Nothing like a good rape story to brighten up your evening

The Royal Ballet Theatre of Luang Prabang is somewhat of an anacronistic name for a Laos dance troop since there isn't - and hasn't been for quite  a while - a royalty for them to be the ballet troop of. Still, that is what they call themselves and so shall I.

Paul, Jola and I went to see the performance (120,000 kip) at the Royal Palace Museum and I did enjoy it a great deal even if the main dance was a cautionary tale about how women should stay in their protective circles or they'll get kidnapped and forced to marry demons. And there was something in there about men hunting their friends who'd turned into a Golden Hind to impress a girl... or something.

But then the Ramayana has never made a great deal of sense to me - I was sadly brought up in the wrong narrative tradition.

Unlike Balinese dancing, which performs Ramayana stories with some wild abandon, the Laos version has the intricate steps and careful control of other dance types from this region such as Thailand.

Photo: The main performance was preceded and succeeded by a number of other traditional dances.