The Music of Hindostan c6.111

c6.111

They next arranged themselves in a close packed circle for dancing, with Rainu sometimes in the middle, sometimes prowling round outside and exhorting individuals. In the second dance they linked hands behind each others backs; in the third they broke from their circular into a serpentine movement, and looked like a section of a giant centipede crawling about. Most of the dancing consisted, here as elsewhere, merely in revolving slowly ‘widdershins’ with a shuffling gait, bending their bodies towards the centre and clapping their hands in rhythm. The interesting point in the dancing was the treatment of the blank beat (khāli). Thus, putting R for right foot, L for left, F for forwards, and B for backwards, the ordinary rhythms were danced thus: