Wiktionary
n. A call-and-response chant performed in India's devotional traditions.
Wikipedia
Kirtana ( IAST: kīrtana) or Kirtan is a Sanskrit word that means "narrating, reciting, telling, describing" of an idea or story. It also refers to a genre of religious performance arts, connoting a musical form of narration or shared recitation, particularly of spiritual or religious ideas.
With roots in the Vedic anukirtana tradition, a Kirtana is a call-and-response style song or chant, set to music, wherein multiple singers recite or describe a legend, or express loving devotion to a deity, or discuss spiritual ideas. It may include dancing or direct expression of bhavas (emotive states) by the singer. Many Kirtana performances are structured to engage the audience where they either repeat the chant, or reply to the call of the singer.
A person performing kirtana is known as a kirtankara (or kirtankar). A Kirtan performance includes an accompaniment of regionally popular musical instruments, such as the harmonium, the veena or ektara (forms of string instruments), the tabla (one-sided drums), the mrdanga or pakhawaj (two-sided drum), flute (forms of woodwind instruments), and karatalas or talas (cymbals). It is a major practice in Vaisnava devotionalism, Sikhism, the Sant traditions and some forms of Buddhism, as well as other religious groups. Kirtana is sometimes accompanied by story-telling and acting. Texts typically cover religious, mythological or social subjects.
Usage examples of "kirtan".
The Bengali Kirtan in fact resembles very much the Bhajans and Kathas common in the Mara.
Bring out the cymbal and drum, set out full pots painted with aloes and sandal-paste: plant plantains, hang on them garlands of flowers, for the Kirtan place joyfully.
Walking through one of the long dark corridors built beneath the Imperial Palace would normally have depressed Kirtan Loor, especially as he was on his way to a meeting with General Evir Derricote.
Kirtan Loor dropped to one knee before the holographic image of Ysanne Isard but did not bow his head.
The Bengali Kirtan in fact resembles very much the Bhajans and Kathas common in the Mara.
It should be explained that the kirtans are celebrated with considerable ceremony.
Kirtan plotted that line through his data model and then asked the computer to sort the candidate worlds ac.
Tycho had explained he'd been speaking to a Duros trader, Lai Nootka, not Kirtan Loor.
Only because he couldn't fly the shuttle did Kirtan refrain from throttling the pilot.