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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
🇯🇵 Tokyo, JapanRakugo落語 Japanese solo comic storytelling told from a cushion using a fan and a clothPerformance 🇰🇷 South KoreaHanji한지 The Korean craft of making durable paper from mulberry fiber and root mucilage.Craft 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanTorii鳥居 A traditional Japanese gate marking the entrance to a Shinto shrine and separating the sacred from the mundane.Spiritual 🇯🇵 Ōmuta, JapanKarutaかるた Japanese playing cards from the 16th century, still raced over poems each New YearGame 🇨🇳 China and 5 moreLion dance舞獅 A dynamic ritual dance featuring costumed lions, drums and martial acrobaticsPerformance 🇨🇳 Beijing, China and 2 moreChinese opera戲曲 / 戏曲 (xìqǔ) A sung, danced and acrobatic theatre from China, in over a hundred regional stylesPerformance 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanKyōgen狂言 A traditional Japanese comic theatre of short farces, spoken dialogue and satirePerformance 🇹🇼 Yilan, Taiwan and 4 moreTaiwanese opera歌仔戲 A Taiwanese theatrical art of Hokkien balladry, stylized staging, and expressive song.Performance 🇯🇵 JapanMiko巫女 A woman who serves at a Shinto shrine, dancing, cleansing and helping with ritesSpiritual 🇰🇷 Seoul, South Korea and 1 moreTalchum탈춤 A Korean mask dance drama in which masked actors sing, dance and mock the powerfulPerformance 🇨🇳 China and 3 moreDragon dance舞龍 / 舞龙 A long dragon puppet on poles, danced by a team at Chinese New Year and other festivalsPerformance 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanIkebana生け花 The Japanese art of arranging cut branches and flowers in a vesselPerformance 🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan and 1 moreBonsai盆栽 A Japanese craft of keeping small trees in shallow pots, shaped for contemplationCraft 🇨🇳 Quanzhou, China and 3 moreGlove puppetry布袋戲 A traditional theatre of cloth-bodied puppets with carved wooden heads and live musicPerformance 🇨🇳 China and 2 moreChinese knotting中國結 (Zhōngguó jié) A folk craft of cord tied into lucky shapes, made in China and given as charmsCraft 🇨🇳 China and 5 moreShadow play A storytelling art using flat puppets and light to cast moving silhouettes on a screen.Performance 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanHinamatsuri雛祭り A March festival in Japan where families display ornamental dolls to pray for the health and happiness of young girls.Festival · Sweets given and shared 🇲🇳 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and 1 moreNaadamнаадам A midsummer festival of wrestling, horse racing, and archery kept by Mongols in Mongolia and neighboring regions.Festival · Feasts and festival meals 🇯🇵 Sapporo, JapanSapporo Snow Festival札幌雪祭り (Sapporo Yuki-matsuri) A week-long winter festival in Sapporo featuring hundreds of large snow and ice sculptures.Festival 🇰🇷 South Korea and 1 moreGanggangsullae강강술래 A Korean harvest dance where women hold hands and sing in circles under the full moonPerformance 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanKaiseki懐石 A multi-course Japanese dining tradition shaped by tea ceremonies and the seasonsTable custom · Dinner 🇰🇵 Pyongyang, North KoreaArirang Mass Games아리랑 축제 A massive civic spectacle of gymnastics, dance, and card stunts in PyongyangCeremony 🇰🇵 Pyongyang, North Korea and 4 moreMass games Disciplined, large-scale gymnastic spectacles celebrating unity and national prideCeremony 🇯🇵 Tokushima, JapanAwa Dance Festival阿波踊り A summer street dance festival held in Tokushima during the Buddhist season of ObonFestival 🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan and 3 moreObonお盆 (Obon) A Japanese Buddhist festival honoring the spirits of ancestors through dance, light, and family reunion.Festival 🇨🇳 ChinaMuqamمۇقام A Uyghur modal system of melody types, and the twelve long cycles built on itPerformance 🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan and 5 moreTaiko太鼓 (taiko) Japanese drums, and the ensemble style of playing themPerformance 🇨🇳 Yining, China and 1 moreMeshrepمەشرەپ A Uyghur gathering of music, poetry, dance and moral counsel at harvest and weddingsPerformance 🇰🇷 Honam, South Korea and 2 morePansori판소리 A Korean art of sung storytelling, with one singer, one drummer and a listening crowdPerformance 🇨🇳 ChinaChinese paper cutting剪紙 / 剪纸 (jiǎnzhǐ) Chinese cut paper pictures, pasted on windows and doors for luck at New YearCraft 🇨🇳 Chengdu, China and 1 moreSichuan opera川劇 A Chinese opera from Sichuan, known for split-second mask changes and a central clownPerformance 🇯🇵 Hiroshima, JapanKagura神楽 A sacred Shinto dance tradition in Japan that invites deities to descend and perform through human dancers.Performance 🇲🇳 Mongolia and 5 moreThroat singing Several deep, guttural singing styles, each named and kept by its own peoplePerformance 🇨🇳 China and 3 moreCham danceའཆམ་ A masked monastery dance of Tibetan Buddhism, staged at festivals to teach and blessSpiritual 🇯🇵 Kyoto, JapanNoh能 (Nō) Japanese masked dance-drama, staged since the 14th century in family schoolsPerformance 🇲🇳 MongoliaMorin khuurморин хуур (Mongolian Cyrillic); ᠮᠣᠷᠢᠨ ᠬᠣᠭᠣᠷ (traditional Mongol script) Mongolia's two-string horsehead fiddle, played with a horsehair bowPerformance 🇯🇵 Osaka, Japan and 1 moreBunraku文楽 Osaka's puppet theatre, with chanters, shamisen players and puppeteers in plain sightPerformance 🇨🇳 Beijing, China and 1 morePeking opera京剧 / 京劇 (Jīngjù) China's main opera form: song, dance and acrobatics tell the story on a bare stagePerformance 🇨🇳 China and 2 moreCantonese opera粵劇 One of the major forms of Chinese opera, sung in Cantonese in southern ChinaPerformance 🇯🇵 Tokyo, JapanCulture Day文化の日 (Bunka no Hi) Japan's 3 November holiday for the arts, learning and the Order of CultureFestival 🇯🇵 JapanKirikane截金 A Japanese craft of cut gold, silver or platinum leaf for Buddhist statues and paintingsCraft 🇨🇳 Shanghai, ChinaSeal carving篆刻 The Chinese craft of engraving characters and personal emblems into stone stamping sealsCraft 🇲🇳 MongoliaBiyelgeeБиелгээ A traditional Mongolian dance of upper body movements rooted in nomadic lifePerformance 🇯🇵 JapanRokudan no Shirabe六段の調 A six-part Japanese koto piece, one of the best known works of the sōkyoku repertoirePerformance 🇨🇳 ChinaXifu戏服 The stage dress of Chinese opera, its colour and pattern telling rank, sex and characterDress 🇰🇷 Jindo Island, South KoreaNamdo Field Songs남도 들노래 Farmers' choral work songs from South Jeolla, sung through the rice field yearPerformance 🇰🇷 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
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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