The music and dances of Rajasthan are heady, exciting, hypnotic and compelling... and very much a part of the eternal appeal of this strange and wondrous land. They constitute the very warp and weft of life in Rajasthan-indeed the state has a very vibrant, highly evolved tradition of performing arts carefully nurtured and sustained over the centuries.

Rajasthani dances are a spectacular celebration of life and color-and what a stupendous variety of forms! The Kachhi-ghodi is a particularly vigorous dance in which a bridegroom's party boisterously sings folk ballads and stages a mock fight with much nimble sidestepping, sharp pirouetting and brandishing of swords. A statelier dance is the ghair performed mainly in the Mewar region; regal men in fulsome, gathered white ankle-length skirts and brilliant turbans swirl slowly in alternately clockwise and anticlockwise motions, clicking long, painted sticks with each other, the periodic clash of sticks creating its own fevered cadence. There is drama in the charee dance: performers deftly execute intricate choreographic patterns, balancing brass pitchers containing smoldering cottonseeds on their heads. The sapera dance of the kalbeliyas, a snake charmer community, is sensuous and riveting in the extreme. Lissome women, dramatically dressed in black and gold, with glittering tassels woven into their raven hair, sway sensuously to a sonorous chant, which increases in tempo and vigor, ending with a flourish that leaves both performer and spectator exhilarated and exhausted.