The Egg Dance.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 800, 5 May 1876, Page 3

The Egg Dance.

One of the things seen- by the Prince of Wales during his stay in Calcutta was the egg dance. The egg dance is thus performed :— The dancer, dressed in a corsage and very short skirt, carries a willow wheel of moderate diameter fastened horizontally upou the top of her head. Around the wheel threads are fastened, equally distant from each other, and at the end of each of these threads is a slip nooze, which is kept open by a glass bead. Thus equipped, the young girl comes towards the spectators with a basket full of eggs, which she passes rcund for inspection, to prove that they are real, and not imitations. The music strikes up a jerky monotonous strain, and the dancer begins to whirl round with g-*eat rapidity. Then seizing an egg, she puts it iv one of the slip noozes, and with a quick motion throws it from her in such a way as to draw the knot tight. The swift turning of the dancer produoes a centrifugal force which stretches the thread out straight like a ray shooting from the circumference of the circle. One after another the eggs are thrown out in these Blip nooses until they make a horizontal aureole or halo about the the dancer's head. Then the dance becomes more rapid, so rapid in fact that it is difficult to distinguish the features of tbe girl ; the moment ia critical, the least false step, the le.st irregularity in time, and the eggs dash against each other. But how can the dance be stopped ? There is but one way — that is, to remove the eggs in the way in which they had been put in place. This operation is by far the more delicate of the two. It is necessary that the dancer, by a single motion, exact and unerring, should take hold of the egg, and remove it from the noose. A single false motion of the hand, the least interference with one of the threads, and the general arrangement is suddenly broken ? and £he whole performance disastrously ended- At last all the eggs are successfully removed ; the dancer suddenly stops, and without seeming in the least dizzed by this dance of twentyrfive or thirty minutes she advances to the spectators with a firm step, and presents to them the eggs, which are immediately broken in a flat dish to prove that there is no trick, about the performance,