Queering Assamese Bihu Festival Performance

Abstract

Assamese Bihu songs reflect and enact a world brimming with potential. Originating in the Brahmaputra River valley of the northeastern Indian state of Assam, these springtime New Year’s festival songs connect imagery of blossoming flowers, ripening fruits, singing birds and other seasonal representations of life to human desire. Bihu song narratives often include the nasoni , a dancer-singer who embodies idealised aspects of Assamese femininity in her physical presentation, voice, comportment and knowledge of cultural traditions. Songs praise the nasoni ’s ritual performance as part of the blessing of village households every April, accompanied by the drumming, dancing and singing of her masculine counterparts. 1 With the memory of her performance lingering in the air, the entranced onlooker in the following Bihu song invents an excuse to be near the nasoni