The traditional costume of the garba dancer is red, pink, yellow, orange, and brightly colored chanya choli or ghagra choli odhini with bandhani, abhla or with thick Gujarati borders. Garba styles vary from place to place in Gujarat. Sanedo is an example of a very popular song. Garba songs typically revolve around the subjects of Lord Krishna or the nine goddesses. Garba is a Gujarati folk dance celebrated in Navratri, a celebration lasting nine nights. They says "Ae Hallo" for fun, which means "Come on! Let’s start!" Garba is also very popular in the United Kingdom where there are a number of Gujarati communities who hold their own garba nights and widely popular among the Gujarati community even in Canada, where the largest navratri festival in the western world is held annually in Toronto.
Garba and Dandiya Raas are also popular in the United States where more than 20 universities have Raas/Garba competitions on a huge scale every year with professional choreography. There is a huge interest in garba among the youth of India and in particular, the Gujarati diaspora.
Boys and men wear kafni pyjamas with a Ghagra - a short round kurta - above the knees and pagadi on the head with bandhini dupatta, kada, and mojiris.
Traditionally, women adorn themselves with jhumkas (large earrings), necklaces, bindi, bajubandh, chudas and kangans, kamarbandh, payal, and mojiris. Chaniya Cholis are decorated with beads, shells, mirrors, stars, and embroidery work, mati, etc. The girls and the women wear Chaniya choli, a three-piece dress with a choli, which is an embroidered and colorful blouse, teamed with chaniya, which is the flared, skirt-like bottom, and dupatta, which is usually worn in the traditional Gujarati manner. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today.īoth men and women usually wear colorful costumes while performing garba and dandiya. Modern garba is also heavily influenced by Dandiya Raas, a dance traditionally performed by men. Garba is danced around this symbol to honor the fact that all humans have the Divine energy of Devi within them. The vessel itself is a symbol of the body, within whom Divinity resides. The Garbha Deep has another symbolic interpretation. The dance symbolizes that God, represented in feminine form in this case, is the only thing that remains unchanging in a constantly changing universe. As the cycle of time revolves, from birth, to life, to death and again to rebirth, the only thing that is constant is the Goddess, that one unmoving symbol in the midst of all of this unending and infinite movement. The rings of dancers revolve in cycles, as time in Hinduism is cyclical. Garba is performed in a circle as a symbol of the Hindu view of time. The dancers thus honor Durga, the feminine form of divinity. This lantern represents life and the fetus in the womb in particular. Traditionally, the dance is performed around a clay lantern with a light inside, called a Garbha Deep ("womb lamp"). The word garba comes from the Sanskrit word for womb and so implies gestation or pregnancy - life. Either the lamp or an image of the Goddess, Durga (also called Amba) is placed in the middle of concentric rings as an object of veneration. Traditionally, it is performed during the nine-day Hindu festival Navaratri. The circular and spiral figures of garba have similarities to other spiritual dances, such as those of Sufi culture (garba being an earlier tradition). Many traditional garbas are performed around a centrally lit lamp or a picture or statue of the Goddess Shakti. The name is derived from the Sanskrit term Garbh ("womb") and Deep ("a small earthenware lamp"). Garba is a form of dance which was originated in the state of Gujarat in India.