Afghan dance includes both male and female dances, though never mixed dances. At traditional engagement or wedding parties it is customary for female musicians and dancers to entertain the women while male musicians and dancers entertain the men. The national dance, a celebratory dance of Pashtu origin known as the attan, is performed in a large circle by male dancers, accompanied by an ensemble centred on the zurna and the dul. The drumming increases in tempo as the piece progresses, with the dancers responding to the rhythm with handclaps and exclamatory shouts of encouragement. The signature action of this style involves the swinging of the head to throw the hair, previously cut in a pageboy style, in sweeping arcs. The dancers lunge and turn in a crouching position while the music becomes ever faster. Mohammad Rafiq Khushnud, Director of the Afghan Conservatory of Music, hopes in future to bring female Tajik dance teachers to Kabul, but not until the political climate is suitable. Popular in the north, their dances were once taught and performed in Afghanistan, but at present it remains impossible for women to perform these works.