Purulia- Part-07: Most Attraction-Chhau Nritya

Chhau Dance Mask

Chhau Dance is origin from Purulia district. This is one of the  old and ancient folk dance forms of India. Chhau means chhaya and chhaya means shadow or mask. This dance form is also called “Mask Dance”. This is generally male dance form. The director of this dance  is pick a dramatic part the epic Ramanaya and Mahabhrat and also from the life of local people especially to those villagers who are hero of them.
Chhau dance has three forms from three province of India. One is Purulia Chhau Dance, second one is Bihar Chhau Dance and third one is Mayurbhanj of Orissa Chhau Dance. According to the geographical situation, these three forms of Chhau Dances have some little difference. Otherwise, all are same.
There are so many groups who are engaged to thei dance form; they are Domordi-Group, Birgram-Group, Madla-Group, etc. chhau dance is mainly a Bhumij Art. Especially this dance is for festival dance. As per the Bengali calendar, the month of  Chaitra is the proper time of Sun festival and on this occasion this chhau dance is generally performed. This Sun festival is generally continue for one and half month. But the popularity of chhau dance, it is not within the limit period of Sun Festival, now this dance form is also shown in different festivals of the year.
This is can be said easily that, like other old and ancient items, this chhau dance has also passed through various odd situations which are push it before the question, is this dance form survive? But the artists who are rural villagers of the districts Medinipur, Purulia, kept  this dance form alive inspite of facing lot of struggle and obstructions. Most of the villagers of Charida of Baghmundi of Purulia district are generally engaged in makinf of mask for chhau dance. These masks are verity in numbers and all of these masks are made of clay and old news papers. The makers of such mask are very much conversant with the epic like Ramanaya and Mahabharat and als the Brigatha of the local leaders. According to the chhau dance groups, they are able to make masks for different characters of the play. But most of the plays are mythological. It is shown the defeat of evil power and win of truth.
Generally, there is no specific stage or platform to show this dance performance. In most time this dance is perform at the open place where the villagers are use to sit roundly. This chhau dance is normally is start at night and carry sometime upto the next day morning.  Mridang or durm is the vital instrument of this dance performance. Before starting such dance, the drum player is normally play drum to worship God Ganesha. Alongwith drum, dhol dhamsa are also used. Moreover, song with this dance performance is very essential and one kathak thakur who explain or narrate the episode of the mythological eipc to the audiences. One thing is also very noticeable that, the artists of chhau dance are not capable to show their mood of the character as there are mask, they fulfill this defiance through their body movement.