Chhau

Chhau is the masked martial dance of the country where Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal meet, performed in the open at the spring Chaitra Parva festival. Its vocabulary comes from the parikhanda, the shield and sword exercises of the region, so the movement is combat drill turned into dance: leaps, stamps, mock duels and animal and bird gaits. Two of its three styles use masks and one does not, which is the main thing that separates them. UNESCO listed it in 2010.

Three styles. Seraikella in Jharkhand uses a delicate painted mask with a neutral expression and is the most refined, performed historically by the princely family themselves. Purulia in Bengal uses an enormous, vividly painted papier mache mask with a headdress, and is loud, acrobatic and full of flying leaps. Mayurbhanj in Odisha uses no mask at all and is correspondingly more facial. The music is the dhol, dhamsa and mohuri, and the repertoire is episodes from the epics and from the puranas, Mahishasura Mardini above all.

Begun at about eight to ten, with the parikhanda exercises first: the shield and sword drill that supplies the stance and the footwork, done for a year or more before the dance. In the masked styles a dancer must learn to carry the whole expression in the body because the face is gone, which is the hardest adjustment and takes years. Training is seasonal, intensifying before the Chaitra Parva, and happens in village akhadas under a guru. Mask makers are a separate hereditary craft, concentrated at Charida in Purulia.

Seraikella was court patronised and its refinement reflects that: the royal family danced, and the style was shown in Europe in the 1930s. Purulia is a village form, performed by farming communities, with no court behind it. Mayurbhanj was also princely and dropped the mask. Since royal patronage ended the three have survived unevenly and on very different footings, and the Purulia troupes in particular perform for small sums at festivals while the form carries a UNESCO listing. The mask makers of Charida are in similar difficulty, and both facts are raised whenever the form is discussed in Bengal.

Bengal

Purulia Chhau with the great painted masks, made at Charida, performed by village troupes at Chaitra Parva.

Odisha

Mayurbhanj Chhau, danced without a mask, with princely patronage behind it historically.

North India

Seraikella Chhau in Jharkhand, the most refined of the three, with the delicate neutral mask and a court origin.

Deities

• Durga
• Kali
• Siva
• Krishna

Festivals

• Chaitra Navratri begins · Vikram Samvat new year
• Navaratri begins
• Durga Puja begins · Maha Shashthi

Related arts

• Yakshagana
• Theyyam
• Odissi