MANGALURU: Pili Vesha or Huli Vesha (tiger dance), a folk art form of coastal Karnataka performed during Navaratri festival in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, as an offering to Goddess Durga, is attracting many youngsters. During the festivities, a group of tiger dancers -- their bodies painted in white, yellow, saffron and black -- imitate the graceful tiger to the tune of traditional tase drumbeats as they perform on the streets, in front of temples and houses.
The tiger dance has evolved and consists of acrobatic moves, fire-breathing etc, in addition to the traditional tiger dance steps. The budding tiger dancers also get an opportunity to exhibit their talents through various tiger dance competitions being organised during Navaratri festivities.
Akanksh Kuthar, who is part of Utsava Arts and creates themes for a tiger tableau, said folk art reached the masses across the country after Congress leader Mithun Rai started ‘Pili Nalike’, a tiger dance contest, seven years ago, and a tiger dance by Kannada actor Rakshit Shetty, in his film ‘Ulidavaru Kandanthe’.
“This year, artistes from Jharkhand have been invited to perform stunts during the Pili Nalike contest on October 23 at Urwa Store ground in Mangaluru. The competitive touch given to the art has resulted in new tiger dance troupes coming up every year. Now, Mangaluru alone has more than 50 tiger dance troupes. Though the art has adopted new steps, troupes make sure that traditional steps or ‘paula’ or ‘pili’, and painting methods are retained,” said Krithik Shetty, a young tiger dancer from Bantwal who is part of ‘Shiva Friends Barke’ tiger dance troupe.
“Tiger is the vehicle of Goddess Durga and Pili Vesha is an offering to the goddess. In the olden days, tiger dance was held only on three days prior to Navaratri, now it is performed even during Ganesha Chaturthi and Ashtami. Earlier, each troupe had a maximum of seven tigers but now there are more than 50 dancers. We used turmeric powder, egg yolk, mehendi mix etc as paint, it has been replaced by oil paint and takes seven hours to paint one person,” said Madhava Shetty from Manjeshwar.