Dress and ornaments

Dhimsa needs no costume department — dancers wear their best version of what they wear anyway, which is part of why the dance photographs so vividly.

A dancer in a pink sari with green border, layered silver jewellery, marigold flowers and a peacock feather in her hair, standing barefoot by a mud-plastered village house — Festive attire: sari, silver, flowers and a peacock feather — danced barefoot. (AI-generated image)

The traditional look

Saris in strong colours, tied to leave the legs free for the stepping patterns, with matching or contrasting blouses.
Ornaments — the hill communities' silver and white-metal jewellery: necklaces, heavy bangles, ear and nose rings; anklets that add their own percussion to the footwork.
Flowers and leaves worn in the hair, and in some varieties props from the dance's story — most famously the peacock feathers the men carry in the Gunderi (Usku) variety.
Bare feet — the dance is danced on earth, and the name itself is the sound the feet make.

Dressing 13,000 dancers

For the Guinness record performance at Bhogapuram (August 2026), the organisers put the entire 13,000-strong cast in coordinated pink traditional saris with green borders and green blouses — one palette repeated across 433 circles of dancers, which is what made the aerial images of the event so striking. It was a staged, unified version of what village Dhimsa does naturally: many individuals dressed for the same celebration, moving as one.

Last updated: 2026-08-04