From the tea estates of Assam, came the dancers crossing the mountain to reach the coast of Bay of Bengal. In their traditional attire, young Adivasi men and women presented the labour that goes into plucking tea leaves through their dance. They performed the ‘Jhumoir’ dance for 25 minutes at Gandhi Tidal.
All India Radio artist Nanusingh Karmakar who led the team said that all the dancers here work in the tea estate in Kaziranga National Park and after the nine-hour work they gather in the evening to dance. “We are here to perform the dance to the people of Puducherry,” he said.
The Jhumoir dance follows the recital of ‘Saraswati Vandana’, a traditional song. The audience was not just entertained with Jhumoir from Assam alone, but folk dance from Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur were also part of the Octave 2017 cultural festival organised by the Art and Culture Department along with Thanjavur South Zone Cultural Centre. The cultural event began with a Bharatanatyam dance with the theme based on Hindu mythology and concluded with ‘Kaaliattam’.
The three-day festival that began on February 24, with a series of folk dance performances from the northeastern parts of India is taking place simultaneously in three different parts of Puducherry including Gandhi Tidal on Beach Road, in Bahour and Ariyankuppam.
