Culture

  • Rai Traditional Songs

    Rai is a dance performed by the Bednis community, who are basically professional dancers. The members of this community are invited to different villages to perform the special dance. The Rai dance is performed during the harvest season. The people celebrate the successful harvest with this dance. It is usually accompanied by traditional songs and music produced by drums.

  • Matki Dance

    Matki Dance belongs to the people living in the Malwa Plateau of Madhya Pradesh. This dance is usually performed during weddings. Matki dance is performed by a woman with a veil over her face and a 'matki' (earthen pot) balanced on her head. This dancer is sometimes joined by other women in the performance. 'Aada' and 'khada nach' are the varieties of this dance.

  • Diwari Dance

    This dance in Bundelkhand is performed every year during the festival of light Diwali/Deepawali in the end of October or first week of November according to lunar calendar. In this connection the epic story goes that “in Gokul” when Lord Krishna raised Goverdhan Parvat on his finger to save the local people, they danced in joy. The dancers wear multi-coloured apparels and the chief dancer holds the peacock feathers in his hands and the rest stick those feathers in their half pants. The main instruments used in this dance are ‘Dholak’ and ‘Nagaria’ (both being a form of drums).