The Chhau dance is mainly performed during festivals in the region of
Jharkhand,
West Bengal and
Odisha, especially the spring festival of
Chaitra Parva and in which the whole community participates. The Chhau dance found in northern Odisha does not use masks during the dance, but they do when the artists first appear on the stage for introduction to the audience. The two styles of Chhau dance that use masks, blend within it forms of both dance and martial practices employing mock combat techniques (called
khel), stylised gaits of birds and animals (called
chalis and
topkas) and movements based on the chores of village housewives (called
uflis). The precursors of Chhau dance (especially Purulia style) were not only
Paika and Natua, but
Nachni dance also played an important role in giving Chhau its present identity. Chhau dance borrows the female gaits and movements from the
Nachni dance almost exclusively (Bhattacharya, 1983, Chakravarti, 2001, Kishore, 1985). The female dance elements in Chhau introduced the aspects of
Lasya Bhava from the Natya Shastra that brought elegance, sensuality, and beauty in the dance form, whereas, the virile male dance movement is attributed to the Shiva's
tandava style of dance (Bose 1991). There are different interpretations to
tandava and
lasya. I have above-mentioned the most commonly accepted definition of
tandava and
lasya above. Bose foregrounds the debate between the relation of
lasya and
tandava critically in his analysis of dance in Sanskrit texts. See Bose, Mandakranta. == Three styles of Chhau ==