Madi People - Dances

Dances

  • Mure — the dance of celebration and mourning. It is often danced during celebration (of events such: a victory in war, the birth of a king, etc.) and mourning (the death of king, lost of land during war, etc.). Mure is often danced to the tune of the sounds of wooden trumpets (ture, odiri), animal horns (pbere), mbiri (dancing bells), and drums (leri). At mure dance, men sporadically utter bellows (cira soka). Every cira is unique and carries coded message. A cira is normally used as sign of identification and authority. Women (often the wives of the men who utter cira) would answer with their own bellow (mbilili) as sign of recognition and reverence. During mure, war songs (jeyi) are often sung - specially when the Madi people at war. Jeyi could even be sung during the time of battles, accompanied by the sounds of cira, ture and pkere, by Madi warriors to encourage themselves and to threaten the enemies to surrender or escape.
  • Gayi — a youth flirtation dance similar to flamingo.
  • Kore — a graceful dance
  • Kejua — mostly danced by women

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Famous quotes containing the word dances:

    Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor.
    Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn;
    We know that our master has left us for the day.
    Robert Bly (b. 1926)

    Tommy is three and when he’s bad
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    and throws him across the room.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    We have dancing ... from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o’clock.... Occasionally the boys who play the female partners in the dances exercise their ingenuity in dressing to look as girlish as possible. In the absence of lady duds they use leaves, and the leaf-clad beauties often look very pretty and always odd enough.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)