Haunting Music from Suai

Tweet Nearly two years ago, I flew to the south coast of East Timor to participate in the opening of a media house for journalists. The organization that I worked for at the time, had opened several of these facilities across the country and this was the latest. At all of the openings, there was always traditional dance and music -- a truly wonderful time, each time.

The ceremony in Suai remains fresh in my mind because of the music and dance. It was quite haunting in some ways -- three men singing, one of them playing a traditional stringed instrument and six young girls dancing to the music -- appearing to be in a hypnotic trance.

I was fortunate to have my camera handy and captured a portion of the performance.