ETA Daniel Knoll was invited by his neighbor Hendri (Mamak) to practice a traditional Minangkabau dance named, Tari Piring. Mamak is the Chairman of a Traditional Culture Art School. Daniel invited the three other ETAs in West Sumatra, Ammarah Rehman, Nicholas Navin, and Jillian Castro, to join him.

The other ETAs at first happily agreed to join in learning some traditional dances, but then finding out it was the plate smashing dance, they began to have second thoughts. Watching people perform this dance is truly remarkable as performers freely conduct an elusive display of dancing with plates in their hands, but then near the end of the performance, the plates are smashed into a pile on the ground, where they subsequently begin stomping and dancing on the broken glass plates… with bare feet.

They held the plates and went through a sequence of moves for the dance modeled by Mamak and three talented students from Daniel’s school SMAN2 Payakumbuh. Mamak provided us with a memorable and simple mantra, “Enjoy” as he saw some of us were struggling to keep up, and taking the movements too seriously. At the end of the practice came the broken glass part. You can not be arrogant and overly confident with yourself, but you can also not be afraid and gentle in doing so, as both methods would result in injured feet. The key is to just “Enjoy.” Relax and have fun while you confidently jump and dance on top of the broken glass plates.

Daniel Knoll is currently teaching at SMAN 2 Payakumbuh, West Sumatra.