Karma Naach

Karma dance or Karma Naach is a traditional dance of central and Eastern India annually performed during the karma festival. Karma is a famous autumnal festival, it starts from the 11th day of the bright fortnight of the month of Bhadrab. It is performed in State of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal. Karma means 'fate'. This folk dance is performed during the worship of the god of fate which is known as Karam Devta. People consider the god of fate as the cause of good and bad fortune. Many tribes in Eastern India, particularly on the Chota Nagpur plateau, perform it at the tribal festival of 'Karma.' Dancers form a circle and dance around each other's waists with arms around each other's waists. The tribal people dance in a circle around a tree that is revered as Karma, holding each other's waists and dancing to the beat of the music to welcome the spring. The Karma tree is thought to be auspicious and provides good luck, according to common belief. Karma is a folk dance performed mostly during the Karma festival. During the Karma festival, which takes place in August, both men and women actively participate in Karma dance. This dancing technique is often practiced to recognize and celebrate the planting of new trees.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Karma Naach”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Karma Naach is traditional dance of India, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶