Tajik traditional dancers, Wakhan Valley, Tajikistan

Driving along the Afghan border in Tajikistan with Peregrine Adventures, we came across a Wakhan Valley village staging a music, singing and dancing show. The dancers were from the capital Dushanbe and were there to celebrate and warm up the village for the imminent arrival of the Tajikistan President. He arrived the next day. There was an official cameraman there -perhaps the footage would be spliced in with the presidential visit for Tajik state TV. The whole village was present, all the women and children looking from one side and from atop a wall along the roadway before the ’stage’, the men to the other side. Locals got up and danced alongside the performers occasionally too. I doubt this kind of dancing is still allowed across the river in Afghanistan, where a large population of ethnic Tajiks live.