L15: Folk Dance Forms (Dekhni, Fugdi, Goff)

Good morning, everyone! Come in. I hope your Tiatr viewing exercise went well — I am looking forward to reading those reflections. Last class we did a deep dive into Tiatr — its structure, history, the Kantaram tradition, great figures like C. Alvares. Today we are on Lecture 15: Folk Dance Forms — specifically Dekhni, Fugdi, and Goff. Three forms, three distinct personalities. [INTRODUCTION — 0 to 10 minutes] Dance is the most embodied of all art forms. When we speak about preserving a dance tradition, we are not talking about preserving a text or a painting — we are talking about a living practice that must be transmitted from body to body, from teacher to student, in real time. You cannot learn Fugdi from a book. You have to feel the rhythm, find your balance in the spinning, synchronise with the circle of women around you. This embodied quality makes folk dance both the most alive and the most fragile of heritage forms. Goa's folk dances fall broadly into two groups. The first group is community dances — performed in groups by members of a community, not for an audience but as participatory practice. Fugdi and Dhalo fall here. The second group is semi-theatrical dances — performed by skilled practitioners for an audience, often with costumes and musical accompaniment. Dekhni falls here. The line between these two groups is not always sharp, and many forms have shifted from community to theatrical over time. Let me begin with a cultural note. Many of Goa's folk dance forms are performed exclusively or primarily by women. This is not incidental. In the largely gender-segregated social world of traditional Goa — both Hindu and Catholic — women's performing arts were women's social spaces, women's networks, women's knowledge systems. The gathering for Fugdi or Dhalo was an occasion for women to socialise, to transmit songs and stories, to mark seasonal transitions. Disrupting these dance traditions is also disrupting women's social networks. [CORE CONTENT — 10 to 40 minutes] Let us begin with Dekhni. The word Dekhni means "the one who shows" or "the showing one" in Konkani — from the root dekh, to see. And the dance is precisely about display — it is performed by a woman, or a group of women, before an audience, telling a story through movement, gesture, and facial expression. The classical Dekhni presents a nautch girl — a devadasi figure — performing before a deity or a patron. In the most traditional form, the dancer is associated with the temple tradition. The most famous Dekhni song is "Naka Mhaka Sod Re Sakhya Paltadi" — in which a woman calls to a boatman to take her across the river to meet her beloved. The imagery is sensuous and suggestive — the river crossing is a metaphor for romantic longing. The song structure is in Marathi-influenced Konkani, and the tune has a classical, raga-based quality. The dance itself involves intricate footwork, hand gestures borrowing from classical Bharatanatyam, and expressive abhinaya — facial acting. The history of Dekhni is layered. The tradition was historically associated with the Nautch culture — the system of professional temple and court dancers. In colonial Goa, the devadasi system was officially abolished, but the dance tradition survived in folk and stage contexts. The Goa government's efforts in the 20th century — particularly through the Kala Academy — helped stage Dekhni as a formal performing art, rescuing it from potential obsolescence. Today Dekhni is performed at cultural festivals, government events, and tourism showcases. There are dance academies in Panaji and Margao that teach Dekhni. One important figure in the revival of Dekhni is the legendary Goan singer and cultural activist Lorna Cordeiro — who also contributed enormously to Tiatr. The Dekhni was also championed by music researchers at Goa University who helped document the song texts and musical structures. A word on gender politics and Dekhni: the Dekhni dancer in its original context was a complex figure — she was both an object of male gaze and a woman of independent economic means, a skilled artist who was also stigmatised by caste and social hierarchy. Modern performances have largely stripped away this social complexity, presenting Dekhni as elegant cultural heritage without engaging with the difficult history behind it. This is a recurring tension in heritage performances — the aestheticization of what was historically a fraught social situation. Now let us move to Fugdi. Fugdi is completely different in character from Dekhni. Where Dekhni is graceful and theatrical, Fugdi is vigorous, communal, and joyous. The word fugdi comes from fugna — to spin, to revolve — and the defining movement of Fugdi is exactly that: spinning. Fugdi is performed by groups of women, standing in a circle or in rows, holding hands or linking arms. The leader of the group — called the Phugdivali — starts the song, and the rest follow. The dance involves progressively faster spinning, accompanied by clapping and singing. The songs cover a huge range of topics: stories from the Ramayana, episodes from the lives of Goan saints and deities, descriptions of seasonal festivities, humorous commentary on domestic life. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Fugdi songs in the oral tradition. Fugdi is performed at multiple occasions: at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in the evening after the puja; at Samaj gatherings — community social events; at weddings; and at the major harvest festivals. It is a Hindu women's form, but the social occasion is welcoming and inclusive. The physical energy of Fugdi is remarkable. A well-performed Fugdi session can last hours — women spinning and singing for a long time, their saris flying, their faces lit up. There is something almost ecstatic in a full Fugdi session, and older practitioners describe it as deeply joyful and physically exhilarating. The communal, circular, spinning quality creates a kind of collective energy that individual performance cannot replicate. Fugdi is found across all of Goa's Hindu communities, but with regional variations. In Sattari and the interior, Fugdi songs tend to be older, more ritually oriented. In the coastal talukas, Fugdi songs have absorbed more modern themes. The Bardez Fugdi, the Salcette Fugdi, the Ponda Fugdi — all have slightly different musical flavours and dance styles. Goff — sometimes also called Morulo — is a visually spectacular form that involves a tall maypole and woven ribbons. Performers — traditionally women, though today mixed groups also perform — stand in a circle around the pole, each holding the end of a long ribbon attached to the top. Through a choreographed sequence of movements, they weave the ribbons into a complex pattern descending the pole, and then unweave them in reverse. When done correctly, this creates a beautiful geometric pattern on the pole. The musical accompaniment is songs from the Goff tradition, rhythmic and moderate in tempo. The Goff has a clear parallel in the European maypole tradition, and this has led to speculation about Portuguese cultural influence. However, similar pole-dance traditions exist in parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka as well, suggesting deeper subcontinental roots. This is the kind of cultural question that is never definitively settled — the origins of folk forms are always multiple and mixed. Goff is performed primarily at the Shigmo festival — Goa's Holi equivalent, which in Goa is a much more elaborate cultural event than the colour-throwing festival known elsewhere. Shigmo processions feature Goff performances alongside Fugdi, Kunbi dance, Ghode Modni, and many other forms. In the 20th century, Shigmo processions became increasingly large, public, and touristic — which has its own complex implications for the forms performed within them. Let me also briefly mention Dhalo, which we touched on in the overview lecture. Dhalo is performed in the month of Paush — approximately December-January — during a festival of the same name. Women gather in the threshing floor or courtyard after the main harvest, in groups, and perform Dhalo songs and dances through the night, sometimes for consecutive nights. The songs of Dhalo are among the most beautiful in the Goan oral tradition — they are long narrative poems about gods, about nature, about the agricultural cycle. Dhalo is associated with winter, fertility, and thanksgiving. The instruments used in these dance forms vary. Fugdi is mostly a cappella — the women's voices and clapping are the only music. Dekhni uses the Ghumat drum, sometimes tambourine, sometimes harmonium for the song. Goff uses harmonium and voices. Dhalo is entirely vocal, no instruments. This vocal emphasis is characteristic of women's folk traditions across India — because instruments were historically controlled by male musicians, women's performing arts developed as primarily vocal traditions. [ACTIVITY AND DISCUSSION — 40 to 55 minutes] Now I want to do something practical. Stand up, everyone — yes, push the benches back a bit. We are going to do a very brief, simplified Fugdi circle. I know some of you will be embarrassed and some of you will love this, but I want you to have a bodily experience of what we are discussing. Form a circle — about eight to ten of you at a time, others watch and then we switch. Link arms or hold hands, face inward. I will clap a rhythm: one-two, one-two. Step with the rhythm. Now begin to rotate slowly clockwise. Step-step-step, rotating in a circle. Now a bit faster. And now faster still. You can feel how the centrifugal force works — how the circle pulls outward, how you have to lean in to maintain it. That leaning-in, that physical trust in the circle of women around you, is part of what Fugdi is. [brief activity] Good. Sit down, sit down. How does that feel? Different, yes? When you read about dance, you understand it intellectually. When you do it, even for ninety seconds, you understand something in your body. That is why folk dance transmission must be embodied — it cannot be fully transmitted through description. Discussion Question 1: Fugdi is a women's participatory dance. Does it change the nature of Fugdi when it is performed on a stage for an audience, as part of a tourist cultural show, rather than in a courtyard by a community of women at a harvest festival? Is the stage version still Fugdi, or is it something else? Discussion Question 2: Several of these dance forms — Dekhni, Fugdi, Goff — are associated specifically with women and with specific castes or communities. As caste identities weaken and gender roles change, who will be the custodians of these forms? Is it appropriate for people outside these communities to learn and perform them? [SUMMARY AND ASSIGNMENT — 55 to 60 minutes] Today we explored three major folk dance forms. Dekhni — the semi-theatrical solo or small group form rooted in temple dance tradition, known for its elegant abhinaya and the famous river-crossing song. Fugdi — the vigorous, communal women's spinning dance performed at Hindu festivals, a participatory form that creates collective energy and transmits oral poetry. Goff — the maypole ribbon-weaving dance performed at Shigmo, visually spectacular and communally joyful. We also revisited Dhalo as the harvest-season equivalent of Fugdi. Assignment: Attend a Shigmo procession — or if that is not possible, watch documentation of one on YouTube. Identify at least three different performance forms in the procession. For each one, note the costumes, the musical instruments, the approximate number of performers, and the gender composition of the group. One page, submit before next class. Next lecture — Lecture 16 — we move into Folk Music Traditions of Goa. We will look at the Mando — which is one of the most sophisticated musical forms in Indian folk tradition — as well as the Dulpod, the instruments of Goa including the Ghumat, and the intersection of Indian and European musical traditions in Goan Catholic music. See you Thursday!