Popular Folk Dances of India

Category :- All India Travel Tourism > Culture > Dance > Folk

Dollu Kunitha
Karnataka region has tribes who are predominantly hunters and food-gatherers. They have a large repertoire of songs and dances which revolve around hunting, food-gathering and burial funeral rites. The dodavas of Karnataka perform the Balakat dance at harvest time.

The ritual dances revolving around worship of Lord Subramanya are called Kavadis. The state has an immense treasure house of other ritualistic dances, all denoted by the generic term Kunitha. In Puja Kunitha, there is a wooden structure with a deity on the head; Devare Thatte Kunitha, Yell-ammana Kunitha, Suggikunitha and others, each taking its name from the deity or the symbol or instrument which is balanced on the head, or held in the hand. The Dollu Kunitha is a popular drum dance of Karnataka. The men have large drums, decorated with coloured cloth, slung from their necks, and they beat the drums as they dance with nimble movements of the feet and legs. The dance is at times accompanied by songs, which are either religious or in praise of war.

Padayani
Padayani or Padeni in colloquial speech, is one of the most colourful and spectacular folk arts associated with the festivals of certain temples in southern Kerala (Aleppy, Quilon, Pathanamthitta, and Kottayam districts). The word Padayani literally means military formations or rows of army, but in this folk art we have mainly a series of divine and semi-divine impersonations wearing huge masks or kolams of different shapes, colours and designs painted on the stalks of arecanut fronds. The most important of the kolams usually presented in a Padayani performance are Bhairavi (Kali), Kalan (god of death), Yakshi (fairy), Pakshi (bird) etc.

The Kolam consists primarily of a huge headgear with many projections and devices with a mask for the face or a chest piece to cover the breast and abdomen of the performer. The whole performance consisting of the dancers or actors who wear the kolams, the singers who recite a different poem for each Kolam, and the instrumentalists who evoke wild and loud rhythm on their simple drum called Thappu and Cymbals, etc., takes the form of a procession of Kali and her spirits returning after the killing of the Asura chief Darika.