SAMAN DANCE of a THOUSAND HANDS

Saman dance is a traditional Aceh dance, well known as Dance of a thousand hands, not because the participants at least 500 couples of hands, but a type of dance perform by a lot of  people not more than 100.

The Saman dance name came from the initiator and development of the dance, name Seykh Saman from Gayo lues regency  (district) of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam province, including write the poem of the song, mixture of Gayo and Arab languages contained religious message, satire and ideal advice.

In Aceh Nangroe Darussalam,  every aspects of life, including in culture and tradition, highly influenced and very close correlation with Moslem religion. That is why  this special province known as a  Veranda of Mecca.

If we watching you tube, we wonder that most of the dance movement done by the hands and the body in sitting or standing position, not as general dancing movement with the legs. The rythm followed by the bow, clap hands, turn head right and left singing and shouting, made it so beautifull. It could not be done smoothly without hard training and practices beforehand.

This Acehnese dance generally perform in special or in a big big event like Indonesian independence day in August and anniversary of prophet Muhammad SAW, head of state visit and sometime got invitation from other countries.

In 1990s Indonesian Government assigned them to participate in Pasadena Rose parade, South California, USA, dancing above  the ladder of a Giant while this creature walking in the parade. They got a big hands a long the way and wondering how nice they dance was.

Every time they perform, one thing to be sure, get a big hands and by standing ovation as an appreciation for this Amazing Acehnese icon.

As a traditinoal dance, the participants always using an unique uniform of local motif knitted by Gayo tribe  as seen in the the last two photos, colorful design.

Visit Aceh, the origin of this a thousand hand dances, you may take a flight from Singapore or from Jakarta and stop over in Medan, capital of North Sumatera province. Then proceed North by local plane or by land for 4-5 hours drive to Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. You may see how massive the wrekage of building by Tsunami, that everybody watching in CNN and TV breaking news.