ARTS & ARCHITECTURE347Tribal textiles and weavings produced by the Chin, Naga, Kachin and
Kayin can also be very beautiful, especially antique pieces. Among tra-
ditional hand-woven silk longyis,laun-taya acheik, woven on hundred
spools, are the most prized.
Dance & Theatre
Myanmar’s truly indigenous dance forms are those that pay homage to
the natt (spirit being). Most classical dance styles, meanwhile, arrived
from Thailand. Today the dances most obviously taken from Thailand
are known as yodaya zatt (Ayuthaya theatre), as taught to the people of
Myanmar by Thai theatrical artists taken captive in the 18th century.
The most Myanmar of dances feature solo performances by female
dancers who wear strikingly colourful dresses with long white trains,
which they kick into the air with their heels – quite a feat, given the
restrictive length of the train.
An all-night zat pwe involves a re-creation of an ancient legend or
Buddhist Jataka (life story of the Buddha), while theyamazatt pick a tale
from the Indian epic Ramayana. In Mandalay,yamazatt performers even
have their own shrine.
Myanmar classical dancing emphasises pose rather than movement
and solo rather than ensemble performances. In contrast the less com-
mon, but livelier, yein pwe features singing and dancing performed by a
chorus or ensemble.
Most popular of all is thea-nyeint pwe, a traditional pwe somewhat
akin to early American vaudeville, the most famous exponents of which
are Mandalay’s Moustache Brothers.
Marionette Theatre
Youq-the pwe (Myanmar marionette theatre) presents colourful pup-
pets up to 3.5ft high in a spectacle that many aesthetes consider the
most expressive of all the Myanmar arts. Developed during the Kon-
baung period, it was so infl uential that it became the forerunner to
zat pwe as later performed by actors rather than marionettes. As with
dance-drama, the genre’s ‘golden age’ began with the Mandalay king-
doms of the late 18th century and ran through to the advent of cinema
in the 1930s.
The people of Myanmar have great respect for an expert puppeteer.
Some marionettes may be manipulated by a dozen or more strings. The
marionette master’s standard repertoire requires a troupe of 28 puppets
including Thagyamin (king of the gods); a Myanmar king, queen, prince
and princess; a regent; two court pages; an old man and an old woman; a
villain; a hermit; four ministers; two clowns; one good and one evil nat; a
Brahmin astrologer; two ogres; a zawgyii (alchemist); a horse; a monkey;
a makaraa (mythical sea serpent); and an elephant.
It’s rare to see marionette theatre outside tourist venues in Yangon,
Mandalay or Bagan.
Music
Much of classical Myanmar music, played loud the way thenatt like it,
features strongly in any pwe. Its repetitive, even harsh, harmonies can
be hard on Western ears at fi rst; Myanmar scales are not ‘tempered’, as
Western scales have been since Bach. Traditional Myanmar music is pri-
marily two dimensional, in the sense that rhythm and melody provide
much of the musical structure, while repetition is a key element. Subtle
shifts in rhythm and tonality provide the modulation usually supplied by
the harmonic dimension in Western music.
The Illusion of
Life: Burmese
Marionettes by
Ma Thanegi gives
readers a glimpse
of the ‘wit, spirit
and style’ of this
traditional Bur-
mese perform-
ance art.Classical
dance-drama is
performed nightly
at Mandalay’s
Mintha Theater
and occasionally
at the National
Theatre in
Yangon.