Let's talk a little about this image from the 1500s.
We have a picnic with a young noble and his(?) lady friend. I often hear that women never danced for men because Islam. Well, clearly there are two women dancing in front of a bunch of men: the noble, his servant, and literally every single musician.
The main instruments are a daf and a ney, and we can note that both dancers are holding percussive instruments. The three on the bottom left seem to each have small instruments, but I can't quite make them out. The one in the center seems to be playing something similar to finger cymbals.
The dancers both have a braid case. So far, Persian dancers (and only dancers) are the only people I have ever noted wearing braid cases. If you have evidence of someone else wearing them, I'd love to see it. Anyway, the figure in yellow is in a pose that I have seen in other miniatures. her face is turned away from the direction of her hands. This is a very similar pose to one we see in classical Persian dance. In Persian culture, longing (and never having it come to realization) is a regular motif in stories and poetry. This dance move in classical Persian dance is portrayed as a come-hither movement, with the head facing the arms, and then the face turning away, as if to say, but-no-I-cannot! This pose could also indicate a swooping around of the arms, possibly over the head gracefully. Other miniatures might show poses that could go with it. The arms bent in the same direction indicate that she is not doing undulations, since those are typically moved in opposition to each other. The figure in red is also frozen in the middle of a common classical Persian pose. In this particular move, the arms cross in front of the heart, and swoop out to barrel-of-monkey arms.
