Assam, the land of hills and valleys, is a home to colourful tribes and communities. Each tribe has it’s own traditional folk dance.
Bagurumba (also known as the Bardwisikhla dance) is a folk dance of Bodo tribe in Assam and Northeast India. It’s colourful, vibrant and depicts the beautiful nature. Bagurumba is a traditional dance which is traditionally inherent to one generation to another generation.
The Bodo women perform the Bagurumba dance with their colourful dokhna, jwmgra (fasra) and aronai. With time, this folk dance of the Bodo tribe has gained global attention similar to Bihu dance.
The Bagurumba dance originated from nature thousand of years ago. Generally, the Bodo people like to stay in a green environment.
Several symbols in this folk dance are imitated from the natural environment like – the dance of plants, animals, birds, butterfly dance, the wave of the flowing river, wind and so on.
There are no certain days and times to perform this dance. Bagurubma can be performed on any occasion, festival and programme to express happiness and joy.
This traditional dance is accompanied by musical instruments like kham (a long drum, made of wood and goat skin or other animal’s skin), sifung (flute, made of bamboo), jota (made of iron/tama), serja (a bowed instrument, made of wood and animals skin), gongwna (made of bamboo) and tharkha (a piece of split bamboo).
Bagurumba uses F Major Pentatonic Scale, exactly similar to Chinese traditional music.
Check out a video:
Bagurumba dance also impressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi who addressed a mammoth rally in Kokrajhar on February 6th, 2020 to mark the celebrations of the inking of the historic Bodo Accord. Upon landing at Jangkhritai Pwthar, the venue of the event, Modi was seen exchanging words with the dancers and musicians.
Photo credit: @PIB_India, @DGNorthEast & @CMOfficeAssam
