Sri Lankan Folk Dancers

We had been told that we should see one of the traditional dance shows while we were in Kandy, so we purchased tickets at the local YMBA (no it's not a typo, it stands for Young Men's Buddhist Association). The performance lived up to it's reputation as the women pranced around in some beautiful costumes and the men showed off their abilities doing some truly amazing gymnastics in their elaborate garb of cloth and metal.
The dancer's musical accompaniment, consisted of a half dozen percussionists with drums of various sizes and pitches and an occasional song included a oboe type instrument.

This particular act of spinning flat clay drums on sticks brought back memories of the old Ed Sullivan show.

At the end of the show, the audience was led outside where several men performed a fire dance where they tried to incinerate themselves with kerosene as they walked across a burning pit or flung burning torches around.

The night we attended the show the hall was full of European, Slavic and Indian tourists. It emphasized for me that it was the tourist dollar that was keeping many of the traditional customs alive, much like the elephants at the orphanage. (As a side note I really do mean US dollars which are used as a sort of second currency in Sri Lanka.) If not for those dollars I fear these dances would be lost to the 21st century which would be a real loss for the world.