A very vibrant and colourful, three-day long programme, ‘Poorvotsav,’ of performing arts of the North-Eastern States of India began at Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya after a formal inauguration, on Friday.
In an array of performances, Friday’s presentation started with ‘Bihu dance’ of Assam. The most important festivals of Assam is Bihu, which is celebrated with fun in abundance by all Assamese people irrespective of caste, creed, and belief.
This joyous dance is performed by both young men and women, and is characterised by brisk dance steps, rapid hand movements, and a rhythmic swaying of the hips in order to represent youthful passion.
Dancers wear traditionally colourful dresses in Assamese clothing. There are three types of Bihu dance.
The most important and colourful of the three festivals is the Spring festival ‘Bohag Bihu’ or Rangali Bihu celebrated in the middle of April.
Songs sung in Bihu are woven around themes of love and often carry erotic overtones. People adorn traditional attires like dhoti, gamocha and chadar, mekhala.
Bihu dances performed by young boys and girls are characterised by brisk stepping, flinging and flipping of hands and their swaying of hips represents youthful passion, reproductive urge and joie de vivre. After the excellent performance of Bihu by Assamese artists, traditional Wangala dance was presented by artists from Meghalaya.
Wangala is celebrated for two or three days or up to a week, gathering two or three villages, though recently it has been celebrated for one day in metropolitan areas. Rugala and Sasat Sowa are celebrated on the first day.
These rituals are performed inside the house of the Nokma (chief) of the village. Dama Gogata is celebrated on the last day.
During Wangala, people young and old dress in their colourful garments (dakmanda, daksari, or gando) and feathered headgear (dome) and dance to music played on long, oval-shaped drums (dama).
Wangala, the greatest traditional festival of Garo, had been celebrated at every harvesting period in late autumn in the past.
They thank the God of fertility, Misi-Saljong, in Wangala through dancing, drinking chu, singing for three days and nights. Artists from Manipur presented laiharaoba Thang Ta. Thang means sword, ‘Ta’ stands for garland and chailar means war. It is Manipur’s traditional war dance.
This dance is performed exclusively in royal ceremonies and festival of “laiharaoba”.
The other presentations were ‘Oho-Aholo-Konalo’ dance of Nagaland, ‘Cheraw’ dance by of Sikkim, ‘Hojagiri’ dance of Tripura and Tangako Noyone dance of Arunachal Pradesh.