The Guinness World Record — 13,000 dancers at Bhogapuram
On Friday, 1 August 2026, the biggest Dhimsa ever danced took place at Bhogapuram, on the coast north of Visakhapatnam: around 13,000 dancers, certified by Guinness World Records as the largest Dhimsa dance performance.
Video: the record performance, from the Prime Minister's official YouTube channel. Loads in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode.
What happened
The occasion was the inauguration of the new Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To welcome him, the state government — with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu directing that Dhimsa be given the spotlight — assembled around 13,000 tribal schoolgirls, students of Classes VIII to X from residential schools run under the ITDA (Integrated Tribal Development Agency) areas of Paderu, Seethampeta, Parvathipuram and Rampachodavaram.
The dancers — from communities including the Valmiki, Bagata, Kondadora, Gadaba, Jatapu, Konda Savara and Porja — performed in coordinated pink saris with green borders, arranged in 433 circles across the grounds, to massed dappu, mori and tudumu players. Guinness World Records adjudicated the attempt and certified it on the spot.
"Captured my heart"
The Prime Minister said afterwards that the performance by over 13,000 students had "captured my heart" — a line that carried the word Dhimsa into national and international headlines, most of which were printing it for the first time.
Why it matters
- For the dance: a village tradition that rarely left its hills was, for a day, the centrepiece of a national event — and permanently entered the record books.
- For the dancers: the performers were schoolgirls who learn Dhimsa both at home and in ITDA schools — evidence the tradition's next generation is not just intact but organised.
- For the region: the record ties Dhimsa to the new airport gateway for north coastal Andhra — the same route that carries visitors toward the Araku Valley, where the dance actually lives.
Details in this account are drawn from contemporary reporting by Deccan Chronicle and The Indian Tribal, and the Prime Minister's public remarks, all of 1 August 2026.
Last updated: 2026-08-04