What’s in a dance? Dalkhai: from a religious community ritual, to a pro-scenium performance

Abstract

An educational international project, initiated by a Romanian organisation, comprising folk dances from around the world, has challenged me to go deeper into understanding one of the most popular dance forms of Western Odisha, Dalkhai. Traditionally a religion-based folk dance connected to the agrarian culture of local Adivasi communities, it has been gradually developed into a cultural pattern of Odisha, Eastern India. Considering folklore as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, according to UNESCO definition, I explore the expression of this ritual-dance, in connection to the Adivasi culture, as Dalkhai is considered the goddess of fertility, initially worshipped by the tribal people/Adivasi like Mirdha, Kondha, Kuda, Gond, Binjhal, etc., but also in its recent metamorphosis into a proscenium representation. The Dalkhai dance is becoming visible and recognised at state, national and even international form of dance, while in the Adivasis communities it is noted that the ritual becomes less and less performed. Consulting the UNESCO definitions and documents on Intangible Cultural Heritage is useful for understanding how to approach a choric ritual, involving a tradition, music and dance, enhancing the importance of safeguarding cultural diversity while confronting cultural globalization. Its approach, in accordance with ‘universal cultural rights’, emancipatory politics concerning world culture and multiculturalism, opposes the disappearances and destruction of local traditions, indigenous practices. Heritage concerns the whole community, conferring an identity feeling, and supporting the transmission to the next generations, sustainable development, often involving economic stakes, becoming essential for developing the territories (Chevalier, 2000).