Classical traditional dance - Biyelgee

Mongolian traditional dance Inscribed in 2009 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
Our classical traditional dance is biyelgee, is a particular to the people western Mongolia . It is performed to the music of Mongolian national musical instruments, such as the morin khuur (horse headed fiddle) and yochin. Is performed in a ger in circle of people, in other, in other words, in limited small space, before the hearth, so the dancers make partially no use of their rhythmic movements express various aspects of their identities, such as sex, tribe, and ethnic group. Plastic movements of the dancer‘s hands and horse express everything in the dance.
Biyelgee is a descriptive dance, actually a pantomime, with the dancer acting several scenes from everyday life of herders, such as milking the cow, cooking, hunting, etc.

The first part of Biyelgee dance, called the Elkhendeg, is ritually solemn, with the dancer slowly spreading his arms, gracefully waving his hands and moving his shoulders. In the second part called the joroo mori, character of the dance suddenly changes. The body rhythmically swaying, the dancer's movements become light and challenging, in imitation of the gait of a horse.
Dances imitating the gait of a horse, such as the Shonon khar and Jalam khar, are in general very popular amongst the Bayads, Torguts, Khotons and Zakhchins of western Mongolia. Each nationality, however, performs them in its own way. The Bayads, for instance, dance on half-bent legs, with the lower part of the body motionless. The Zakhchins squat as they dance, with the body inclined forward. The ability to dance without using one's feet at all is the ultimate achievement in the art.