Myanmar folk dance is exquisite and sensitive, and its movements are commensurate. The dances of all ethnic groups in Myanmar have their own characteristics and have a broad mass base. During festivals, such as the Songkran Festival in Myanmar and Shan nationality, in addition to performances by professional groups, mass song and dance competitions or celebration performances are generally held in urban and rural areas. Another example is the Munao Festival of Kachin nationality and the New Year Festival of Karen nationality. The villagers will be singing and dancing all night.
The classification of Myanmar folk music refers to drum as the genre. For example, the encouragement in Ruibo area is called Ruibo Great Encouragement, and the beating, singing and performing with the elephant foot drum is called elephant foot drum dance. Other dances and music related to drums are called this. The main reason is that most folk dances are inseparable from songs, and singing songs accompanied by drums is inseparable from dance.
Drum and dance in Myanmar are intrinsically linked. This kind of drum comes from Indian religious music and dance.
Myanmar's folk music and dance, like its painting, sculpture and architectural art, also attaches great importance to decoration. When the old folk artists play the clavichord and sing songs, the music melody is like flowing water, hitting the sad place, such as the swan wailing and the orphan sobbing, and the dance is lyrical with the music. Therefore, Myanmar's national songs and dances have a unique rhythm and dance vocabulary.
Dance in Myanmar has a history of more than 2,000 years. It first spread from India. Later, influenced by Thailand, the dance style was particularly prominent, showing the special beauty of women. It can be said to be the art of "three bends". Myanmar's dance style is very distinctive, with semi-squatting, full squatting and kneeling posture as the main features. It shows various dance forms with the cooperation of hands, feet, waist (bending down), chest and head (looking up), forming a unique "three-bend" modeling action of the human body, which is elegant, soft and beautiful. It looks beautiful, but it's hard to jump. Most dance segments keep a posture, dancing in a semi-squat posture all the time, and fluctuating from time to time.
China and Myanmar live next to each other and have been friendly and harmonious since ancient times, and cultural exchanges between the two countries have continued. Burmese dance is somewhat similar to Dai dance in China, but it is not the same. Dai dance moves flexibly and fluctuates greatly, while Myanmar dance moves lightly and elegantly, or squats or kneels to make various elegant gestures, so the performance must have solid basic skills.
Myanmar borders China and Yunnan, and its natural ecology is similar, so its dance culture is also very similar. For example, the aesthetics of "three bends", such as the same hand shape. However, due to the long-term variation and development of the history and dance of the two countries, the style of dance is completely different. Dai people's dancing hands imitate peacocks, and their movements are bigger and more stretched. The hand shape of Burmese dance means lotus blossom, and the language of hand movements is quite rich. The "Three Bends" of the Dai dance emphasizes the striding action and modeling of swinging from side to side, while the Myanmar dance emphasizes the semi-squatting at the foot and the stylized distance between the two feet, with chest raised, hips raised and hands on the waist. The dance of Dai people in Yunnan, China, mostly imitates biology, expresses emotions, relaxes movements, has a stable rhythm, is accompanied by knee trembling, flexion and extension, is full of tension, combines motion and static, and has a beautiful shape. Music has the traditional style characteristics of the Dai people in China, while the dance in Myanmar is born out of the puppet show in Myanmar, and the action is mainly "puppet crawling and jumping", which pays attention to eye movement, manual movement, tight feet and tight knees, and has distinctive Myanmar characteristics.