Folk Dances

Uttarakhand's folk dances run from martial sword play to slow harvest circles to ritual dance-drama. Almost all are communal, danced in a group to the dhol-damau, and tied to a festival, a wedding or a season.

The most striking is the Chholiya, a Kumaoni sword-and-shield dance performed in wedding processions, its roots in Rajput martial tradition. The gentlest are the circle dances: the Jhora of Kumaon and the Jhumaila and Chanchari of Garhwal, where men and women link arms and step round together at fairs.

Garhwal holds the ritual dances. The Pandav Nritya enacts episodes from the Mahabharata over many nights, with dancers taken to embody the Pandavas, while the Langvir Nritya is an acrobatic solo performed high on a pole. Seasonal group dances such as Thadya and Chaunphula mark spring, and the Barada Nati belongs to the Jaunsar-Bawar region in the west.

What ties them together is the drum. Nothing begins without the dhol and damau, and the dancers move to the drummer rather than to any fixed tune.