Purulia Chhau | Folk Dance | Bengal | India

Chhau is a form of traditional Indian dance-theatre. In this form of theatre, the actors express themselves in movement, not in words. There are three forms of Chhau being in practice in three tribal populated places of three adjoining states, Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha – Purulia Chhau of Bengal, Seraikella Chhau of Jharkhand and Mayurbhanj Chhau of Odisha. Among these three, Purulia Chhau is the crudest one with very little evolvement since its hunting or warfare origin. It is due to the arid land and lack of sustained economic patronage and cultural guidance from the ruling side of the society in Bengal. It is performed with more ’exciting’ combat scenes with more skillful pirouettes and somersaults, acrobatics, almost an antithesis of sophisticated and stylized other two forms - Seraikella and Mayurbhanj. The costumes in Purulia Chhau, specially the masks and headgears have acquired enormous size and jazzy decorations. The masks of Purulia Chhau vibrate with a quality of earthiness and their function is mainly to heighten the theatricality. These masks give the larger-than-life mythological characters a fascinating presence. The percussion, the Taal (rhythm) is the dominating part of Chhau where a variety of drums are played; Dhol and Dhamsa (also called Dhak) are most essential. A high pitched local flute is also played as an embellishment to this high strung percussive sound. The Dhol, among all the drums, virtually leads a Chhau performance. This high pitch nature of this musical sound not only energizes the dancers with rhythmic ecstasy but also is the main flavour of the Chhau dance. The Dhol contributes the character to the Chhau music and the reverberating beats of Dhamsa underlines its hyper-masculine personality. Chhau, one of the most important Indian performing arts, has definitely raised in many folds the pride of the heritage of this country in the International arenas. Hashtags- #PuruliaChhaudance #folkdanceperformance #ছৌনাচ Related Search - Purulia chhau dance video, chhau dance West Bengal, Purulia Chhau of Bengal, folk dance of India, folk dance Purulia, folk dance songs, Bengal, chhau dance music, folk dance performance, folk dance songs, folk dance Bengali Video curated by Kaahon Team ➲ Website ➙ ➲ Facebook ➙ ➲ Instagram ➙ ➲ Twitter ➙ ➲ WhatsApp ➙ ➲ Phone ➙ 91 91470 72990 Support @KaahonKommunications through your Donations at PATREON » PAYPAL » COPYRIGHTS © 2023 KAAHON KOMMUNICATIONS, All right reserved.