11,000 Bihu dancers and drummers were assembled at Sarusajai Stadium in Guwahati (the largest northeastern city of Assam) to engrave the name of Assam in the Guinness Book of World Records on 13th April 2023, i.e on the beginning of the Assamese spring festival (Rangoli Bihu) also called as new year for Assam people, in order to showcase their traditional folk dance to the whole world, which is popular in almost all the districts of the state Assam.
Bihu is a traditional dance followed by most of the Assamese people across the state and particularly performed during Rangoli Bihu or Bohag Bihu which is nothing but the spring festival most commonly known as Assamese New year eve.
The Bihu dance was held on 13th April 2023 from 5.30pm to 6.30pm in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it was certified on 14th of April by Rishi Nath, Official adjudicator of Guinness Book of Records. Few moments before the dance performance, Official Adjudicator Rishi Nath, informed that the largest Bihu dancers who gathered last year were 500 members.
The performers at the stadium were prepared for two world records in two categories- firstly, for the largest Bihu folk dance performance and secondly, for the largest folk musicians and drummers (Dhuliya) in which some of the traditional instruments like ‘gogona’, ‘toka’,‘dhol’ and ‘pepa’ were also included in their performance.
The dance was performed for 15 minutes on 13th April, most of the dancers were girls with 3,000 musicians and other drummers who were selected from various districts of Assam state and were also trained from the past few weeks to perform at the Sarusajai Stadium.
Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam said that this particular event would bring out the cultural heritage of Assam to the limelight on the world map. She said that the entry is free inside the venue on 13th April and restricted to only the invitees on 14th April to carry out with the protocols for the Guinness Book of World Records. She further gave a statement that the Assam government has decided to give an amount of Rs. 25,000 to every person who will be performing at the venue to carve a very important name for the state.
The performers were selected from various districts in Assam- most of the performers were from Dibrugarh and only few performers were from South Salmara.
The official Adjudicator said that he was totally stunned by the beautiful performance by Bihu dancers and the musicians at the venue. The Assam government would receive the authorized certificates of the Guinness World Records for the similar event, which will be held in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15th April 2023 at the same venue in Guwahati.
