Northeast folk artistes steal the show

‘Octave-2017’, a folk dance show of Northeast, organised recently at Shilparamam, showcased the greatness of folk dances of India

Folk dances always tell the stories of culture and traditions of a particular community or people. The dance forms depict the celebration, livelihood, and survival of tribal people.

‘Octave-2017’, a three-day dance festival was recently organised by South Zone Cultural Center, Thanjavur, in association with the Government of Telangana at Amphitheatre, Shilparamam, to show the greatness of folk dances.

Around 166 artistes from North-Eastern States include Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim and Tripura performed in the festival.

Dance forms like ‘Karbi’, ‘Mungyangta’, ‘Limbu’, ‘Stick’, ‘Shimlaam’, ‘Pakhu Itu’, ‘Mamita’, ‘Ka Shad Kheit Soh’, ‘Gaso Syo’ and ‘Thang Ta’ were performed.

The dance festival started with ‘Karbi’ tribal dance by Nilakanta Rahang Group from Assam. It is performed at the beginning of the New Year. ‘Karbi’ dance followed by ‘Mungyangta’ dance from Nagaland by Yambeni group. This dance is based on the ancient story of Chanchu bird's community.

The third dance was ‘Limbu’ dance of Sikkim and was performed by Chabilal group, this dance usually performed at marriage ceremonies. During the dance show, Loyumba a 20-year-old boy from Manipur performed ‘Stick’ dance. Loyumba dances along with stick without touching the ground. He mesmerised the audience with his great performance.

The other traditional dances were ‘Shimlaam’ from Manipur, ‘Mamita’ from Tripura, ‘Ka Shad Kheit Soh’ from Meghalaya, ‘Gaso Syo’ from Arunachal Pradesh and ‘Pakhu Itu’ also from Arunachal Pradesh performed.

“Today we performed ‘Karbi’ dance. Usually, this dance was performed by ‘Jahanjhati’ tribe community people on the occasion of New Year celebrations and also their traditional ceremonies. We used musical instruments like dhol, moorik and dhol dhang to describe the dance form. We believe this dance brings the happiness for people,” said Nilakanta, from Assam, who performed Karbi dance with his group.

“We are happy to perform our dance in Hyderabad. Today, we performed ‘Mungyangta’ dance of Nagaland. This dance is explained the story of Chanchu birds community. In every summer season, the Chanchu’s take bath, swim and play with each other in Wosa River. This dance depicts the livelihood of Chanchu’s of Nagaland,” said Yambeni, who performed ‘Mungyangta’ dance with his group.

Sizable number of people attended the programme. “I came here to walk around sometime in Shilparamam and I am surprised with these dance forms. India has many folk dance forms but unfortunately we don’t know about them. These types of programmes will help to survive the oldest folk dance forms. I was enthralled by the ‘Stick’ dance performance of ‘Loyumba’,” said Ramesh, a techie, who came to watch the dance show.