Haryana Ghoomar

Ghoomar is a folk dance in Haryana and there are traces of this seen in Rajasthan as well. Ghoomar is performed by women in the villages and they sing and dance as part of their performance. There is a lot of musical accompaniments as well to their dance. This is a very colorful dance and it adds so much of joy and jubilation to both the dancers and the audience.

History

Considered to be one of the old dances in Haryana, this is an all-woman dance. This dance brings out the artistic qualities of women, apart from the other domestic capabilities. In fact the women there are not as literate as the women in the city, and in spite of that, they are able to play the music instruments, dance and delight the onlookers. This is just one way of the women telling the men of their competencies.

Description

Ghoomar is a very traditional folk dance that takes the subject for its performances from the current events. This shows how very well informed the women of the tribals are. This is a commendable quality as being well informed requires a very high level of intelligence that cannot be easily seen in tribal women. So, the Ghoomar dance proves that the women of Haryana are very well versed in current affairs even though they are not very well educated.

The Ghoomar dance is performed by a group of women. The total number of women whoparticipate is even in number, as though the women start as a group, as the dance performs they generally get into the formation of pairs and dance holding hands and going around at great speed with their pairs. They literally spin around when they perform this Ghoomar dance, so the women are always in pairs or even numbers in the Ghoomar dance.

The woman wear colorful dresses with traditional head cover and long skirts. The colorful skirts whirling away as the women dance is a beauty to behold. As a tradition, their dresses have a lot of embroidery work and sometimes even mirror work and this colorful style adds more beauty to the dance. The glass embroidered on the dresses look magical and the dancers look dazzling in their traditional best. Apart from Haryana, there are some traces of this dance that is seen in Haryana as well.

The women have some pots made of clay or mud and these are mostly covered with rubber strips. They hold it in both hands and dance or sometimes dance with these pots on their heads. Sometimes this pot is used a musical instrument, and the dancers themselves play it. The dancer playing the music instruments requires great talent and there are some dance forms in India where we can see this style.

Sometimes the women are seen to be clapping hands when they dance around in circles. They go in circles before the formation in pairs and they clap their hands. The clapping hands, the music and their dance steps are all in the same frequency. The dance starts slowly, but as time passes, the speed increases, and finally reaches the highest speak and at this same time the clapping and the music of the instruments also becomes louder and louder.

Other than the mud jugs and the clapping there are some more music instruments that the dancers use to add more life to the dancing and this is very important, as without the music the dance lacks the life. Dholak as expected is the main instrument as it is important for almost all dance forms – classical as well as folk in India and this is complimented by other instruments as well. Some of these instruments include cymbals, tambourine, flute etc. All these instruments blend very exquisitely together and create a very pleasing music and all these together set the stage for a stunning dance performance by the Ghoomar dancers. All in all it becomes a pleasant sight to behold.