Indian Folk Dance

DALKHAI
The Dalkhai dance is performed by women of some of the tribes in Sambalpur district in Orissa at the time of seasonal festivals. The dance is quite vigorous, and is accompanied by a set of particular musical instruments, played by men, of which the drummers often join the dance.

A dummy horse version is the Chaiti Ghorha, danced by a community of fisherfolk. The performers are all men. Apart from dancing, the performers sing, deliver homilies of sorts, and offer brief dramatic enactments peppered with wit and humour.

Dancing on stilts is fairly common among Gond children of Madhya Pradesh. The dance is popular in the Vindhyas and the Satpura ranges. This is danced in the rainy season; from June to August. The dancer, who has the balance on the stilts(Gendi) perform it even in water or on marshy surface. The dance is brisk, and ends with a dance in pyramid formation.

This is generally confined only to children and the attraction consists in balancing and clever footwork. In the villages where the wheat seedlings festival, Bhujalia, is celebrated, children prance on their gendis, collect near the village pond or the river in which bhujalias are to be immersed. Other frolicsome children, dancing to the accompaniment of musical instrument join the group and they dance together. Sometimes, womenfolk also join them, but they do not use stilts.

The Gendi season begins on the day of Bak Bandhi festival in the month of June and concludes after the Pola dance celebrations in the month of August.