Whirl, Dervish, Whirl!

On Thursday 7 November, I attended a demonstration of the Dervishes' "whirling" meditative dance. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed during the demonstration itself. Some soft folk music was being played before the Dervishes came in. Then roughly a dozen men in caps and black coats with white tunics underneath entered. The first half came in one by one and bowed in several directions before heading to their seats. They carrying instruments and then sat down and started playing folk music with occasional singing. The second set of Dervishes came in and started bowing and went to another set of seats perpindicular (on the perimeter of the performance square in the 2nd picture from the top).

After they all lined up, the 2nd set started going around the square in an elaborate way. As I remember, they lined up by their seats. Then the first in line started bowing in several directions and started to walk halfway along one of the sides of the square, turned 180 degrees and stopped at the end of the side. Then the next Dervish stepped up and repeated this, but as he spun, the lead Dervish walked along the second side. They continued this, picking up speed, for several trips around the perimeter of the square. By this point all but one Dervish, whom we'll call Wallflower, had shed their black coat exposing the white tunic with a flowing lower skirt. After a few minutes, individual Dervishes started spinning with one arm up somewhat to the ceiling, the other arm somewhat down, slowly at first and then picking up speed and moving around the square. Eventually all of the walking Dervishes (the musician Dervishes didn't walk except to enter and exit or spin at all) except Wallflower were spinning as they went counterclockwise around the square. The spinning went on for several minutes, slowed down, stopped, then built up speed and crescendoed again. The skirts flowed in an elegant, utterly masculine way while the Dervishes spun.

But I had a hard time not worrying about Wallflower. Even though all the other ambulatory Dervishes were having fun spinning, he just kept walking around the square, in between and around the Whirlers but never rotated more than 180 degrees at one time. Near the end of the exhibition, Wallflower seemed determined to work his way up to spinning. He lowered his black coat and started to give off a spinny vibe. "Go on, Wallflower! You can do it!" I encouraged him mentally.

No dice. In the end, he wussed out and regained his reticence having done barely a turn. Maybe next time, Wallflower....