Krishna kee bansi bhajay

Nachania (नचंनिया), translated as ‘female dancer’, refers to both a traditional Indo-Jamaican folk dance that has local origins in indentureship, and to those who perform it. The dance is characterized by flamboyant flailing hands, counterbalanced by acrobatic feats and yogic moments synchronous with beat drops. Its unbound choreography salvages important religio-cultural and historical narratives through ecstatic paroxysmal dance often with sexual overtones. This performance is important in ritualized and celebratory spaces to entertain crowds. While performing, Nachanias would have money launched at them, and they would sometimes engage men in dance. The performers were, and still are, frequently men who assume a different gendered role garbed in conscious ‘feminizing’ technologies such as make-up, jewellery and a frock. Especially during indentureship and the period immediately after, it was ‘vulgar’ for women to dance publicly or perform at religious ceremonies. Early women Nachanias were read as tainted spectacles, some of whom the archives record as professional ‘entertainers’. Inspired by the author’s curiosity, Indo-Jamaican identity, observations of Nachania and discourses with Ghanesh Maragh (one of the few contemporary performers of this artform), this article casts Indo-Jamaicans into the unbound erotic gendered tradition of Jamaica and indentureship by (a) tracing the (inter)religious, gendered, and historical anatomy of the lauded folk performance from the period of indentureship to the present in Jamaica and the Indo-Jamaican diaspora; (b) exploring themes of bidesia; and (c) examining possible problems with situating Nachania within categories of queer.