What are the dance styles in Sumatra?

As an important island in Indonesia, Sumatra is famous for its beautiful and lyrical dance. Malays distributed in the eastern part of the island are tribes with rich sailing traditions. The cheerful and lively Malays show their passionate style in the dance, which is in sharp contrast with the court dance in Java. The famous Malay dances include Twelve Dances and Geng Dances. Twelve-segment dance, also known as twelve-color dance, is a group dance for young men and women. It is composed of 12 kinds of dances, mainly performed by women, and the dancers dance lightly and beautifully. The main postures of dance are kneeling, squatting, leaning back, wrist twisting and other movements, with men as the foil. The dance steps change rapidly, the movements are lively and light, and there are many patterns.

Sumatra folk dance has a long history, typical of which is Nong Geng dance, which is usually performed by a young man and woman (singing in Malay Banton poems), but it has now developed into a social dance. When performing on the stage, couples of young men and women often dance together. At the climax of the dance, the female dancers in shawls left the stage while dancing, hung their shawls on the shoulders of the male audience they chose and invited them to dance. If the man with epaulettes accepts the invitation, he will go on stage to dance with him. Actors can also invite female audiences to dance. At this time, the actors on the stage wriggled and made various gestures, and the atmosphere on and off the stage was particularly warm. Therefore, nowadays Geng dance is often regarded as the finale of literary performances, which makes the performances end in the joyful dance of actors and audiences. However, in some occasions (such as nightclubs and dance halls), the performance of Nong Geng Dance has been commercialized and even vulgarized.