The traditional sport of the Rinliddi is a form of competitive dance which involves couples or teams of dancers performing in front of a panel of judges who award marks in a complex system where a perfect performance scores 6 (rarely if ever awarded as the next dancers could be better) and lesser scores are 5.5, 5.4, 5.3, 5.2, 5.1 and 5.0. In serious competition lower scores are just not awarded as they would be an insult to the dancers. Judging is done in two catagories - Artistic Impression (how well the dancers interpreted the music) and Technical Merit (how many of the expected difficult steps were performed correctly). The judges are all ex-dancers themselves and mostly involved in training the current dancers so it is practically impossible for anyone not trained by a small clique to score highly in the competitions.
There are three varieties commonly performed:
Traditional - Unchanged since before the start of time it involves extremely elaborate costumes mostly of feathers which are impractical to walk in never mind dance. The dances themselves consist of intricate series of steps performed at arms length from your partner with no more than brief wing (finger) tip contact.
Modern - Only several centuries old the costumes are much more like human clothing although still elaborate and richly decorated. The dances involve even more elaborate steps than traditional dance with the couple closely touching - the objective is for the two dancers to move as one.
Darjiinian - A fairly recent inovation (since the birth of the Red Goddess) this is stylised eroticism. Costumes are minimal and designed to display the dancers' bodies rather than anything else. The steps are based on erotic movements and involve the dancers writhing around each other but have become so stylised as to be absurd. This doesn't prevent trainers exorting their dancers to "seduce your partner".
While the top dancers are full time professionals employed by the nobility, a basic skill with the dances is expected of anyone of reasonable social standing and there are plenty of enthusiastic amateurs hoping to gain status by showing off their skills. The toughest competitions are the team events where top trainers are employed by a noble to train a team to dance in formation with the object of winning the formation competition and presenting the best spectacle.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/ --__--__-- End of Glorantha Digest
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