Dance and Music Culture of West Bengal

-Purvi Gupta

West Bengal is also known for its culturally rich dance forms and music. And some of the dance forms include, birta dance, gambhira dance, tusu dance, santhal dance, lathi dance. Birta dance is performed when women wishes for child and dance is performed to seek blessings of god. And when their wishes of having a child gets fulfilled, they again go to the temples for thanking god for the blessings. And not only do they perform this dance for child but also when they are or any of their family is going through any disease, this dance is performed. Gambhira dance has a special place in Bengali culture. This dance is performed during chadak festival, and is famous especially in north bengal, malda district. In this dance there are 2 main dancers, who perform a specific role and mostly the theme of the dance is social, political, or moral problems of society. Tusu is the traditional tribal folk dance, which is performed birbhum district of west bengal. Tusu dance is basically related to tusu festival which is performed in that district, on the day of makar sankranti. A clay or cow-dung made idol of goddess tusu is worshiped during this day by the girls to get groom. Santhal is again a traditional tribal folk dance of west bengal, performed by both men and women. And santhal dance is the dance of santhali tribe. This dance is performed during spring festival. Lathi dance is among the most notable form of folk dance related to celebration, love, anger, pain. The rich Bengali culture is not only reflected by its traditional dance forms but also by its traditional music. The classical Bengal's music has its deep roots in gitagovindam, ranbindrasangeet etc. Baul music is a basically a group of mystic minstrels, who live in Bangladesh and west bengal. This music is considered as the medium of interaction and is similar to Sufi

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