Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival in Myanmar

Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival 2014

This October, Myanmar holds a fanciful festival named Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival. This festival is both unique and eccentric for people participated in the festival dance while wearing an elephant figure made of paper and bamboo. The participants of Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival decorate the elephant’s dummy as pretty as possible to win the competition deciding the best elephant’s costume is held during the festival. Not only participants with the best elephant’s costume but also participants with the best dance performance will receive a prize from the local committee of the festival.

When is Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival 2014?
Kyaukse Elephant Dance Festival 2014 will be held for 2 days starting from 07 October 2014 until 09 October 2014.

The Elephant’s Dance Performance
It is quite difficult to dance in harmony with the music of Dobat and Drums while the dancer is inside a huge and heavy elephant’s figure. People inside the figure can hardly see anything outside, so they are more likely to use feeling and instinct while moving rather than sighting. A good balance and physical endurance are needed in order to keep the dummy stands sturdily. This elephant’s dance performance in Kyaukse is quite similar with the Lion Dance from Chinese, the difference lies on the figure utilized in both festival. While the Chinese Lion Dance wears Lion costume, the Kyaukse Elephant’s Dance use the elephant’s dummy as a costume for the dance.

Rules of the Elephant’s Dance Competition
Certain rules are carried out to give marks to the participants of Elephant’s Dance Competition in Kyaukse Elephant Dance. First, there are three types of the Elephant’s Dance and the participants should choose which type of dance they are eager to enter. Each participant is not supposed to take part in the other type of dance, once they’ve chosen which the kind of dance they enter. Second, before the competition starts, the participants wearing the elephant’s dummies have to walk around the market place to show their costumes and decorations to the spectators for three times. The last one, the judges will rate the dance performance, back sound music, harmony between dance and music, and teamwork.

The festival usually takes place for a whole day, and the announcement of the Elephant’s Dance Competition winner will be held at night.

Happy Kyaukse Festival 2014!

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A Holy Limestone Cave in Karen State

Lush green paddy fields and limestone cliffs create a beautiful landscape in southeastern Burma’s Karen State, home to the ethnic Karen people. The Kawgun cave, a natural limestone cavern, is about two miles from the state capital Pa-an, and can be reached by motorbike on a cement road. Along the way, a bridge crosses over the Salween River, where police and military officers once checked the IDs of anyone who passed, though the checkpoint has been removed since the political reforms of 2011.

Many visitors who take the Burma cultural tours from Burma Senses, including foreign tourists, stop at the Kawgun cave, which is filled with Buddha statues and Buddhist artifacts dating back to the seventh century. Ethnic Mon people also travel to worship there, driving cars and motorbikes from Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, which borders Karen State.

During a visit by The Irrawaddy, Karen monks were taking care of cave grounds. Some monks
said the cave had been damaged by a government-owned cement factory that is situated on the west bank of the Salween River. They said the cement company routinely blasts the mountains of the Kawgun area to extract limestone. Buddha images in the cave have been cracked as a result. At a swimming pond near the cave, local people and youths splash and play in the water.

Source: Irrawaddy.org

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