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About the Dance: History & Styles From: "Splendors of the Silk Road" by Laurel Victoria GrayUZBEKISTAN The dance traditions of present-day Uzbekistan have been enriched by numerous cultures over the centuries because the country’s central location on the Silk Road, the ancient trade routes which linked China with the Mediterranenan. Once known as Bactria, Transoxiana, Maveranaher, and Turkestan, the area was first inhabited between 55,000 to 70,000 years ago. The ancient tribes that lived in Central Asia left petroglyphs, bas-reliefs, clay sculptures, and other artifacts depicting dancers and musicians. Later peoples continued to portray dancing figures in wooden and clay sculptures, wall paintings, ornaments and drawings on serving vessels of precious metal. Pictures dating from the first centuries A.D. reflect religious, mythological, and secular subjects in which dancing figures played an important part. From the fourth to eighth centuries the professional dancers of Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent were so widely known that they were in demand at the court of the Chinese emperor. The Arab invasion of Central Asia in the 7th century and adoption of Islam promoted sexual segregation and the practice of veiling. Women danced for each other in the ich kari, or women’s quarters. Public performances of dance were the domain of the batcha or dancing boy, who dressed in women’s clothing, wore make-up, and mimicked female ways. A notable exception to this practice were the female court dancersdepicted in miniature paintings which illustrated manuscripts produced in this area from the middle ages until the ninteenth century. The surviving dance heritage of the Uzbek people includes both folklore and professional traditions. Folk dances fall into two general categories: dances performed at a specific time and linked to specific occasions, and dances performed at any time for entertainment. The first group consists of ritual dances performed at festivals associated with the seasons of the year and reflecting man’s relationship with nature. Especially popular were the songs and dances devoted to the pre-Islamic festival Navruz which takes place on the spring equionox. In addition to the all-night ritual of stirring a large caldron to make sumaliak, a special dish made from seven grains, festivities also included suskhotin, a dance asking for rain and mazhnun tal a dance by girls with fluffy willow buds woven into their braids. Other folk dances depict daily chores, seasonal work, or important events. Some dances relate to ceremonies such as wedding and funeral dances. Vestiges of Central Asian shamanism can be linked to the incantational dances of medicine men and fortune tellers which were still common at the beginning of the twentieth century. Also still performed is the zikr , a Sufi ritual in which dancers travel in a circle with repetitive movements accompanied by chanting and percussion in order to reach a trance state. |
