Dancing
Traditional Eritrean Tigrigna dancing involves two main styles of dance. In the first which is called 'quda', the dancers form a circle and slowly circumambulate or move around in an endless circular motion to the rhythm of the music. Then, they cease the circular musical flow/motion and dance in pairs or 3's facing each other for a short while before resuming the circular motion in a file again. During this time, they shuffle their feet to the beat of the music and bob their shoulders in a rhythmic fashion. Female dancers usually move their shoulders more than the male dancers. Towards the end the musical tempo increases and the drum beat quickens to signal this musical crescendo. The dancers round off their dancing by facing each other in twos and threes and moving their shoulders faster - this can also involve jumping and bending your knees and going down to the floor to sit in a squatting position while bobbing those shoulders and moving the head sideways to the strong drum beats.
In the second style of dance, two groups (often a group of men and a group of women) line up and face each other. The dance features a skipping step to the music. Periodically, the two groups will change places, dancing across the floor and passing each other in the process.
Other Eritrean traditional dance include those by the Kunama which involves raising the bead-strung legs in sync with the rhythm of the music; those by the Saho which involves jumping each leg in rhythm with the beats - as well as those by Afar, Nara, Tigre, Billen, Hidareb and Rashaida.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Eritrea
Famous quotes containing the word dancing:
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—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
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—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)