Hi everyone!

I hope you are doing well, feeling peaceful and finding silver linings.

I know I know I missed sending the February newsletter. I just kept putting it off and then suddenly the month was over! But I'll hopefully make up for it with this one. It's a bit of a history and culture edition! I'll be sharing some of my thoughts on an amazing discussion on the last remaining temple dancers of the Jagganath Temple in Puri, Odisha. And a bit of news on a new role I've taken on!

Re-Cognising Dance: Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri, with Prof. Frederique-Apffel Marglin

This was an absolutely incredible discussion organised by Re-Cognising Dance, a platform developed over the last year that aims to create a safe space for learning, discussion and dialogue on dance (specifically South Asian/Indian classical dance). This particular discussion was about the rituals of the devadasis of Puri.

I'm not a scholar on the subject I'm about to try and explain in a nutshell, so apologies for any mistakes I might make when trying to communicate! It's a pretty big subject with regional variations.

If you're not familiar with the term, devadasis were a historic tradition in some temples in India. They were women and girls that were adopted by specific temples, and through ritual ceremonies would be 'married' to the deity of that temple. They were an intrinsic part of the temple worship rituals, singing and dancing as part of them. In the Jagganath temple in Odisha, the devadasis (or Maharis as they were also called) formed a core part of the daily rituals since at least the 12th Century, continuously till the 1960s/70s.

The discussion was with Prof. Frederique-Apffel Marglin, who carried out field research in the early 1970s on the last remaining maharis. This was so exciting!!! I'd read her book 'Wives of the God-King' years ago early in my odissi journey - it didn't occur to me she might still be around to talk about it! 🤦🏽‍♀️ Anyway the ensuing discussion really had me hanging on every word.

If you want to watch the whole talk you can find it here:

The full documentary they share an excerpt of is on their YouTube channel as well.

Some of the points of the discussion that I found particularly interesting/got me thinking were:

The decline of the tradition was actually nothing directly to do with the British (according to Prof Frederique), though perhaps could be linked to a colonial gaze that was taken on by the state government of Odisha, who discouraged it. And that the Jagganath temple did not actually fall under the 1947 Devadasi Act, which outlawed the dedication of girls to temple service.
The big concept that I think was kind of the pillar theme was that auspiciousness is different from purity. It was so interesting to understand that in a bit more detail, since western theory conflates the two. "Things that generate life and kingdom come from auspiciousness. Yet these are often also impure."
Also this idea around purity maintaining order was really interesting and not one I had considered before.
Also at the end, the discussion around how dance gives access to 'bhoga shakti'/connection to bhogam and not mokshya (liberation in the yogic sense) was super interesting. I had just come across the term bhoga for the first time in a yoga book I was reading in the week before the talk, and it talked about it in quite a negative sense (bhoga asana - focusing on the sensory pleasure of doing asana, which is not what traditional yoga wants you to do!). But in this context bhogam was about embodiment (through the senses - from what I understand). Which makes so much sense because that is what we are trying to achieve actually in odissi dance! And then it was said that in the tantric tradition, moksha and bhogam are one. And again to me this makes so much sense. We work so hard in our dance at embodiment, and I never could quite make that smooth link between how this intense work on embodiment leads to mokshya, which always seems to be about withdrawing from the body.

Gosh it was just all SO GOOD, I mean there was so much more to it than I captured in these few bullet points here. I would highly recommend listening to the discussion if it is something you are interested in. I can't explain why really, but this subject just gets my entire being fully engaged. I experience this sensation of being so alert and trying to become like a sponge to soak in the history and tradition as much as I can. I feel so desperate to know everything about it. I can't explain why really.

The reality though is that this form of devotional servitude no longer has a place in our modern world. We can't go back to this time and I am not sure if I would want us to - the world's value system has changed too much and we have become more and more aware of the risks and realities of exploitation. But it is heartbreaking nonetheless that this living link is all but lost now. I'm so grateful to Prof Frederique for carrying out this research and capturing some remnants of it at least.

If you are interested in reading the book, you can read the online PDF here: http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in/210/2/Wives_of_The_God-King.pdf
It is unfortunately out of print!

I'd love to hear from you if you've read the book or listened to the talk! What were your big take-aways? What hit deeply for you?

New Dance Role!
I'm super happy to share that this week I started as Outreach Project Co-ordinator for the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) Yuva Gati programme! This is with the DanceXchange CAT in Birmingham.

Centres for Advanced Training (CATs) in dance are funded by the Department of Education, and are found across the UK. They help to identify and assist young people with exceptional potential, who can then benefit from world-class specialist training as part of a broader dance education.

The DanceXchange CAT in Birmingham runs the national South Asian Dance programme - Yuva Gati. I've been brought in to deliver the outreach programme to make sure we maximise engagement and reach for the September 2021 intake.

If you feel like reading more about it have a look here: https://www.dancexchange.org.uk/programmes/yuva-gati/

Exciting right?! What an amazing opportunity to support the development of the next generation of South Asian dancers in the UK.

Till next time...

That's everything for this month! I'll try not to leave April's newsletter to the final hour 😅

Hope you are feeling the bloom of spring in your bones!

Warm wishes,
Maryam