Burmese culture, at the
court level, has not had an easy time since the collapse of
the last kingdom - architecture and art were both royal
activities which, without royal support, have floundered
faded. On the other hand, at the street level, Burmese
culture is vibrant and thriving, as you'll see at the first
pwe (show) you visit.
Dance & Drama
Myanmar's truly
indigenous dance forms are those that pay homage to the nats
(spirits). In special nat pwe, one or more nats is invited
to posses the body and mind of a medium; sometimes members
of the audience are possessed instead, an event greatly
feared by most Burmese. Nat dancing styles are very fluid
and adaptable, and are handed down from older pwe dancers to
their offspring or apprentices.
In contrast, few of Myanmar's classical dance-drama styles
are entirely indigenous. Most arrived from Thailand during
periods of Burmese conquest of Thai kingdoms. Today the
dances most obviously taken from Thailands are known as
yodaya zat (Ayuthaya theatre), as taught to the Burmese by
Thai theatrical artists taken sa war captives from Ayuthaya
by King Hisnbyushin in the late 18th century. So thorough is
the public perception that Thailand was the primary source
for all court arts that the term yodaya can be applied
loosely to describe any 'elite' art form even today. Around
this same period Zinme pannatha (Chian Mai plays) were
translated into Burmese, providing the text for another
entire dance-drama genre.
The most Burmese dances features solo performances by female
dancers who wear dresses with long white trains, which they
kick into the air with their heels during the foot movements
- some outside observers see a Chinese influence in these
movements (they do seem to resemble certain aspects of
Chinese opera). A zat pwe involves a recreation of an
ancient legend or Buddhist jataka (life story of the Buddha)
while the yamazat picks a tale from the Indian epic
Ramayana. The arm and head movements often seek to mimic
those of Burmese marionette theatre. Burmese dance scholars
have catalogued around 2000 dance movements, including 13
head movements, 24 ways of moving only one hand plus 23
using both hands, 38 leg movements, eight body postures and
10 walking movements.
Classical dance-dram is currently enjoying a revival in
Myanmar and is occasionally performed at the National
Theatre in Yangon, where around a dozen amateur theatre
groups regularly practice and perform yamazat. Traditional
yamazat can also be seen in Mandalay, Amarapura and Sagaing.
In Mandalay, yamazat performers even have their own shrine,
where masks of the principal Ramayana characters receive
offerings of fruit and flowers. Shorter, excerpted
performances may be seen at large banquet-style restaurants
in Yangon and Mandalay. Since Burmese classical dancing
emphasises pose reather than ensemble performances, it can
soon become a little boring for TV-hyped western tastes. By
contrast the less common, but more lively, yein pwe features
singing and dancing performed by a chorus ensemble.
Most popular of all is the a-nyeint pwe, a
traditional-variety pwe somewhat akin to early American
vaudeville or Thai likay; see the boxed text 'A-Nyeint Pwe -
From Slapstick to Satire' in the Mandalay chapter for
details. One of the easiest ways to tell a-nyeint pwe from
zat pwe or yamarzat is that in both of the latter the
musical instruments sit on the floor (or on the ground in an
outdoor performance), while in a-nyeint pwe the instruments
are placed on a stage with the dancers and actors.
Marionette Theatre
Youq-the pwe (Burmese marionette theatre) presents
colourful puppets up to a metre high in a spectacle that
many aesthetes consider the most expressive of all the
Burmese arts. Developed during the reign of King Bagyidaw in
the Konbaung period, it was so influential that it became
the forerunner to zat pwe as later performed by actors
rather than marionettes. As with dance-drama, the genre's
'golden age' began with the Mandalay kingdoms of the late
18th century and ran through to the advent of cinema in the
1930s.
The Burmese have great respect for an expert puppeteer;
indeed a youq-the pwe is thought to demand a more skilled
and artistic performance than a zat pwe. Some marionettes
may be manipulated by a dozen or more strings; certain nats
may sport up to 60 strings, including one for each eyebrow.
The marionette master's standard repertoire requires a
troupe of 28 puppets including Thagyamin (king of the gods);
a Burmese king, queen, prince and princess; a regent; two
court pages; an old man and an old woman; a villain; a
hermit; four ministers; two clowns; one good and one evil
nat; a Brahmin astrologer; two ogres; a zawgyi (alchemist);
a horse; a monkey; a makara (mythical sea serpent); and an
elephant. These figures bring together the talents of
singers, puppeteers, musicians, woodcarvers, embroideres and
set designers.
Marionette theatre declined following WWII and is now mostly
confined to tourist venues in Yangon, Mandalay and Bagan.
Rather less frequently it appears at pwes sponsored by
wealthy patrons.
Music
Burmese music, which features strongly in any pwe, can
be rather hard for unaccustomed westren ears to enjoy. As
with other Asian music, it is very short on the harmony so
important in western music and tends to sound 'harsh, tinkly
and repetitive', as one early observer described it. The
perceived harshness is probably due to the fact that Burmese
scales are not 'tempered' as western scales have been since
Batch. As in western music, the Burmese diatonic scale has
seven tones, but they are arranged equidistantly within the
octave, and there is no tempering or retuning of the 4th and
7th intervals as with western scales.
Traditional Burmese music is primarily two dimensional in
the sense that rhythm and melody provide much of the musical
structure, while repetition is a key element in developing
this structure. Subtle shifts in rhythm and tonality provide
the modulation usually supplied by the harmonic dimension in
western music. These techniques have been 'rediscovered' in
western musical trends, as in the minimalism of Steve Reich,
Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Brian Eno. There is also a
significant amount of improvisation in live performance, an
element traditional Burmese music shares with jazz.
Classical Music
The original inspiration for much of Myanmar's current
musical tradition came from Thailand (then Siam) during the
reign of Khin Hisnbyushin, particularly after the second
conquest of Thailand in 1767. During this period, Siamese
court musicians, dancers and entertainers from Ayuthaya were
brought to Myanmar by the hundreds in order to effect
'cultural augmentation'. Myanmar's kings were very good at
'capturing' culture (the same was done with Mon culture from
Thaton). Burmese classical music as played today was
codified by Po Sein, a colonial-era musician, composer and
drummer who also designed the hsaing waing (the circle of
tuned drums, also known as paq waing) and formalised
classical dancing styles. Such music is meant to be played
as an accompaniment to classical dance-dramas which enact
scenes from the jatakas or from the Indian epic Ramayana.
Musical instruments are predominantly percussive, but even
hsaing waing may carry the melody. These drums are tuned by
placing a wad of paq-sa (drum food) - made from a kneaded
paste of rice and wood-ash - onto the centre of the drum
head, then adding or subtracting a pinch at a time till the
desired drum tone is attained. By the use of multiple hand
and stick strokes, Burmese percussionists can create melodic
and chordal patterns on the large banks of drums employed in
a typical performance.
In addition to the hsaing waing, the traditional hsaing
(Burmese ensemble) of seven to 10 musicans will usually
play: the kye-saung (a circle of tuned brass gongs); the
saung gauq (a boat-shaped harp with 13 strings); the pattala
(a sort of xylophone); the hneh (an oboe-type instruments
related to the Indian shanai); the pa-lwe (a bamboo flute);
the mi-gyaung (crocodile lute); the (small cymbals) and
wa-leq-hkouq (bamboo clappers), which are purely rhythmic in
nature and are often played by Burmese vocalists. It is also
common to see a violin or two in a hsaing, and even the
Dobro (an American acoustic slide guitar played on the lap)
is occasionally used. Solo piano music has also become part
of the traditional Burmese musical repertoire. At the
National Museum in Yangon you can view an exhibit of Burmese
musical instruments, including old Mon violins, the use of
which may predate that of violins in Europe.
An older performance mode features duets of two female
musicians playing Burmese harp and crocodile lute. This
style of playing originated during the reign of King
Badominrara in the late 18th century, when court maidens
were trained on these instruments.
A1997 CD entitled White Elephants & Golden Ducks, recorded
in Myanmar using a DAT recorder and issued on the Shanachie
label, offers a good sampler of traditional Burmese
instrumental and vocal music. A 1998 follow-up CD, Pat
Waing; The Magic Drum Circle of Burma, does a beautiful job
of rendering the hard-to-reproduce paq waing drum sounds. To
hear how the Burmese have been translating their traditional
music into piano performance for the last hundred years or
so, listen to the equally high-quality Sandaya: The
Spellbinding Piano of Burma (Shanachie, 1998). Shanachie has
plans to release two more CDs of digitally recorded Burmese
music, one devoted to the saung gauq and another to western
stringed instruments played in Myanmar - slide guitar,
mandolin, zither, banji and violin.
Folk & Pop
Older still is an enchanting vocal folk music tradition
still heard in rural areas where the Burmese may sing
without instrumental accompaniment while working. Such folk
songs set the work cadence and provide a distraction from
the physical strain and monotony of puundin rice, clearing
fields, weaving and so on. You'll hear this most readily in
the Ayeyarwady Delta between Twante and Pathein. Myanmar's
urban ears are fed via radio and casette tapes by a huge pop
music industry based in Yangon. The older generation prefer
a pop sound created in the 1950s and 1960s by combining
traditional Burmese melodies and rhythms with western
instrumental settings. Younger Burmese listen to heavily
western-influenced sounds - the pervasive music (except for
lyrics, which must always be sung in Burmese).
Modern Burmese pop borrows from many sources - Burmese folk
melodies and old Scottish reels, as well as modern tunes
taken directly from international pop hits. Burmese heavy
metal groups with names like Iron Cross, Wild Ones and
Emperor have become very successful in recent years. Other
than bans on non-Burmese lyrics, headbangers are restricted
by the regulation (not very well enforced) that hair not
fall below the shoulders.
