Ceremonial Dances

By Ram Collins

Cultures in this modern era, value religion incorporate ceremonial dances to their religious activities as a way to enrich the culture and history.

Dance and Religion

A religious taboo continues to exist when it comes to incorporating dancing as part of religious activity. Some people think that dancing is not enough to renew energy in both mind and body through dancing, while others believe it to be quite a powerful spiritual experience.

The manifestations of ceremonial dancing in religious activities include rituals. The participants dance and enter a state of trance which opens them up for communication from the spiritual world. The participants of the ritual may recite prayers or spells.

Native American Dancing

Dancing in the Native American society is performed for numerous reasons. It could be for happiness, sadness, rain, war, and worship. The rhythm of the beat is believed to play a part as a spirit guide. It is for this reason that Ceremonial dances have left a huge mark for Native American history.

While a lot of people from around the world see dancing as a ceremonial act, others do it for the sake of art or entertainment.

Kerala Festival Dancing

Kerala is a Southwestern Indian city known for its local festivals and celebrations. During these cultural and religious festivities, ceremonial dances are an integral part of the celebration and has earned its social importance throughout the years. Here are some of the Kerala festivals that involve various types of ceremonial dances:

Onam: A festival held between the months of August and September. The dance for the festival is done for religious harmony for the participating families. The dance requires participants to wear new clothes, paint themselves with black, yellow, and red colors. The instruments thakil and udukku are used to play the music of the dance.

Mahasivarathri: This is a yearly celebration with a lot of dancing in honor of Lord Shiva, the goddess who died to save the world. This celebration is held by the Hindus.

Vishu: This ceremony done in April that involve a lot of dancing is celebrated to thank for all the blessing that had been received and wishing for more blessing for the following year.

Asian Ceremonial Dancing

In the Asian region, music and drama complement each other. The costumes and dance movements also have cultural importance. The dances are usually interpretations of historical events. It can also depict myths or legends. As to how long the dance goes, it is depended on the length of the historical event, or story being danced to. The dance can also be for asking good fortune.

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The author is a multifaceted writer. She writes articles for a variety of subjects such as marriage and relationship advices, great deals on cheap gowns and ball dresses, family and parenting concerns, fashion and beauty tips and a lot more.

How Do The Raw Food Diets Work?

By Jack Wogan

One day when you would prepare the ingredients for the usual cooking, an idea could come in your mind. What if you would serve them without any heat cooking? Arrange them nicely on plates and have your family eat raw carrots, apples, oranges. But how about eating the other types of food? How could you convince them to do that?

The main object of raw food diets is exactly this one. History teaches us that the human being is inhabiting the earth for more than five million years. The main menu she had included fruit, roots or raw meat from hunted animals. Combining these elements in different ways according to the geographical areas where they lived the humans have lived and evolved. By parting the history of the humans in twenty equal shares, in nineteen of them they have eaten raw food and in the last one they have started cooking it with heat and fire.

Just imagine that the entire human evolution from ape to human happened in the conditions of eating the products as they were found in nature, while in the past 250000 years fire made a complete difference in our menu. With these facts in mind people have started paying more attention to this nutritional trend. Vegans were selective and very aware of what they ate. But those who have adopted raw food have taken that to the next level. Every type of aliment like fruit, seeds, nuts, vegetables, seaweed are eaten without any heat processing, just by being blended, soaked, dehydrated or squeezed.

When you start this diet you need to research it thoroughly. Otherwise you could get nutritional deficiencies. To avoid that many of these persons have included in their menu eggs, fish and meat. Another element of their diets is sometimes milk in its unprocessed form.

Raw food diets have the major advantage that they help detoxify the body. With all the chemical we have become accustomed to, this process could be rather painful at the beginning. But in a few weeks the results are amazing. They include an increased energy level and a reduction of the fats. Specialists have also documented the fact that there are less ricks of heart diseases. Some of those who have tried this diet only complained about the large amounts of food they had to eat each day to feel satiated.

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You may want to refer to the work of Lujan Matus to learn more about shamanism.