Elelakkaradi dance of Kerala is performed by which of the following tribes?
- (a)Mavilan tribe
- (b)Kurumba tribe
- (c)Irular tribe
- (d)Adiyan tribe
Answer
Why
Correct — C. Elelakkaradi is a tribal dance of the Irular of Kerala.
It is a heroic group performance in which men, women and children of the community take part together, acting out the stages of a fight with the wild bears that raid their settlements, carried along by drumbeats and shouting.
That bear-fight subject and the whole-community form are what identify the dance as Irular, so the tribe asked for is option (c).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Mavilan tribe — The Mavilan are a separate Kerala tribal community, and nothing in the record of Elelakkaradi attaches the dance to them. The bear-fight performance is documented for the Irular.
- (b)Kurumba tribe — The Kurumba have a dance of their own, Kurumbar Nritham, associated with marriage occasions rather than with a hunt or a fight.
- (d)Adiyan tribe — The Adiya of Wayanad perform Gadhika, a ritual dance connected with curing illness and with safe childbirth. Different community, different purpose, different dance.
Concept
Kerala's tribal dances are asked as tribe-to-dance pairs, and each pair carries a subject that makes it memorable.
Elelakkaradi belongs to the Irular, and its subject is survival: the community re-enacts its encounters with wild bears, drums keeping the rhythm, with men, women and children all inside the performance.
Gadhika, by contrast, is the Adiya community's ritual dance in Wayanad, performed for healing and for safe childbirth. The subject, not the state, is what tells such pairs apart.
Both the dance and the tribe are unfamiliar names, so the item is pure recall. Storing the theme along with the name — bears for Elelakkaradi, healing for Gadhika — is what makes the pair stick.
Key facts
- Elelakkaradi is a tribal dance of the Irular community of Kerala.
- It depicts the tribe's fight with wild bears that attack their homes, performed with drumbeats by men, women and children together.
- Gadhika is a ritual dance of the Adiya tribe of Wayanad, performed for healing and safe childbirth.
- Kurumbar Nritham is a Kurumba dance associated with marriage occasions.
Study next
Common traps
- Matching the dance to the best-known Kerala tribe instead of the documented one
- Confusing Elelakkaradi with Gadhika, which is the Adiya ritual dance
Dance items give the form and ask for the community or the state. 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q4 asks which state Khuallam belongs to, with Mizoram keyed, and 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q14 asks for India's national academy of dance.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.