Festival of Folk Arts, Panaji, Goa

From March 21 to 27, the Kala Academy of Goa, Daman and Diu celebrated a six-day festival of folk arts in Panaji . A variety of traditional items were presented on a competitive basis in the three categories of dance, music and drama. More than twenty troupes from the remote corners of the territory were encouraged to make a trip to the capital city and perform before an urban audience. This confrontation proved to be challenging for the rural troupes and enlightening for the patrons of the festival.

The most impressive category was that of music. A number of troupes performed the orchestral suvari, composed mainly of percussion instruments. Of the latter the ghumat, made of an earthen pot, and the same! resemble r espectively the South Indian percussion instruments, ghatam and c henda. A sense of rhythm is ingrained in the percussionists of Goa, be they of the folk type or tabla or pakhawaz players, and we found instrumentalists, 48 both young and old, showing phenomenal stamina in the high-tempo phases.

There are a number of community dance forms which flourish in Goa. The male dancers as well as the female ones make liberal use of saffron coloured aboli flowers. Decorative headgear for the former is usually made of coloured tin-foil. The favourite pattern of the group dance comprises a circular motion, and this tended to be intolerably repetitive through the performances of successive troupes.

However, there were dance forms which demanded much skill on the part of individual performers. For example, there were· dancers flourishing peacock feathers and going round the stage with their feet strapped to sticks, much like Chhau dancers.

A form of tipri dance, in which pairs of dancers armed w ith little wooden sticks d;;:mce in a circle beating out the rhythm, is typical of Goan folk choreography. This can be played with a bundle of ropes hanging from above and woven in and out by the circular movement of the dancers. When the tempo increased, the bamboo structure of the roof of the stage which held the bundle of rope was strained to dangerous proportions, but fortunately the makeshift, matted roof of the Campa! theatre on Panaji's sea-front never came down!

It is a truism to say that these folk forms are deeply rooted in the life of the Goan hinterland. But one galling indication of the orthodox

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49 Dashavatari Kala

tradition still ruling the social set-up vvas found in the fact that the vvidovvs in the female troupes never decked their hair vvith flovvers . Also, much of the folk art is kept alive by socially inferior classes . Yet another acknovvledged fact is that instrumental as vvell as some of the other forms of folk art have been nourished by the traditions of the many temple tovvnships vvhich dot Goa's hinterland. Necessarily, there is an overlapping of the dance, music and theatre in several of the performances. The festival had comparatively little to offer in this last category. The Dashavatara item, seen on the last evening, had the usual ingredients : bellovving demons, Lord Ganesha in an elephant head mask and a chorus-like Haridasa. There vvas liberal use of masks and similar disguises in these items but the acting vvas of the crudest type. Indeed, crudity of one sort or another vvas vvrit large on many items but it could not be separated from the inherent vitality of their folk theatre. Some of the female impersonations revealed a talent for satire.

A little editing, a mea sured brushing up vvould not harm the essential core of these folk forms.

- DNYANESHWAR NADKARNI