Bagurumba

The Bagurumba is a traditional dance of the indigenous Boro people living in the State of Assam and North East India. It is also called butterfly dance because it's personification of movements of butterflies and birds. In this occasion, only the Boro women perform the dance, wearing their colourful traditional attire dokhna, jwmgra (fasra) and aronai. The dance is accompanied by handmade percussion instruments such as 'kham' (a long cylindrical drum, made of wood and goat skin or other animal’s skin), sifung (flute, carved out of bamboo), jota (made of iron/tama), serja (a bowed instrument, made of wood and animals skin), and gongwna (made of bamboo), tharkha (a piece of split bamboo).

The Boro music may lack the sophistication of established schools and forms of music, however, the khams (a long cylindrical drum) provide the beats and the rhythm for the Bagurumba dance ensemble, while sifung (flute) and Serja provide melody, together used to 'invite' young people to the festivities or celebration. The Bagurumba dance resembles the gentle and poetic movements of the butterflies, is believed to be influenced/transpired by elements of the nature. The practice of this dance by the Boro people is over thousand years old. Usually, the Boro people live in peace and harmony with the green vegetation and the environment, and worship beauty of the nature. Boro people live and farm along the foothills of the eastern and southern Himalayas, which are evergreen forest. This traditional dance incorporates several symbolic elements, transpired by the natural surrounding environment. For example, dance of plants, dance of animals, birds, butterfly dance, wave of flowing river, wind etc.