the whirling dirvishes

Last night we went to see the whirling dirvishes. they are a sect of the suffi branch of muslim. they believe that you can get close to god by getting yourself into a trance which they do by twirling around.

the preformance was in the ecxhibition hall of the train station, near the orient express restaurant. the train statiion is one of the ends of the famous orient express railway run, so the reotaurant exploits that twith its name.

there were about 100-120 attendees. the chairs were put in a u shape. first the "choir" arrived. it consisted of 10 people with various intruments. they were dressed in white shirts and black trousers, men and women. two played flute, one the zither, one a balalaika, i think. one played a 12 inch drum that you hold, and a lady played two softer drums that each had a different tone. and there were a couple of ladies who just sang. the first part of the evening was about a half hour perfomrance by the choir which reminded me of the gyoto monks a bit and like the tape we got in nepal. kind of rhythmic with those notes and half tones and quarter tones that you hear in middle eastern signing. this was a religious ceremony for them, and they were all very enthusiastic and serious about everything. I did NOT buy the CD at the end of the evening.

then they left, and then they came back dressed in black robes with very tall brown hats. and then in came 8 dirvishes, men and women, dressed in black robes and very tall hats, with full skirts hidden under the robes. then there was more singing. then the dirvishes took off their robes, bowed to each other, did a kind of soft march around the room bowing frequently, then went back and dropped the robes and started twirling. first slow, and then faster. it was not the speed that was so impressive, but how long they kept twirling. i dont know why they did not fall down. their heads were cocked to one side, which might be helpful in keeping them upright, i don't know. then after about 15 minutes or so they stopped, went back into formation, bowed some more, then started twirling some more. all the time there was music from the choir. they twirled this time even longer and even faster. their skirts were different colours and it was quite a sight. finally it ended, but you could not clap because we were viewing a religious preformance.