Artistes perform a folk dance. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 16: If jhijhi, jhumar, jogira or natua nach sound Greek to you, it is not your fault. These are traditional folk dance forms completely missing from the stages of the state capital over the past few years.

Most of the residents of the state capital have not even heard of the different classical dance forms.

Artistes of the state are worried and fear that certain folk art forms could become extinct if the present trend continued. Of late, there have been very few performances of jhijhi, jhumar and jogira in the city. Other dance forms, including jat jatin, dhobia nach and natua have been missing from the stage entirely for the past few years.

The state capital has very few folk dancers and the ones who have been there for many years said that no new talent was coming up from the villages.

“Panwaria badhaiya, dhobia nach and natua nach are on the verge of extinction,” a dancer said.

Soma Chakraborty, a folk dance teacher at Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir, told The Telegraph: “Members of our cultural organisation, Prangan, perform jhijhia, jhumar and jogira once in a while. But we have never performed folk dances like dhobia nach, natua nach and kamla puja. And I hardly have come across any stage performance based on these folk dance forms in the state capital.”

She said: “These art forms still exist in villages. But neither are their practitioners invited to the capital, nor do the performers here know about them. As a result, these art forms are on the verge of extinction”.