Bamboo or Cheraw Dance from Mizoram
The Bamboo dance is also locally known as the Cheraw Dance. The dance is performed with two crossed pairs of long bamboo staves. Male dancers move the bamboo to rhythmic beats while female dancers perform by stepping in and out of the bamboo blocks that are created by the crossed pairs.
Cheraw Dance is performed on the occasion of ‘Buhza Aih’, a harvest festival. It is usually performed in the moonlight, which enhances its beauty, increases the difficulty of the dance due to reduced vision and adds a sense of surrealism to it.
Costumes worn by the female performers are the ‘thihna, vakiria‘ and the ‘kawrchei.‘
Instruments used are the gong, drums, flutes, Dar, Dar Khuang, Beng Bung and a special drum made of a hollow tree wrapped in animal skin called Khuang.