In Udaipur, I attended a traditional Rajastani (region of India) dance performance.

It started off with some mystic herb burning and inhaling.

If you didn't know this was India, and you saw this picture, what continent would you assume I went to?

Prancing around with his machete and war paint

Stoic backup people. You do this every day for the past 15 years and see how excited you'd be.

The Kachhi Ghodi Dance, but with a human instead of a dummy horse. The Kachhi Ghodi Dance in Rajasthan India is performed on dummy horses. Men in elaborate costumes- red turbans and dhotis and kurtas ride the well decorated dummy horses. With naked swords in their hands, these dancers move rhythmically to the beating of drums and fifes while a singer narrates the exploits of the Bavaria bandits of Shekhawati. This dance is always performed by men.

No idea what he was feeding him

Logical; you see fire, you shove your face in it.

After consuming his potion, he is full of superhuman strength!

And the dances begin. First, these three women came out and started twirling with firey pots on their heads. This is called the Chari Dance: "The Chari dance is basically a village dance, which is performed to express happiness when the villagers go in search of water and find it. The dancers choreograph the dance and many subtle patterns are formed by hands. The dancers are supposed to balance brass pots on their heads while performing this dance gracefully. Cottonseeds set aflame are placed on the topmost pot so that the movement of the heads causes the flames to form brilliant patterns."

Rajastani rave

Interestingly, the women doing the hardest maneuvers were not young. She had to have been at least 45

Fire pots have been replaced with vases and fruit/flower baskets

They had these bells attached to their bodies and each had a different frequency. Think Stomp! without the garbage cans. Terahtali is an uncommon dance form of Rajasthan. Women folk perform this devotional dance in a sitting posture. Terahtali derives its name from the terah or the thirteen cymbals which are used to generate rhythm. The dancers have these cymbals or the manjeeras tied to their waists, arms, wrists, elbows and hands.

White people!

Puppeteer makes him do some crazy shit. I had hoped he would be a ventriloquist too, but then I realized he holds some strings in his mouth, too.

The big ensemble came out next. The Ghoomar Dance: A community dance of the Rajputs, performed by the women of the house and traditionally out of bounds for men, it uses simple, swaying movements to convey the spirit of any auspiciousoccassionn. There is, however, an amazing grace as the skirts flare slowly while the women twirl in circles, their faces covered by the veil. Traditionally, all women, whether old or young, participate in the dance, which can continue for hours into the night. A new bride, on being welcomed to the home of her husband, too is expected to dance the ghoomar as one of the rituals of the new marriage.

For some reason, this reminds me of a faster version of the dance in “A Knights Tale”. Unfortunately, Shannyn Sossamon was not on hand.

And for the finale, the pot on the head lady. One pot.

Two pots; starting to break a sweat.

Crawling on the floor and picking up a hankerchief with her mouth. I'd imagine it's difficult to accomplish without two pots on your head, too.

3 pots on her head. If you look at her feet, she's dancing on some pizza-pie-tray looking thing

6 pots. Why not dance on broken glass for good measure? The Matka Bhavai dance. Matka Bhavai is a popular dance of Rajasthan in which the performer dances with numerous pots balanced on his head. At the same time, he also performs footwork on pieces of glass, nails and swords.

9 pots. Fuckin A