Every year we try to enrich ourselves through the arts, including things we wouldn’t ordinarily seek out. This is one of those things.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2017 challenge. Click on the photos for a closer look!

We attended a performance of Attraactor, a combination of Indonesian music duo Senyawa and Dancenorth, a dance troupe from northern Australia. The show was inspired by the Javanese tradition of entering a trance-like state through music and dancing.

It was… let’s say it wasn’t for us. The dancers seemed very talented, and the musicians also. But the type of music and dancing they were doing was not very enjoyable to we naïve viewers. There was a lot of flopping and screeching. Handcrafted, artisanal, well-synchronized and intentional flopping and screeching, but still. We were ready for it to be over about halfway through.

We’re going to keep trying, though. Dance is a revered art form, and we don’t intend to abandon it entirely.