Embodied Traditions: Gujarati (Dance) Practices of Garba and Raas in the UK context

Abstract

This brief description of one of the nine nights of the autumn Hindu religious festival Navratri, a pan-Indian festival in praise of the feminine power of the divine, raises certain questions about the codified movement systems of a society within the context of religious practice. The group selected here, celebrating the festival in Britain with folk dance and music, are part of the large Gujarati UK community.¹ The majority of this group forcibly migrated to the United Kingdom from East Africa in the 1970s after Idi Amin’s mass expulsion of non-African people from Uganda, but their origins lie in the state of Gujarat in north-west India. Questions provoked by this festival time of Navratri relate to the use of movement/dance in the expression of migrant identity, to the adherence to a religious faith, and to the transmission of cultural beliefs and values. These enquiries form the main focus of this ethnographic research and subsequent writing. The chapter maps the rather particular nature of British Gujarati practice, showing not only the dominant performance of these folk dances at religious festivals, but also noting their place in social events such as parties and weddings, as well as in competitive staged displays and more commercially, in the world of Bollywood films. Thus it examines the layered and complex concepts of migrant identity and enculturation through an analysis of different types of Gujarati garba and raas performance, as well as discussing the history and settlement patterns of the UK Gujarati groups.

Nine o’clock in the evening in a hot, crowded, hired sports hall.

On entering the space, one’s senses are assaulted by the blaze of colour and sound and the extraordinary vision that meets the eyes. About three hundred women are filling the large arena, moving almost as one, to the beat of the music. They progress in concentric circles, anti-clockwise around a central shrine with rhythmical steps, hands moving naturally to clap on the three dominant beats of the pulse, as if they have moved forever in this way. Their traditional Gujarati outfits are a blaze of differing colours: full skirts to the ground and long shawls flowing as they move, and glinting jewellery as the bodies pass by. Young and old join in this joyous celebration to the Hindu goddess, Devi.

(David, 2001: Fieldnotes, 25 October, London)