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EveryParampara

Music, dance and storytelling

Songs, dances, theatre, epic poetry and oral history.

Music, dance and storytelling traditions are the performances that a community passes down by ear, eye and heart: the epic poem recited by a griot, the dance in a circle at a wedding, the shadow play of Java, the ballad of a village, the lullaby of a grandmother. They carry history, law and humour in forms that people can remember. Many are linked to festivals and rites, and many are on UNESCO's lists of intangible heritage. Here they are gathered by country, with notes on who performs them and when.

Songs and dances of the people

Folk music and dance are community property: they are learnt by joining in, not by lessons, and they change a little with every generation. Circle dances, line dances and couple dances accompany harvests and weddings, and instruments such as the drum, the fiddle, the pipe and the lute are made locally. In many places, there are separate songs for work, for love, for mourning and for children, and each has its own time and place.

Stories and theatre

Oral storytelling holds a society's memory: epics, myths, fables, proverbs and riddles told by elders. Some become formal theatre, such as kabuki and noh in Japan, wayang in Indonesia, the mumming plays of Britain or the Ramlila of India, which retells the Ramayana in a month of evenings. These forms often depend on one master teaching one student, and communities and governments now support them to keep them alive.

About this page

Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Background on Music, dance and storytelling (kind of tradition). Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

RegionSouth AsiaSoutheast AsiaEast AsiaCentral Asia and the CaucasusMiddle EastNorth AfricaSub-Saharan AfricaEuropeNorth AmericaLatin America and the CaribbeanOceania
MealBreakfastLunchDinnerSupperTea-time and snacking customsTea, coffee and drinking ceremoniesSweets given and sharedFeasts and festival mealsFasting and breaking the fast
🇮🇱 Safed, Israel and 2 moreZemirotזמירות Jewish table hymns sung during the three meals of Shabbat and holidaysSpiritual · Dinner 🇨🇳 Xi'an, ChinaXi'an guyue西安鼓乐 Ritual wind and percussion music from Xi'an, played sitting or walkingPerformance 🇰🇷 South KoreaMusok eumak무속 음악 (巫俗音樂) Ritual music of Korean shamanism, sung and drummed to carry a shaman into trancePerformance 🇳🇱 Amsterdam, NetherlandsTangomagia An annual Amsterdam tango festival held in the last days of DecemberPerformance 🇮🇪 Ireland and 1 moreFilifilí (Irish) Ireland's and Scotland's trained poets, storytellers and seersPerformance 🇦🇴 Luanda, AngolaLuanda International Jazz Festival An annual jazz gathering staged in the capital of AngolaPerformance 🇮🇱 Jerusalem, IsraelSong of Ascentsשיר המעלות Fifteen Hebrew psalms sung by pilgrims going up to Jerusalem and by monks at prayerSpiritual 🇨🇳 Quanzhou, China and 5 moreNanguan南管 An introspective chamber music tradition from southern Fujian and Taiwan.Performance 🇯🇴 Amman, JordanAl-Balad Music Festival A multi-day summer music festival held in the historic open-air theatres of AmmanPerformance 🇲🇺 MauritiusSega tambour Chagos A Sega music and drum tradition of the Chagos islands, kept by Chagossians in MauritiusPerformance 🇻🇳 VietnamSpace of Gong Culture in the Central Highlands of VietnamKhông gian văn hóa Cồng Chiêng Tây Nguyên Gong sets of Vietnam's Central Highlands, played for festivals and spiritsPerformance 🇩🇰 Copenhagen, DenmarkCopenhagen Distortion A week of street parties, club nights and a rave in Copenhagen celebrating new dance music.Festival 🇧🇫 Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina FasoNational Culture Week of Burkina Faso A week of free shows and contests in Bobo-Dioulasso, held every two yearsFestival 🇺🇦 Dnipro, UkraineCossack songs of the Dnipropetrovsk RegionКозацькі пісні Дніпропетровщини Folk songs made by Cossacks, still sung in villages of the Dnipropetrovsk regionPerformance 🇲🇳 MongoliaBiyelgeeБиелгээ A traditional Mongolian dance of upper body movements rooted in nomadic lifePerformance 🇬🇧 United KingdomWelsh danceDawns Gymreig Traditional dances of Wales, known for their athletic steps and revival after a period of decline.Performance 🇮🇳 Mathura, IndiaKrishna legends in Kathak The enactment of Krishna's sacred stories in Indian classical dancePerformance 🇰🇪 Rusinga Island, KenyaRusinga Cultural Festival Two December days of Suba music, boat races and food on Rusinga Island in KenyaFestival 🇰🇷 South KoreaSinawi시나위 An improvisational Korean musical style played for shamanic rituals.Performance 🇯🇵 Tokyo, JapanTomimoto-bushi富本節 A subtle school of Japanese sung storytelling with shamisen, popular in the 1700sPerformance 🇯🇵 Shuri, JapanKumi Odori組踊 (Okinawan: Kumi wudui) A narrative dance from Okinawa that blends East Asian styles to tell stories of Confucian virtue.Performance 🇦🇿 AzerbaijanArt of Azerbaijani Ashiq Poet-singers of Azerbaijan who tell epic stories while playing the sazPerformance 🇺🇸 Oklahoma City, United StatesRed Earth Festival A June gathering in Oklahoma for Native American art, dance and marketsFestival 🇮🇳 Goa, IndiaVeerabhadra A ritual dance of a fierce figure performed in Goa during the Shigmo festival and on Chaitra Poornima.Performance 🇰🇷 Seoul, South KoreaJultagi줄타기 (eoreum) A traditional Korean tightrope performance that combines acrobatics with music and storytelling.Performance 🇬🇧 Porthmadog, United KingdomWelsh clog dancingClocsio A Welsh dance in wooden-soled clogs, full of rhythm, leaps and tricksPerformance 🇸🇰 SlovakiaJasličkári A Slovak Christmas custom of young men acting out the Nativity from house to houseFestival 🇪🇬 Luxor, Egypt and 1 moreMelaya leff A traditional wrapped Egyptian mantle once worn for modesty and now famous on stageDress 🇦🇹 Bludenz, AustriaBludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik An international festival of contemporary classical music held annually in BludenzPerformance 🇨🇳 Hengyang, China and 1 moreShan'ge山歌 A family of Chinese folk ballads from the countryside, in many regional formsPerformance 🇬🇧 United KingdomWooing Play A folk performance of farm labourers in the East Midlands, featuring a sieve horse.Performance 🇯🇲 Kingston, JamaicaJamaica Independence Festival An August festival of music, pageantry and parades marking Jamaican freedomCeremony 🇬🇧 United KingdomThe Knight's Ghost A traditional folk ballad of grief, captive soldiers and a midnight spectral visitationPerformance 🇽🇰 Prizren, KosovoDokuFest An annual summer gathering in Prizren dedicated to non-fiction cinema and short filmsFestival 🇿🇦 Durban, South AfricaPoetry Africa A week or more of readings, music and workshops in Durban, with poets from AfricaPerformance 🇬🇧 United KingdomGarland dance A nineteenth-century English dance tradition performed with flower-covered garlandsPerformance 🇪🇸 SpainThe Water of LifeL'aigua de vida A Catalan folk tale of a quest for magic water, a fragrant branch and a talking birdPerformance 🇰🇷 Jindo Island, South KoreaNamdo Field Songs남도 들노래 Farmers' choral work songs from South Jeolla, sung through the rice field yearPerformance 🇬🇧 United KingdomAssipattle and the Stoor Worm An Orcadian dragon-slayer tale of a fireside daydreamer who defeats a giant sea monsterFolklore 🇮🇱 Tel Aviv, IsraelLethal Lesbianלסבית קטלנית An annual film festival in Tel Aviv dedicated to cinema by and about lesbian women.Festival 🇮🇳 Kozhikode, IndiaRamanattamരാമനാട്ടം A Kerala dance drama staging the life of Rama across eight daysPerformance 🇯🇵 JapanKirikane截金 A Japanese craft of cut gold, silver or platinum leaf for Buddhist statues and paintingsCraft 🇪🇸 Spain and 1 moreFlabiol A Catalan woodwind flute played alongside a small drum in folk dancesPerformance 🇨🇿 Prague, CzechiaPrague SoundsStruny podzimu An annual music festival in Prague presenting jazz, classical and electronic artistsFestival 🇵🇭 PhilippinesHarana A Filipino serenade where a suitor sings beneath his beloved's window at nightPerformance 🇹🇭 Thailand and 1 moreMenoraมโนราห์ A traditional Thai dance drama from the south, featuring acrobatics and sacred rituals.Performance 🇳🇬 NigeriaKwagh-Hir A Tiv puppet theatre and masquerade performance from central Nigeria that uses masks and marionettes to tell moral storiPerformance 🇨🇳 Shanghai, ChinaSeal carving篆刻 The Chinese craft of engraving characters and personal emblems into stone stamping sealsCraft
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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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