Abstract:

Possibly the first recorded instance of a dance craze, the so-called “Sogdian Whirl” captivated Tang Dynasty (618-907) poets and aristocrats, even the Emperor Xuanzong himself. Attributed to the Sogdian merchants who hailed from the territory that is now modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the dance had a curiously militaristic lineage through its association with General An Lu Shan, whose Chinese bestowed surname of “An” linked him to Bukhara, where the turn is still performed today.

While sustained spins appear in several Asian cultures, an examination of the distinguishing features – the specific movement technique, linguistic clues, and connections to Persianate culture – lead to existing dance forms and rituals. The turn is almost always done to the left and the linguistic similarity between the terms used to label it - chark, çark, and chakkar - also suggest Persianate connections, since chark is also the Persian term for wheel. (And in the Yagnobi language, with its links to ancient Sogdian, the term чарх (čarx) is used.)

As a martial arts practice, it has links to the zurkhaneh, the “house of strength” which still exists today in Iran and Azerbaijan and which includes the turn in ritualized physical work outs. Among the Mevlevi Sufis, as well as adherents to the Shia Alevi sect, and Egypt’s tanoureh performers, the turn forms an important part of their meditative spiritual ritual. These disciplines are traditionally imparted through an ustoz-shagird (master-disciple) relationship, evidence of transmission as embodied knowledge.

Uyghur men also engage in a movement ritual known as sama, which involves traveling in a counterclockwise path. At times, individuals will move into the center of the large, rotating circle to spin quickly around themselves, always to the left.

In Central Asia, specifically among Uzbeks and Tajiks, dancers train to perform a special turn called “shokh” which is only done to the left, in a noticeable contradiction to the standard dance training method of practicing all movements on both the right and left sides of the body. In the classical Indian dance form known as Kathak, with historic connections to Central Asia through the Moguls, the turn is known as chakkar.

Traditions that are not written, but embodied by disciples, prove to be resilient and perhaps less vulnerable to destruction than archival evidence because they are carried within each trained individual. These living dance traditions suggest that the Sogdian Whirl is not lost, but still practiced today.