Persia/Chapter 44

by Frederic Shoberl

CHAPTER V.

DANCING.

Among the Persians, dancing is left almost entirely to females of the lowest class and the most depraved morals. A dancer and a courtesan are with them synonymous terms. In this art the Persian women display incomparable agility, and it is in this, rather than in the graceful combination of their steps and motions, that their talent consists.

From the accounts of the most recent travellers, it would appear, that it is men chiefly, or rather boys, and not females, who follow the profession of dancing for the amusement of the great, whose entertainments generally conclude with this kind of exhibition. Kotzebue, who, by the bye, seems to have carried with him to Persia some very obstinate Russian prejudices, which shrewdly suspect to have led him to overcharge many of his descriptions relative to that country, gives a ludicrous picture the performances of a company of dancers employed on an occasion by the serdar of Erivan.

Their music, says he, consisted of a guitar, a sort of violin with three strings, two tambourines, and a singer. The latter I with frightful grimaces strained his throat, apparently in strong convulsions; fortunately for us, however, he frequently covered his face, according to the custom of the country, with a piece of paper, and spared us the sight of his hideous grimaces. The musicians did not play out of tune, but still the effect of the whole sounded not unlike a concert of cats. Three handsome boys, clothed in long garments and decorated with silk ribbons of different colours, were so inspired by this discordant music and the screams of the singer, that they began dancing and throwing themselves into various attitudes. They had small metal castanets, which they struck in time with the dance. I believe that two of these youths were meant to represent females, because their motions were slower and more modest; but the third boy tumbled about most furiously, turning alternately to each of the others. The most ludicrous part of the entertainment, however, was to follow. The music suddenly rose to a loud pitch, the singer screamed unmercifully, and the three boys tumbled in somersets to the extremity of the hall; where' two of them remained in a graceful attitude, while the third stood upon his head showing his pantaloons and naked feet. There was one particular feat, which the dancers performed with great address: they turned several times in the air, without touching the ground with their hands or feet.