Santal Folk Dance Songs: Contextualizing Art & Culture

Santal Folk DanceSongscharts a hitherto unexplored epistemological terrainto study Santali Folk Dancesongs of Jharkhand as the primary subject matter and contextualize how ?the Santali culture? is getting manifested in its art form. In fact, the Folk DanceSongs offer a window to peep into the world of the Santals, their lives, customs, traditions religions and philosophy. It has been observed that these dancesongs have escaped the overpowering drive to ?civilize? them, be it in the precolonial, colonial times or thereafter and thus exist in their natural forms. This is, however, not to suggest that the Santali dancesongs have remained static in their pristine forms, it is a fact that gradual changes have crept into their forms, but not to the extent to alter their soul and spirit. All these factors make the Santali dancesongs worthy of documentation to understand the Santali cultural reality.