Saila Dance (Chhattisgarh)

Understand

Where Saila Dance (Chhattisgarh) comes from

Saila is the stick-and-stilt dance of the Gond and Halba tribal communities of Chhattisgarh (the districts of Sarguja, Jashpur, Kanker and Bastar), performed at the harvest festivals and at the wedding of the village. The dance takes its name from the sair (the wooden stumps or stilts on which the dancers leap). Saila is performed in a simple court (the open village ground with the sticks arranged in sequence) and the dancers compete against each other in pairs. The form is associated with the agricultural ritual of the harvest and is documented as one of the most photogenic of the central Indian tribal dances. Saila shares broad features with the Saila Dance of Madhya Pradesh (which I described in the MP entries), though the Chhattisgarhi version has its own regional character.

How it's practiced

Saila is performed by men of the Gond or Halba community, by ones or in twos, with each dance running through a sequence of increasingly difficult stumps from the small to the larger. The dancers leap across the open tops of the stilts in choreographed patterns while tapping them with the flat of the foot, displaying control and skill. The accompanying music is the heavy dhol, the dholak and the small drum, with a men's chorus providing supporting shouts and encouragement. The dance is performed at the harvest festivals (Hareli, Pola) and at the weddings of the Gond community. Costume is the everyday Gond tribal dress — the colourful dhoti and the head-cloth and the small jewellery of the Adivasi identity.