A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter I-17:  How a Person Should Dance

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The relationship of dancing and drumming; differences in styles of dancing; differences between men's and women's dancing; how people learn dancing; aesthetics of good dancing



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Supplementary material

Images:  Multiple chapters (I-15 to I-23)

Dancing gallery


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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

Benefits of dancing

Dancing styles and projection of character

Dancing movements

Dancers and drummers

Learning dancing

Dancing of chiefs and commoners

Dancing of princes

Dancing and styles

Men's and women's dancing

Dancing and tribal styles

Conclusion



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Proverbs and Sayings

Where you see people dancing, it means there is no sorrow there.

Truly, it is happiness that is the dance.

If there is a town and you don't have people who dance, the town becomes weak.

If there is a town and there are no dances, it is not a good town.

Salt does not praise itself.

When you dance beautifully, it shows that your heart is cool and that your heart is lying down.

To dance with respect:  you hold yourself coolly, and you don't laugh too much, but you laugh.

Somebody who keeps quiet is not a fool, and somebody who talks too much is not a mad person.

As the drummers have brought you out in the public, they have shown your respect, and when you stand up to come out and dance, you are showing yourself.

If you want to do any work that concerns a group or people watching, you shouldn't tie your face.

You can take cold water and cook somebody, but if you take hot water to cook somebody, he will run away and leave you.

When you are dancing, you should cool your heart, and you should not tie your face.

The dance you are dancing, it is your heart that wants that dance; that's why you are dancing it.

Showing yourself, on the part of dancing, and what I have told you, it means that you don't have to give your whole self or all your secrets out. You have to show it and also hide part of it.

It is a human being who will respect himself before the town respects him.

The dance you dance until the next morning, you don't shake yourself very hard.

Dancing coolly makes the dance more beautiful,

How we look at it, beauty is on the part of when you have seen something and it makes your heart happy.

The work you grow up to meet, that is the work you also do.

Don't cook your soup and then put honey inside it.

As for the work of the eye, you don't ask questions again, because the eye has seen it.

When you see something, it is better than your ear hearing it.

The tradition is what adds more to someone's dancing.

Shyness and pride:  these two things are within a human being

A person's style in dancing comes from his way of living, that is, the heart or the character.


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