Night Dancing

NIGHT DANCING (Sam)

Udaipur is full of music it seems. The waiters sometimes can be heard singing along to Indian music in the kitchens or while setting tables. Women, some clutching children, will sing and dance for money on the street. And every night, there are dance and music performances you can hear from rooftop restaurants.

Last night, I checked out a traditional dance performance at a museum space close by Lake Pichola. You had to pay 50 rupees to get in (about $1) plus 100 more if you wanted to take pictures, which I did. About 100 people were there. The dancers were dressed in incredibly colorful costumes, and were accompanied by Indian musicians playing drums, percussion and string instruments. Some of the dance pieces told ancient mythical stories or parables. In one, a man riding a horse, played by a person crawling on all fours, engaged in a sword fight with another man. Two women came out with flaming bowls on their heads and performed a synchronized routine. A puppeteer performed, and one of his pieces involved a puppet who after dancing quite nicely for several minutes, suddenly “lost” his head, which the puppet then juggled, first with its hands and then, after flipping upsidedown, with its feet. Seemed  pretty magical to me.

But the last piece was the best. A woman, one of the two who had danced with the flaming bowls earlier in the evening, came out with one large bowl on her head, then three, then six, and finally 10 bowls stacked one on top of another as she danced to the music. She kept making what she was doing more incredible, first by balancing herself on a large metal plate and rocking back and forth, then after having an assistant dump what looked like a container of glass fragments on a small carpet, shuffling her feet on the glass fragments for about 20 to 30 seconds before stepping off them. This feat was performed with all 10 bowls on her head.

The entire performance lasted an hour. As I walked out of the museum, I noticed several cows and donkeys reclining on a pier next to the lake and decided to take some photos of them. One of a group of noisy teenage boys who were also on the pier said loudly something to the effect “Maybe he thinks it’s a human in a donkey’s body!” The guys laughed, and I smiled back at them. A few moments later, they kind of surrounded me. One of the boys stood side by side to me and another motioned in a way that noted how tall I was compared to them. I pointed to the tallest of the boys and said “He’s pretty tall, too.”

Then they started assembling for a group photo that one of the group wanted to take. I pulled away, and they motioned that they wanted me in the photo. I was happy to oblige them even as I wondered why they’d want to do this. So many times, people here expect you to pay them if they pose for a picture for you.  In this case, the tables were turned. If I was really quick, I could have played the joke on them and asked for payment. On second thought, it was probably just as well I didn’t suggest it. We parted ways shortly afterward, me with this warm memory of them, and them with a group photo that included me. Good trade, I’d say.