Chhath Naach (Chhath Puja Dance)

Understand

Where Chhath Naach (Chhath Puja Dance) comes from

Chhath Naach is the dance-and-song tradition performed at the Chhath Puja — the four-day Sun-worship festival of Bihar (and adjacent eastern UP), with roots in the ancient Surya-putra of the Vedic tradition. The Chhath Puja is celebrated as the most distinctive festival of Bihar and the Mithila: families gather at the banks of the Ganges, the Sone and the Gandak on the eve of the rising sun for the offering to the Sun (arghya) over the four days of Kartik Shukla Shashti through Ashtami. The dance-and-song tradition of the festival includes the Soop dance (offering-basket dance), the Usha-Arghya song, and the dawn dance of the women as they descend into the waters for the morning offering. The form combines classical Hindi devotional song-poetry (of Kabirdas and Ramcharitmanas) with women's spontaneous dance at the river bank.

How it's practiced

Chhath Naach is performed by families and groups of women at the river bank or ponds on the four days of Chhath Puja (the day before the puja, on the fasting day, the sandhya arghya evening, and the dawn usha arghya morning). The dance is in the form of offering the Soop (the bamboo basket of thekua, the prasad fruits) to the Sun — the women move in a measured dance with the basket raised above their heads, accompanied by the recurring songs of Chhati Maiya. The accompanying music is the dholak and small cymbals, with the songs sung by the women in chorus. Costume is the bright festive sari (often unstitched, the traditional Chhath dress) with the unmarried-girls' plait-of-braid and the married women's vermillion-lined-hair ornament. The dance is performed through the night of the sandhya arghya and at the dawn.