The Chhau dance in its origin is the dance of indigenous peoples inhabiting a broad tract of land that today spreads over the States of Orissa, Jharkhand, and West Bengal in eastern India. In its content and technique, it bears the impress, successively, of the life of a hunting-gathering people in awe of nature, martial arts that evolved as the land was colonized by native rulers, and wider contacts in the modern period assimilating Chhau dance in the broad Indic tradition of natya.
<p>Of its three variants, the Chhau of Purulia in West Bengal has remained a people’s art widely practised in the countryside, adapting freely to changing times with little deference to ‘tradition’. The Chhau of Seraikella (in Jharkhand) and Mayurbhanj (in Orissa), on the other hand, have evolved into theatre arts under princely patronage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are thus more nuanced than their country cousin of Bengal, and consciously artistic in their deployment of expressive devices.
Chhau today enacts episodes from the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, the Puranas, traditional folklore and local legends; it also takes on abstract themes. In its traditional context, the dance is intimately connected with the festivals of the region and rituals connected with those. The most important of these is the Chaitra Parva celebrated in the month of April, marking the advent of spring and the start of the harvesting season.
The Chhau ‘orchestra’ consists of the reed instruments Mohuri, Juri-Bheri, and Shehnai, and drums of various pitches such as Dhumsa – the largest – Dhol, Nagada, and Chadchari. A pair of clappers called Jhanijh is also a part of the ensemble. Though vocal music is not used in Chhau, the melodies are based on songs from the Jhumur folk repertoire, the devotional Kirtan, classical Hindustani ragas, and traditional Oriya music. 
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Chhau dance is being presented by Chhau Kendra, Jamshedpur. ( Source sangeet Natak Academy)
Ramesh Lalwani
CC BY 2.0
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