03 Hornbill-2

Kisama - Hornbill Festival 2011 Day-2

2nd December 2011: Hornbill Day-2

Like yesterday, we reached the Festival site early by 9:30AM using a hired taxi. We were keen to see the various practice activities, in the Morung courtyards, before the main event started at the arena. Today was "North East Cultural Day" with Folk-dances from Northeast States followed by Traditional Games, A Fusion Drum Ensemble with participants from all the NE states and Fire-eating demo by Konyak Tribe.

A practice session at one of the Morungs

Hornbill is an amazing focused exposure of the not only Nagaland, but entire Northeast cultures in one location over 7 days. W hoever originally thought of and executed this idea (of showing-off entire Culture, Art, Paintings, Dances, Music, Dresses, Handicrafts, Food, Produce, Homes, Implements etc.) is to be congratulated.

Teams awaiting their turn to perform

A troupe of dancers from Tripura

For the lazy traveler it brings together all aspects of remote cultures together in a wonderful open-air location (in Kisema, suburb of Kohima). Its an easy 'capsule' package to see entire Northeast, in 4-5 days without the rough travelling to deep interiors. Many of the Dances shown here are actually seasonal in their respective regions and States. So not possible for outside visitors to see all, except in a event like this.

Sikkim Dancer

A folk-dance by a Mizoram troupe


Fire-eating demo by Naga Koyak Tribesmen

Dancers from Arunachal Pradesh

Dancers from Zeliang Naga tribe

Folk dancer from Manipur

Ornaments worn by a Arunachal Dancer

Precursor to the NE Drum Fusion

The climax 40 seconds of the NE Drum Ensemble conducted Naga maestro: Lipokmar Tzudir

Incidentally, each days performance is also videographed (by Nagaland Tourism) and professionally edited, labelled and sold as a Daily-VCD, on the very next day. We saw a big Van parked near the venue, with Hardware Equipment churning out multiple CD copies for sale at Rs 100/- a piece. Maybe they can be ordered online or available for streaming play on the Nagaland Tourism site?

The detailed travel stories, with pictures, are in following sub-pages 47-01 to 47-20:

All the pictures of this North-East Tour in 23+ Flickr Albums are available in this Collection: North East -Dec-2011