{"id":172295,"date":"2025-05-23T15:08:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T09:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=172295"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:08:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T09:38:57","slug":"deodhani-nritya-shaman-folk-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/deodhani-nritya-shaman-folk-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Deodhani Nritya &#8211; Shaman folk dance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Deodhani Nritya is the Shaman folk dance of Assam, India performed at Manasa Puja to pay homage to the goddess of snakes. It is a religious dance performed principally by women, although it may sometimes be done with men. The dancers are said to be &#8220;possessed&#8221; with spiritual powers of a god or goddess, essentially acting as a channel to communicate with the mortal and divine worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Points:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Historical Background &amp; Significance of Deodhani Dance<br><\/strong>The Deodhani dance connects the Assamese people to nature, spirituality &amp; community, where it&#8217;s celebrated in the community context. Deodhani dance comes at the root of Shaman folk dance, performed at the festival Manasa Puja. This dance is accordingly seen in traditional folklore, mythology &amp; Assamese culture.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Performance Style<br><\/strong>The Deodhani dance can be performed by one individual dancer or in groups, usually by three or four women. Whether there is a group of twelve or twenty dancers or a solo dancer, the dance remains centric to women only. The women dancers embody a trance-like state which merges with the spirituality and rhythmic enhancing sounds of the Kham drum and Ciphung flute.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Religious Context:<br><\/strong>Deodhani Nritya is a religious and spiritual dance form. The dancers are said to be possessed by the spiritual power of either a god or goddess, they serve as a channeller, a medium between the mortal community and the deity itself, communicating with the deity during the dance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Instruments<br><\/strong>The dance and performance in Deodhani practice uses various sounds, supported instrumentally by the Kham (drum) and Ciphung (flute) sounds to create an energetic trance-like environment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cultural Significance<br><\/strong>The Deodhani dance represents a dynamic snapshot of Assamese culture that captures their beliefs and mythological allegories, ultimately connecting to and demonstrating the spiritual realm from which their Cherished Assamese dance tradition comes from.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deodhani Nritya is the Shaman folk dance of Assam, India performed at Manasa Puja to pay homage to the goddess of snakes. It is a religious dance performed principally by women, although it may sometimes be done with men. The dancers are said to be &#8220;possessed&#8221; with spiritual powers of a god or goddess, essentially [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":172296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5369],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-awareness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172297,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172295\/revisions\/172297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}