of his evolutions on the previous day.

With the young people it is different, but only to a certain extent. Most of them, if they have any aptitude that way, practise dancing for the sake of the applause and admiration it may get for them when they perform in a village procession, at the initiation of a young friend into a monastery, or at one of the great religious feasts, such as Tawadehn-tha, or even at a funeral. But as a general rule no lessons are taken other than watching noted performers. The ambitious usually confine themselves to practise in out-of-the-way places by themselves, trusting to natural ability and good ear to help them in the harmonious movement of head, limbs, and body, to the sound of the music. The women who dance as professionals in the plays have to go through a very rigorous course, not that there are any complicated steps to be learnt, but that they may acquire the pliancy of body necessary for the indiarubber contortions into which they have to writhe their bodies.

There are therefore no distinctions of dances, according to regular varieties of movements. These are pretty well regulated both by professionals and amateurs according to individual fancy. If such a thing as an "encore" existed in Burma, it would probably puzzle the dancer to repeat the step exactly as it has been gone through before. This of course refers to individual dancing, and does not by any means apply to the yehn pwès, where a carefully trained troupe goes through pre-arranged movements with welldrilled precision. There may be said to be really only two kinds of dancing: individual, or it might almost be called irresponsible dancing, such as is seen in the plays and at various religious or social ceremonies; and the yehn pwès

the figure, or "country" dances, where much practice and working together is imperatively necessary. A zaht-oke, or theatre manager, will tell you that there are four or perhaps five kinds; the dancing of the zaht pwè, the regular drama; that of the yahma zaht (the Ramayana), which is of a much wilder and energetic character; the dancing of the a-nyehn-thama, the trained companies of ballet-dancers, who perform in the palace before the king and princes to the sound of the pattala, the harp, or the flute. These are simply glorified yehns, and the danseuses are often most gorgeously dressed with gilded pyramidal crowns, and wings on their legs. Fourthly, there is the bohn-shay pwè, a performance of much the same kind, except that it is gone through to the music of the instrument of that name, a long kettle-drum-like thing, much the same as the tom-tom of India. This latter variety is considered old-fashioned, and is not often seen now, notwithstanding that it is called Byaw, after the great Thabinwoon, who is particularly fond of it. The fifth style of dancing, according to the player's idea, is the performance of the ordinary domestic youth on festive occasions, when he prances about like an extremely self-conscious turkeycock in the style that suits his capabilities best.

There are a great variety of names for special dances, but in all there is the same waving of hands and weaving of paces. The hands, fingers, elbows, and shoulders, are twisted about as if they were circular jointed; the legs are doubled up and extended in the same fantastic and tentacular fashion, while the body seems to wind and bend in any direction with equal facility. I am not a connoisseur in dancing myself, and will only add that Europeans as a rule find no attractions in the dancing except the marvellous sensitiveness to time, and the extreme tension in which every muscle of the body is constantly kept.

Little though the dancing of the men resembles European saltation, that of the girls is still farther from active motion and definite figures. This is no doubt in great part due to the Burmese female dress. The tamehn is simply a square cloth folded round the body and tucked in so that the opening is down the front. This necessitates some adroitness even in walking, and renders all active motions incompatible with modesty. When they dance the skirt is sewn or pinned down the front, so that the girl is, as it were, in a narrow bag, reaching down to her feet and trailing about on the ground in an eighteen-inch or two-foot train. Even thus hampered their dances are much more animated than those of the Indian nautch girls, but still do not go greatly beyond posturing. Nevertheless, the natural and graceful attitudes into which they throw the body, and the cleverness with which they manoeuvre their hands and arms, so different from European awkwardness with these members, is not without a charm. It is quite a common thing to see a girl bend over backwards till her lips touch the mat upon which she stands, and pick up from the ground rupees thrown there by the spectators. In Mandalay, I have seen a performer double up all her members, head and all, into a space represented by the length of her trunk, and compact enough to be put into an ordinary-sized portmanteau.

The zaht-thama, the professional actresses, usually dance to their own singing and often improvise with wonderful cleverness, when performing before a celebrity, or any one whom it is especially desired to honour. Many of them acquire a reputation that extends all over the country, and are often sought for in vain by the wealthiest play-goers. Chief among them is the Yeen-daw Mah-lay, the "Mandalay Diva," who is known to every English official or man of importance who has visited Mandalay within the

last twenty years. Unlike most Eastern women, she keeps remarkably well, and though her voice is beginning to give way, she makes up as well as she did nearly twenty years ago, when she sang in Amarapoora, the City of the Immortals. There were few Englishmen who saw her perform, ten years since, before Lord Mayo in Rangoon-she was sent down specially from Mandalay by the late king for that purpose who could have believed that she was then close on forty.

do the same

An accomplishment greatly affected by the coryphées is the extraordinary faculty of moving local muscles, the remainder of the body being perfectly quiet. Many of the men, especially the clowns of the piece, can thing, but it is usually brought in by them only as a mockery of the lady. She will extend the arms alternately and cause the muscles to rise and fall and twitch so vigorously that it may be seen yards off. Similarly the bosom heaves as if violently agitated by passion or exertion, while the face remains perfectly impassive.

These displays are all, however, comparatively uninteresting to foreigners. The posturing and waving of hands, however graceful and supple, become tiresome, and the more so the oftener they are seen. But it is different with the yehn pwè, the choral dances, which are very often executed by amateurs, and imply considerable skill and long practice under competent instructors. The coup d'œil is very attractive, and the effect of the different groupings quite as good as anything to be seen in the incidental ballet of the European stage, while the brilliance of the dresses and the ebbing and flowing chorus of the dancers adds to the picturesqueness of the whole. The yehn flourishes most in small villages, where the most promising of the youth of both sexes are taken in charge by a skilled sayah, who trains them assiduously together until they have attained