Tinikling is a Filipino folk dance that originated in the island of Leyte, in Visayas, Philippines. It is a dance meant to imitate a long-legged bird called the “Tikling”, slyly dodging bamboo traps.

It started during the era of Spanish colonization in the Philippines when the rice farmers wanted to protect their harvest from the Tikling bird by using bamboo traps. There was also a separate myth about the Tinikling being used as a form of torture by Spanish colonizers towards incompetent farm workers during their time by trapping their feet between bamboo which later turned into the dance that it is now.