Folk Drama and Theatrical Conventions: Kalahandi's Danda
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IAR Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies ISSN Print : 2709-3328 | ISSN Online : 2709-3336 Frequency : Bi-Monthly Language : English Origin : Kenya Website : https://www.iarconsortium.org/journal-info/iarjhcs Research Article Folk Drama and Theatrical Conventions: Kalahandi’s Danda Jatra in/as the Context Article History Abstract: It is a commonplace notion that the folk dramas, originating in village rituals, processions and pageants, are entirely shapeless, that they do not follow Received: 09.07.2021 any dramatic conventions, that they are without any design or sequence or Revision: 18.07.2021 structural pattern and that they have no presentational principle. However, a close Accepted: 31.07.2021 study of this primitive form of drama will show that these open-air/theatreless Published: 20.08.2021 ritual performances have a structure and follow certain mimetic conventions that make them drama proper. In this article, I have done a close study of the rituals of Author Details Danda Jatra, a religious procession of lord Shiva celebrated in the Kalahandi Jharana Rani Dhangadamajhi district of Odisha, and have explicated the various theatrical conventions integral Authors Affiliations to the rituals of this procession, thereby establishing that Danda Jatra is a drama proper. Assistant Professor, School of English, Gangadhar Meher University, Amruta Vihar, Keywords: Folk drama; Folk theatre; Ritual drama; Danda Jatra; Danda Naata. Sambalpur , Odisha India Corresponding Author* NTRODUCTION JHARANA RANI DHANGADAMAJHI I How to Cite the Article: According to Steve Tillis, “given the nearly universal impulse toward Dhangadamajhi, Jharana. (2021); Folk Drama drama, it might well be that folk drama can teach us something not only and Theatrical Conventions: Kalahandi‟s Danda about particular cultures but about humanity at large” (Tillis 11). This Jatra in/as the Context. IAR J Human Cul. Stud. 2(4) remark of Tillis has caught the interest of scholars and researchers 32-39. working in folkloristic to study the origin and development of folk drama Copyright @ 2021: This is an open-access article in a systematic way that earlier was neglected as a kind of primitive form. distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license which permits Moreover, the multifaced nature of folk drama has opened up possibilities unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction for the multidisciplinary approach to studying this genre. Accordingly, in any medium for non commercial use my primary objective of this study is to locate and explicate the dramatic (NonCommercial, or CC-BY-NC) provided the conventions which are a part of the ritual of the Danda Jatra. original author and source are credited. Furthermore, to conduct this study, I have first surveyed literature related DOI: 10.47310/iarjahcs.2021.v02i04.005 to the origin and development of folk drama in the West, India, and Odisha. Thereafter I have provided a detailed account of the festival of Danda Jatra as celebrated in the Kalahandi region and explicated all the dramatic conventions inbuilt in the rituals of Danda Jatra, and concluded with establishing Danda Jatra as a folk drama. Origin of the folk drama in the West Drama is a composite form that mixes song, dance, mime, poetry and narrative. It acquires life according to the nature and possibilities of its outreach to its audience, thus creating a special bond between the actor and audience. This, in turn, reflects the nature of the relationship between drama and society, the implicit role it plays in the community that nourishes it. „Folk drama,‟ however, means different things to different people, discipline and culture, i.e., worship, sacred retellings, or visitation by a deity, musical dance, enactment, song etc., “as an etic term, it easily imposes frameworks of interpretations that are not necessarily grounded in local understandings” (Gabbert 1) According to scholars and folklorists like Sir James G. Frazer, Baskervilles, Abrahams, Green, folk drama, in the Western context, had its earlier beginnings in the community life and rituals of the village. The villagers had to do such agricultural work as ploughing, sowing, harvesting and clearing the wasteland. This work pattern and the community‟s survival are determined by cycles of cultivation and change of season. Moreover, with time, these community activities became rituals and found their place in mythologies. These rituals were performed as types of worship to continue to maintain the cycle and recognise their significance. Though a number of English folk plays have been lost in time, some have been preserved in written form in the eighteenth and nineteenth century as the mummer‟s plays. Mummer‟s plays are kinds of dumb shows, lively actions and wild clowning that embodied the death and rebirth of the seasons. 32 Jharana Rani Dhangadamajhi; IAR J Human Cul Stud; Vol-2, Iss- 4 (July-Aug, 2021):32-39 As community drama drawing resources from folk The immediate historical factor responsible for the rituals, they were enacted by amateurs and itinerant emergence of folk dramas in a different geographical performers like jugglers, acrobats, tumblers, rope- location in India was the dismantling of classical dancers and animal trainers, a precursor to the circus. Sanskrit and the prominence of the new vernacular Included amongst them were the sword and morris during the Moghul period. “Historically speaking, dancers, the clowns and the buffoons, the jesters and the during the 15th -16th century, folk theatre emerged fools, who added to the spirit of the carnival by their forcefully in different regions. It used different scurrilous antics. In addition, there were ballad singers, languages, the languages of the regions in which it storytellers, and minstrels who added to the imaginative emerged” (Das, 2013, 4). Indian folk dramas are either quality of the performances with their songs and tales. religious or secular, and the two forms thrived together, Thus the mumming troupe travelled extensively, mutually influencing each other. creating an itinerant form of folk theatre that used simple ceremonial events, like weddings, funerals, Whereas folk dramas like Raslila, Nautanki, festivities associated with local legends and customs as and Ramlila are popular all over India, Some of the the basis of the performance. aanchalik folk dramas are, Koodiyattam (Kerala), Yakshagana (Karnataka), Swang (Haryana, Rajasthan, The folk drama of India Uttar Pradesh), Bhand Paather (Kashmir), Ankiya Naat In India, the dramatic tradition started with Bhaona (Assam), Tamasha (Maharashtra), Jatra (Bihar establishing classical Sanskrit theatre as early as 500 and West Bengal), Bhavai (Gujrat), Dashavtaar (Goa), B.C. Bharat Muni‟s Natya Shastra is one of the earliest Karyala (Himachal Pradesh) and Ramman treatises on Sanskrit drama and dramaturgy in India and (Uttarakhand). probably globally. In this, Bharat Muni has explicated the rules and conventions of traditional Sanskrit drama The folk drama of Odisha and his famous theory of Rasa, an essential element for The ontological and epistemological enquiries into the drama‟s success. Most of the earlier dramas in India the origin and development of folk drama in Odisha are available in narrative form, like Akhyana and have concluded that drama originated from poetry. Upakhyana of the epics and Purana with recitation, Moreover, because of which researchers define „folk singing and dancing as the indispensable elements. drama‟ as poetic drama or Chhanda drama. Moreover, therefore in India, drama is not just a Furthermore, drama is also called „visual poetry‟ particular genre but Natya, an amalgamation of because of its original connection with poetry. literature, mime, music, dance, movement. Moreover, folk drama is a composite art form with the fusion of elements from folk songs and folk dance. In In India, folk drama is deeply embedded into the other words, it is in the folk drama, the beauty of the religiosocio-cultural life of the rural folk. Whether it is multifarious folk art is fully manifested and realised. on festivals or ceremonial occasions, or other everyday Without the constituents of its two significant events in the community‟s life cycle, there emerges a ingredients, like a folk song and folk dance, there may theatrical performance integrating song, dance, myth not be any folk drama (Das, 1980, 5). So folk drama in and tale into one composite art. Whereas the Odisha is broadly divided into two categories: performances of classical drama were restricted to be 1. Non-dialogic song and dance play like Pala and viewed only by the elite few like the royalty, nobility, Daaskaathiaa and sustained because of the culture of patronage by the 2. The fully dialectical play Leela, Jatra, Suaanga court, folk drama grew out of the activities of the common folk who worked outside any formal tradition Pala is mainly performed during Satyanarayan Puja of theatre. Thus, folk drama is an alternative source of and is very popular in the eastern part of Odisha. It is knowledge and entertainment for the common masses. essential as a successful medium in bringing perfect Folk drama, which grew out of India‟s community blending in between the Oriya tradition and the tradition rituals, was based on oral tradition; the text was not of incredible India. Pandit Nilakantha Das, in his book needed to perform community rituals. Fluency and Gradual Progress of Oriya literature, has mentioned accuracy depended on the repetitive that Pala originated in Bengal during the reign of performances/enactment of those rituals wherein the Hussein Shah. In Pala, the lead male singer is called „memory‟ and „remembering‟ rituals with a degree of Gayaka, and his choric followers are called Palias, a religious honesty were crucial. In other words, these group of five male singers. The Gayaka starts his song folk dramas that developed from folk rituals survived with the accompaniment of „mridanga‟ whereas the the test of time as mimetic acts. However, with time Palias play on the cymbals, dance and simplify the they were reinscribed into texts as a rationalisation for meaning to the audience.