Thang-Ta,indigenous Martial Art form of Manipur

WildFilmsIndia 2014-08-12

Views 2

Three young players demonstrating the famous martial arts Thang ta at Sangai festival.

Thang-ta is a weapon-based Indian martial art created by the Meitei of Manipur. In the Manipuri language, thang means sword and ta means spear, referring to the art's primary weapons. The spear can be used in its non-missile form while in close or thrown from afar. Other weapons include the shield and the axe. Because of Manipur's cultural similarity, geographic proximity and ethnic ties with Myanmar, thang-ta is closely related to banshay.

Thang-ta can be practiced in three different ways: ritual, demonstration and combat. The first way is related to the tantric practices and is entirely ritualistic in nature. The second way consists of a spectacular performance involving sword and spear dances. These routines can be converted into actual fighting practices. The third way is the true combat application. Thang-ta is closely related to certain war-dances, often blurring the line between dance and combat forms, such as thangkairol (sword dance) and khosarol (spear dance). Many ritualistic dances in Manipur were traditionally performed by martial artists such as the spear dance for funerals or the sacred thengou dance.

The Sangai festival is an annual cultural festival organized by Manipur Tourism Department, and is generally held from November 21 to 30 each year. Even though many editions of this Festival have been celebrated over the past few years under the name of Tourism Festival, since 2010 is has been renamed as the Sangai Festival in honour of the shy and gentle Brow-antlered Deer popularly known as the Sangai Deer - the state animal of Manipur.

As this festival is being celebrated to promote Manipur as a world class tourism destination, it showcase the best of what the state has to offer to the world in terms of art and culture, handloom, handicrafts and fine arts, indigenous sports, cuisines, music, eco and adventure sports as well as the scenic natural beauty of the land of Manipur.

Source :- Wikipedia

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at rupindang @ gmail . com and [email protected].

Share This Video


Download

  
Report form