Jat-Jatin is the best-loved folk dance-drama of north Mithila — performed by couples in the moonlit nights between the full moons of Shravan and Bhadra, it dramatises the love, quarrels and separation of Jat and Jatin, a farmer and his wife, and is often danced to coax rain from a reluctant sky.
It belongs to a rich world of Maithil dance: the lamp-balancing Jhijhiya of Dussehra, the harvest Jhumar, and the devotional circles of festival nights. Together these dances carry the seasons, the gods and the joys and sorrows of village life in movement and song.