Dancing with the dead: A live show now going down in Madagascar

In Madagascar, this is the time of year when a bizarre ritual called the Festival of Dry Bones, or Famadihana (literally “the turning of the bones”), is held — a tradition dedicated to the ancestors, usually taking place between July and September every five to seven years. During the festival, family members honour their departed relatives by exhuming their remains from the family tomb and rewrapping the bones in new burial shrouds. The corpses are then placed on new mats to “sunbathe” for a while, before family members dance with the bones of the dead to cheerful live music. After much eating, drinking and celebration, the bones are re-buried in the family crypt.