Dancing to Bodu Balu

Dancing to Bodu Beru

Tourists will have to step off the resort for a full immersion in Maldivian culture. But one night a week, most hotels feature a traditional performance called bodu beru. The Dhihevi words for "big drums," bodu beru involves about a dozen sarong-clad men singing and swaying to the beat of drums under the moonlight. Dances begin slowly and quietly, with only one musician keeping time, and grow to a frenetic pace. The troupe—whose number usually includes members of the resort staff—sings tunes with universal themes of love and loss; and at some resorts, you can even take a bodu beru class.