Giddha

Understand

Where Giddha comes from

Giddha is the women's counterpart to Bhangra in the Punjab region, with its documented roots in the ancient ring dance of the Punjab. Giddha is widely classified as the female counterpart of Bhangra and is performed by women at festive and social occasions (weddings, Lohri, Vaisakhi, Karva Chauth). The Partition of India in 1947, which divided Punjab into East and West, consolidated the form on both sides of the border. Since the 1960s Giddha has become the centrepiece of Punjabi women's cultural identity alongside Bhangra for men, with both forms regularly featured at collegiate competitions and diaspora functions. The researcher Gibb Schreffler has documented how the form was canonised in the post-Independence cultural revival.

How it's practiced

Giddha is performed by women standing in a circle formation, clapping in coordinated patterns while singing boliyan — the lyrical couplets of Punjabi women's folk-song tradition — that typically tell stories of marriage, family and woman's life. A lead woman (the boliyan-reciter) sings the opening line and the rest of the circle responds with the refrain, the songs often laced with humour, wordplay and pointed social commentary. No musical instrument — not even the dhol — accompanies the dance; rhythm is provided entirely by the women's clapping. Costume is the colourful salwar-kameez with the long flowing dupatta, the jutti foot-wear, the hair in two braids with a tikka on the forehead, and heavy glass-bangle jewellery.