Among the traditional Mongolian folk dances, Andai Dance is enjoyed
and loved by people of all nationalities for its marked ethnic
flavor and vigorous artistic features. About the origin of this
dance there is a legend.
Long, long ago, on the Horqin grassland there lived a father and
a daughter who were dependent on each other for survival. Suddenly
stricken by an unknown disease, the daughter lost her mind and
acted oddly. After several failures in attempting to cure her
disease, the old fatherhad to take his daughter to other places by
an ox cart toseek a cure. Unfortunately, mid way on the journey the
axle of the cart broke when the daughter was almost dying from the
worsening disease. The anxious father had no idea what to do but
wander around the cart, singing a song to express his sorrow. The
wailing song drew some people from the near vicinity, who couldn't
help shedding tears at this sight and voluntarily followed the old
father, swinging arms, stamping feet and crooning plaintively.To
everyone's surprise, the daughter got off the cart quietly and
followed the group, dancing. When the others found this, shewas
dripping with perspiration and the disease was gone miraculously.
Good news has wings. From then on, people began to follow suit and
treat young women who suffered from similar diseases in such a way
of singing and dancing, which was named "Andai". Later the dance
was adopted in some mass rallies, such as "ceremonies to pray for
rain", "the Obo sacrifices" and "Nadam Fairs (Nadam means game in
Mongolian)".? And the dance becameincreasingly popular until
it was developed into a kind of group dance, which could freely
depict life and express human emotion.
Traditionally, in the central space of the site of Andai Dance
stands a cart wheel with its axle broken or a wooden pole (which is
meantfor suppressing evils), circled by participants who will sing
and dance after the leading singer and dancer, with silk scarvesin
their hands or with the bottoms of their robes pulled up. The
melody is tuneful, pleasing and good to express emotions. Thewords
are rich in content, lively in language and have an impromptu
quality. The major dancing movements include: stamping on theground
while swinging silk scarves or slowly moving sideward; leaning
forward while swinging silk scarves and kicking forward with small
steps after straightening up; running in a circle while swinging
silk scarves; jumping continuously while swingingscarves to two
sides with effort.
