Jhumur

Jhumur dance

Jhumur (Assamese: ঝুমুৰ, Bengali: ঝুমুর, Odia: ଝୁମର, Hindi: झुमर) is a traditional dance form, existing in eastern part of India, basically in Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha. The dance is performed by young girls. They are also accompanied by few male members, who by and large maintain the rhythm with musical instruments and vocals.

Performance

The dance is mostly performed in open places (now-a-days in cultural gatherings also). The male members wear long traditional dresses and keep the rhythm with few traditional instruments: generally a drum, hung on shoulder; a flute and a pair of "Taal" (two metallic discs). The girls mostly perform the dancing part, holding each other's waist and moving hands and legs forward and backward synchronously.

Lyrics

The lyrics of Jhumur are built on day-to-day languages and mostly depict love and or pleasures and pains of day-to-day life.

Locations where performed

Jhumur troupe of Assam

Traditionally Jhumur is a dance form of certain tribes of eastern India like Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal Assam. In Assam the scientific way of tea plantation started in the year 1837 AD with the British East India Company setting up tea plantations. A large labour force was required to work in the tea gardens. The local people of Assam were reluctant to work in the tea gardens, leaving their traditional farming ways. This necessitated the import of labour from other regions of the Country.the Jhumur troupe is not performed in locally,it is not like all social culture.The agents entrusted by the companies found and brought large groups of people of different ethnicities from the Central and Eastern regions of the Country; mainly from the present day states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal.

Philosophy

The dance gets its name from the cluster of bells worn round the ankles, which make a clanging noise. There are many variations of Jhumur. This dance is some times performed as a ritual worship of gods and goddesses, sometimes for courting and lovemaking, and yet again as a prayer for rainfall. This dance incorporates songs and dialogues, which depict the joys and sorrows, yearning and aspirations of the everyday lives of the common people. It is believed that Jhumur was originally a means of recreation between phases of tedious agricultural work. Probably the most entertaining form of Jhumur is the Bhaduria, performed as thanksgiving for a bountiful monsoon.^[1]this songs are unsocial

See also

Kurmi/KudumiMahato

References