Performing Art · Jharkhand
Tusu Parab Dance
तुसू परब
The women's winter harvest-festival dance of the Adivasi and tribal communities of Jharkhand — performed during the Tusu Parab (January) with women making decorative bamboo-and-mud Tusu idols and singing celebratory songs.
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Where Tusu Parab Dance comes from
The Tusu Parab is the winter harvest-festival tradition of the tribal communities of eastern Jharkhand (and parts of West Bengal, Odisha and Assam). Tusu is observed on the full-moon day of the month of Magh (January-February). The festival is celebrated principally by the women of the Santal, Munda, Oraon and Ho communities of the Santhal Pargana, the Deoghar area and the adjoining districts — with the women making decorative bamboo-and-clay Tusu idols (the image of the goddess Tusu, the harvest deity) and singing the Tusu songs around them. The dance is part of the celebration of the new harvest and of the fertility of the rice fields.
How it's practiced
Tusu Parab dance is performed by women of the Santhal-Munda-Oraon-Ho community in a circle around the Tusu idol (or in a procession through the village). The dance is accompanied by the singing of the Tusu songs of the season — verse-form songs of the harvest goddess and the prosperity of the village. Music is the dhol and the dholak of the regional festival ensemble, occasionally supplemented by the brass shehnai. Costume is the everyday colourful Adivasi dress — the sari for the women and the dhoti-kurta for the men. The dance is performed on the central day of the Tusu Parab festival, with the women of the village continuing through the festival evening. The Tusu idol is then ceremonially immersed in a river or pond at the close of the festival.
The women's winter harvest-festival dance of the Adivasi and tribal communities of Jharkhand — performed during the Tusu Parab (January) with women making decorative bamboo-and-mud Tusu idols and singing celebratory songs.
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