Dance Platforms

My friend, Catherine, asked me to get some photos of the dance platform in the center of The Cross Group in Palenque, Mexico, which I did. What follows are some thoughts and comments about dance platforms.

First off, I don’t think we know that these square low platforms were in fact dance platforms. Maybe, I’ve missed the documentation and thinking on this topic. I know Mary Miller had done some work in this regard, but I think her work centered around a higher Venus Platform in Tikal, which had painting or drawings on pots of people parading on the steps of that platform. 

Various stelae show kings dancing. This is signaled by them having lifted the heel of one foot. So what do we mean by dancing? In Chichicastenango, Guatemala they have a festival each year celebrated by having people dressed in highly feathered costumes and wearing a porcelain looking mask. These dressed figures dance. The kind of dancing they do, I am told and was shown, resembles what I would call “a Mexican Hat Dance.” That is a dance where a couple hold each others hands at arm’s length and alternately shoot a leg out straight at about thirty degrees. (Ie Each person puts out their right leg – heel first, and then switches to the left.)

Additionally a pole is erected outside the church for a Voladore ceremony. That is where five participants climb the pole to a large square rig. One person sits atop the pole and the other four each take a side of the rig where they attach themselves by an ankle to the rig. Music is played and the four hang upside don from the rig as it unwinds and the “dancers” descend as the ropes unspool.

David Stuart had a theory that such a ceremony Wass a rite of passage for a young man in Palenque who was or would become king. There is a drawing of the king as a young man or boy dressed in feathered plumage and the commentary associated says something about him doing some sort of dance or bird dance.

This is all I know about these platforms but I think we can indulge in some speculation.

First off these platforms appear in open areas. Either they are centered in a plaza, such as The Cross Group, or they are off to one side of the plaza. Such a platform exists in Palenque in front of the temple known as The Temple of the Count, because Jean Waldeck stayed in the building when he was at Palenque, and he claimed to be a count.

That platform is off to one side of the plaza.

Pomona has a similar set up with one platform in the center of the plaza and another off to one side. What would be the purpose of each? I could argue that the one in the center of the plaza could be used for a voladore ceremony while the one to one side would make more sense to be for a person to stand that was directing a ceremony or dancing in a costume. 

There is evidence that the Mayan kings wore elaborate head dresses and even back racks. Such paraphernalia would certainly limit one’s ability to move. About the only dancing one could do would be to stick out one’s foot or lift a heel.