AFTERNOON:
The twenty students are in four perfect
rows in their ghos and kiras, a row of boys, then a row of girls.
The music, a plaintive traditional song for yangchen (somewhat like a
pipa or a hammered dulcimer), begins and the students bow at the
waist in honor of the "chief guest" at this rehearsal for the National Day
celebration (December 17). Their arms are extended, palms forward,
fingertips nearly touching the ground, eyes down. And then they
begin to dance.
Traditional Bhutanese dance is, in its
aesthetic and its energy, the opposite of Bharatanatyam, the
athletic, percussive dance of south India with which I was so
enamored. Boedra (traditional dance & music) is performed as a group
with the dancers moving in perfect unison, stepping slowly forward
and back with an unemphatic bent knee kick in between. Like so many
south and east Asian dances, the hands are the focal point: in what
seem to be stylized mudras, the dancers turn their hands at
the wrists, bringing the middle finger to the thumb as in a karana
mudra, a hand position that dispels negative energy or evil. The
arms are relaxed and move, winglike, up and down in rhythm. The dance
is slow, graceful, almost hypnotic, and the dancers execute their
steps effortlessly, looking straight ahead. The even, lulling pace
of these dances reflects, for me, the attitude towards life of the
Bhutanese: take things easy; don't expect too much; live a simple
life; laugh.
Were students in America asked to
perform contradance or even a tap dance (two kinds of dance
considered traditional in the States) for a 4th of July event, they
would likely sneer. In the American teens' imagination, traditional
dances are considered the purview of old people or religious
dissenters who still rely on horse and buggy. Here in Bhutan,
participating in a performance honoring the birth of the first Druk
Gyalpo (king), who unified the nation's warring districts in 1907, is
a high honor: the students performing on Tuesday are 12th class
students who completed their exams on the 14th and are free to go
home, yet they have volunteered to remain until the celebration ends on
the 17th. Their earnestness and commitment to perfecting their dance is remarkable.
Some of these students were in my
English class, and to observe them in this context, where they are so
clearly expert, is a joy. As they slowly turn, step, kick, step,
deliberate and perfect, I realize how much I will miss these students
and the warm, unhurried simplicity of life in Bhutan.