Kangulu is a ritualistic dance form of Tulunad which is performed by MuNDaala & GuDDa MugEr community in the month of Maayi.
A person with sheet of areca tree(Kangú), along with Siri’s holding coconut leaves (Oli), removes the diseases and negetive energies from the village. So the words Kangú and Oli added together resulting in the new word Kangulu
This dance is performed in blessings of Goddess Durga Mata only on Pournami (Fullmoon) at day. In this dance form, areca tree leaves is used as a major costume and do colour their faces. A person wears black dress, a hat of areca sheet is the main character of the dance.
Kangulu Nalike starts by offering Pooja (worship) to Goddess Durga Mata. After completion of the Pooja dancers get ready to dance. Each team consists of upto 12 member they travel house to house to perform dance. This dance is performed with folk songs, Dhol is also played. Dancers dance in the circle and the black dressed person dances at the middle of circle. People of village respect this dance form with devotional feel also they believe that it keeps all the negetive energies and diseases away from the village and generate positive vibes.
After the performance dance gets over, the dancers are offered with traditional food items like grains and coconut.
Here is a video clip of Kangulu dance.
There are different ways to perform this dance. But nowadays the performance of Kangulu dance is very rare in the current generation. Kangulu dance will regain its popularity if it is encouraged by the present and future generations.
Reference and Media
- Kangulu Dance – Image credit: @shettyshashi91
- Kangulu Dance – video credit: @shettyshashi91
- Namma Kudla Digital