Jan 22 2024 to Jan 22 2024 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

72 minutes | English, Kannada, Marathi with English subtitles

This film explores the sacred music, dance and rituals of devidasis and devidasas, women and men dedicated to the goddess renuka/Yellamma. It ventures over boundaries of geography, society, and gender in the sacred music of specialist musicians – women, men, and transgenders – whose lives are dedicated to a fertility goddess of the deccan plateau in Southern India. Worshipped especially by Dalits in the border regions of Southern Maharashtra, Northern Karnataka, and adjacent areas, this beneficent and healing goddess is best known through media representations of the tradition, which tend to focus on controversial practices, and to exclude the unique musical forms essential to the worship of the goddess. “Fictive documentary” techniques used include the autobiographical voice of the goddess, who reflects on elements of her own varied histories and some of the practices of her followers, and the voice of her son, Parasuram. Virtuosic performances by women and men practitioners (jogtas and jogappas, including transgenders) are featured in ensembles with the chaundke, a one-stringed variable-tension ‘plucked drum’ believed to have first been fashioned by Parasuram from a demon’s skull. These musical ritualists are necessary for calendrical festivals such as rites during rande purnima (“widows’ full moon when the goddess and her devidasis are temporarily widowed, processions in the “baby-dropping ritual”, and for Oracle rituals and mendicancy rounds. Police threats to confiscate musical instruments, and protest songs sung within the tradition against the dedication of children, attest to contemporary conflicts surrounding the goddess and her music, the endangerment of her chaundke, and the human rights issues at stake. A conversation with the filmmaker will follow the screening.