Kirtaniya theatre of Mithila developed out of the songs of which poet?
- A.Kabir
- B.Vidyapati
- C.Jayasi
- D.Surdas
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Vidyapati. Vidyapati, the Maithili poet of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who was honoured as the Maithil Kavi Kokil, wrote padas on Radha and Krishna that were sung in performance, and from this singing grew the Kirtaniya plays of Mithila, also staged as Bidapat Naach. The form keeps a narrator, sung dialogue and a small chorus.
Option A, Kabir, is the nirgun poet of Kashi; his verses are sung in Bihar as Nirgun songs at the time of death, but they produced no theatre. Option C, Malik Muhammad Jayasi, wrote the Awadhi Padmavat in Uttar Pradesh. Option D, Surdas, is the Braj poet of the Ashtachhap. Along with the name, remember the double name of the form: Kirtaniya and Bidapat Naach are the same Mithila tradition.
Read the full article: Folk Music, Dance and Theatre of Bihar: Forms and Regions
Practice Questions
View allBhikhari Thakur, called the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, is best known for creating which form of folk theatre?
- A.Kirtaniya
- B.Bidesia
- C.Nautanki
- D.Reshma-Chuharmal
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Bhikhari Thakur, born in 1887 at Kutubpur Diyara in Saran district, wrote the play Bidesia about a wife left behind when her husband migrates to Calcutta for work, and the name was then applied to the whole style of Bhojpuri naach he built, with its songs and its launda dancers.
Read the full explanation →The Jhijhiya dance, in which women balance a perforated earthen pot with a lamp in it, belongs to which region of Bihar?
- A.Mithila
- B.Magadh
- C.Shahabad
- D.Chhotanagpur
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Jhijhiya is danced by women of the Mithila region during Navratri, each carrying on her head an earthen pot pierced with many holes and holding a lighted lamp; the dance is offered to the Goddess and is traditionally believed to turn away witchcraft and evil spells.
Read the full explanation →Which folk dance of north Bihar is performed by a couple in the rainy season on the theme of quarrel, drought and migration?
- A.Domkach
- B.Jat-Jatin
- C.Jhumari
- D.Jharni
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Jat-Jatin is danced in the Mithila and Koshi tract of north Bihar, usually by a pair representing the husband Jat and the wife Jatin; the song moves through their quarrel, the failure of the rains and the husband leaving the village in search of work, which makes it the folk…
Read the full explanation →Ustad Bismillah Khan, who made the shehnai a solo concert instrument, was born at which place in Bihar?
- A.Dumraon in Buxar
- B.Bettiah in West Champaran
- C.Misrauliya in Saran
- D.Kutubpur in Saran
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Bismillah Khan was born at Dumraon in 1916, in the present Buxar district, into a family of shehnai players, and later settled at Varanasi.
Read the full explanation →Which gharana of Dhrupad singing belongs to Bihar?
- A.Gwalior
- B.Kirana
- C.Darbhanga
- D.Jaipur-Atrauli
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The Darbhanga gharana, carried by the Mallick family under the patronage of the Darbhanga Raj, is one of the surviving gharanas of Dhrupad, the oldest form of Hindustani classical singing; Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick and Pandit Siyaram Tiwari belong to it.
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