Expression, Agency, Identity: Studying Dhaalo, A Gender Exclusive Folk Dance of Goa

Abstract

Gender exclusive folklore is a signifier of the gendered norms, psyche and sociological dynamics of a community. Dhaalo, a gender exclusive folk dance form of Goa, is an intricate amalgamation of tradition and dissent for the women belonging to the marginalised communities of the state. Performed in Goa’s rural recesses, Dhaalo is a week-long celebration of song and dance that compels the women to conform to certain cultural practices and at the same time gives them the agency to embrace their voice, free from the bounds of social cohesion. The festival is an opportunity for women toiling in their homes and fields during the day, to come together at night at a sacred space like a Maand or a temple courtyard and sing songs, dance and vent their unexpressed emotions. This folk dance is seeped in rituals pertaining to fertility, divinity and at the same time it is a space for spontaneous expressions of women’s worldview, their take on relationships and other societal practices, often also welcoming vulgarity in the lyrics which is otherwise shunned. The current paper attempts to assess the text and rituals of the Dhaalo festival to retrieve the repressed memories of the marginalised women of the state. It aims to study the juxtaposition of tradition and dissent that is the crux of this folk dance form whilst drawing attention to the carnivalesque liberties that women take from practices that appear to be institutionalised within a community. This discourse is placed within the theoretical framework of the concept of carnivalesque by Mikhail Bakhtin, Invented Traditions by Eric Hobsbaum and Repressive Hypothesis by Michel Foucault.