Pashto Attan - A Traditional Pashto Dance

Pashto Attan, as the title suggests, is a traditional pashto dance that is performed in Afghanistan (pashtun populated areas) and in the khyber pukhtunkhwa province in Pakistan by the people of ethnic group called Pashtuns.

The dance is performed on special occasions like on the eve of Eid as a sign of expressing joy, in the battlefield after claiming the victory (happened in older times), on marriage ceremonies, sports events etc. Pashto attan is basically performed in a circular shape with performers ranging from 2 to more than 100 in numbers depending upon the vastness of the ground. Drums and pipers are used to play the music in a rthym; and the foot steps, arms movement and neck movement of dancers follow it creating a nice combination of music and dance.The music doesn't stop until there is no dancer inside the ground. Lets take a look at one of the clip that shows this beautiful pashto dance.

There is a funny saying about pashtun people which says that:

"You won't have a need to use any weapon to kill a pashtun if you can arrange to tie him up with ropes and play attan music in front of him."

Yeah! That is quite true. Pashtun people can't resist from dancing once they hear this music. Even if someone doesn't know how to perform attan, he would simply shake his head or his whole body just to let out what he's feeling inside.

If we ever wanted to categorize attan in broad categories, there would be only two i.e. male and female attan.

1. Male Attan

Male attan is totally different from female attan. Male attan is sort of hard, lasts long and is put more energy into it. Men do complete circles while following the big circle of dancers.

2. Female Attan

Like i've already said, male and female attan are totally different. Female attan is relatively soft, they do it in a half circular motion while following the big circle of dancers.

Moreover, we find different types of pashto attan out of which most famous are 'Marwat attan', 'Wazir attan', 'Katawaz attan', 'Suleman Khel attan', 'Khattak attan', 'Maseed attan', 'Paktia attan'. The names given to these attan are based on the different pashtun tribe names and some on the area names.

In the end, I would just say that no matter what the circumstances have been or what the circumstances are, pashtuns have always sticked to their culture and performed pashto attan without any interruption. They do it wherever they go and show people their rich culture. This is no doubt one of the best folk dances one can ever see.