What is Dhimsa?

Dhimsa is a group dance: not a stage solo but a village activity, done in linked lines and circles, where the point is to move together.

The name is most often explained as an echo of the sound of the dancers' footsteps — a dozen pairs of feet striking the earth in rhythm. Dancers, traditionally women of the hill tribes, hold each other by the waist or shoulder to form a chain. The chain curls into a semicircle or full circle, and the whole line steps, bends and sways as one body, led by a dancer at the head of the chain who sets the pattern.

How it is danced

• Formation: a linked chain — commonly fifteen to twenty dancers in a village setting, though there is no fixed number (the 2026 record performance ran to thousands).
• Steps: repeating step-and-stamp patterns that speed up with the drumming; many movements imitate daily work — picking leaves, sowing and reaping, drawing water, or shielding the village from a wild animal.
• Leading: the dancer at the head of the line calls the changes; in some varieties a song leader sings a line and the chain answers — a call-and-response between voice and feet.
• Accompaniment: drummers and a mori (horn) player stand inside or beside the circle — the dance follows the drum, not the other way round. More on the instruments.

When it is danced

Dhimsa belongs to celebration: the festival months of March and April (the Chaitra season, including the hunting festival), weddings and engagements, harvest celebrations, fairs, and increasingly any public occasion where the hill communities present their culture. It is a dance of both young and old — children learn it by joining the end of the chain and simply keeping hold.

Because it needs no stage, no fixed troupe and no equipment beyond drums, Dhimsa has stayed a living, ordinary part of village life rather than becoming a museum piece — which is exactly why Andhra Pradesh chose it when it wanted 13,000 schoolgirls to dance together.

Last updated: 2026-08-04