Earliest Origin

• Archaeologists discovered the earliest evidence of Myanmar traditional dance in antiques in the city of Srikshetra. The antiques, dated to around the 13th century, included small bronze Buddha figurines. The figures included a flute player, drummer, cymbal clapper, dancer and clown-like dwarf carrying a bag on his back. The well-dressed figures, strewn with jewelry, are enacting animated movements as if engaged in a dance-like performance.
  
  

Music Roots

• With origins in agriculture, Myanmar dancers historically celebrated harvests and planting seasons with dance rituals. Developed as folk music expanded, a Burmese or Myanmar performer usually only dances to traditional folk music. Scholars believe folk music and songs hark back to daily farm chores, the growth of plants and the power of the sun.
  
  

Significance

• As of 2010, traditional dance is considered the most prevalent performing art in Myanmar. Each Myanmar festival features folk dance and music called "pwe," meaning dramatic performance. Throughout Myanmar's history, royal parties and events started and ended with music and dance. Pagoda festivals, the start of battles and weddings also featured folk dance and songs.
  
  

Types

• Historians consider the Apyodaw dance, or maids honor dance, the oldest and purest form of Myanmar traditional dance. Once performed by a single dancer, as of 2010 dancers often perform the dance in a group moving together.
  
  U Shway Yoe dance appeared in the early days of British colonial rule. Considered a comic dance, a man dresses like a traditional Myanmar gentleman. He wears a mustache, a scarf around his neck, a turban and a square sarong around his waist and front. Holding a woman's parasol in one hand, he dances with exaggerated movements making strange and funny faces as he moves.
  
  Other dances featuring a single dancer or a small group display slower, more graceful movements. A dancer performs graceful motions, waving her arms and showing off elaborate sarong clothing and flexibility by sweeping her body from side to side.
  
  

Symbols

• The dancer's head is regarded as the bloom of a flower; leaves are his hands and the body is the stem. The warped, uncomfortable-looking dancing movements represent a breeze jostling a flower to life in the wind. For special occasions, musicians create traditional songs for the event. Dancers usually improvise at these performances, which means a dancer can move as he wishes to become the feeling, swaying flower.