Kantoke

Windy and I got tickets to the Kantoke show: kinda like visiting the Hawaiian cultural center on Oahu: full of tourists- but just about the only way to see traditional dance. Food was wonderful! Vegetarian and yummy. Cold but yummy. They were supposed to send a truck to pick us up at our hostel between 7-7:15pm, by 7:20 we found a red truck to drive us BUT he didn’t speak much English, I don’t speak much Thai… and he didn’t understand where we wanted to go! I sat in the front of the truck with him, the map spread out on my lap as we navigated our way around Chiang Mai.. until we found the Cultural Center. He also helped me on my pronunciation which is very much an aural thing so I’ll tell you when I get home! Dinner and then the dances started- traditional Thai dance with the bent fingers and the long fingernails- I’ve been told that the dancers from a young age drink a glass of vinegar a day to keep their bones supple so they can bend their hands like that. Their bones never fully calcify like ours; they remain very bendable. Wowza. Kinda creepy but also kinda cool. One dance they dressed up like chickens with headdresses and tails and my personal favorite was when a guy came out and danced with a dozen swords. Blades whizzing past his head. Then we walked outside and around the center to an outdoor structure to see traditional hill tribe dances. By far my favorite part of the show. More oompha. More beat, more rhythm, Windy says that indigenous cultures are more interesting because they aren’t courtly. They aren’t worried about having their heads chopped off if the king doesn’t like it. :) And, interesting note: all the hilltribe dances are known by all the people in the tribe whereas the Thai court dances are only known by Thai dancers who study for years and years. There were drum dances with the drummer turning his body in every possible contortion to get a beat out and flinging himself through the air to hit the drum and a dance with a woman dressed like some kind of bird with gossamer like tails/ wings and two acrobats dressed as a lama like character- I wish I could describe this better- it was very funny and absolutely wonderful. They have pipes made of bamboo and gourds and for one dance the musicians basically did break dancing while playing these pipes! Bagpipers eat your heart out. And of course- fire dancing!!! I like the warrior stuff best: go figure.