Look Thai Baguazhang
/This is an amazing find, and an amazing martial artist. I want to go meet these guys if anyone has a connection to them?
This Lanna Dance is closely related to Baguazhang. I have been saying that Kathak Dance is closely related to Baguazhang as well. My reasons are different. In the case of Kathak, the movement aesthetic and the mythology line up perfectly. But the connection is more distant. Likely because the separation between Kathak and Baguazhang is centuries old. That is a big part of my next book (almost finished!).
But this Lanna Dance is closer to Baguazhang in pure movement terms, and probably separated by less time.
We must ask these questions. Is there something innate about human movement with or without weapons which allowed these arts to become so similar? Is there an element of culture that these countries share that caused them to develop the same thing separately? Or more likely, because they had contact; Did Baguazhang developed from Lanna? Did Lanna develop from Baguazhang? Did they both develop from Indian Dance? I suspect that all of these countries were sending Martial-arts Dancers as tribute to each other’s kings.
This video on Facebook, Fudoshin Shotokan Karate, shows a form of court dance from Okinawa that has many elements of Kathak Dance from North India. It is undeniable.
My conclusion: A form of martial-dance was traded back and forth between the courts of Asia for a thousand years. Beauty transcends.
