Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

DANCE IS a language that can be powerful, evocative, complex, and beautiful.

Jagran is a night of Indian dance, both classical and folk, staged by Dr Sat Balkaransingh and the Kathak Kala Sagram. Watching the show, which will be performed again at SAPA on September 23 at 7 pm, I was struck by how little Caribbean theorists understand Indian cultural practices as creole, meaning both India-descended and yet fundamentally of the region.

Few Caribbean scholars who are not Indo-Caribbean pay attention to what Indian arts, whether music, costuming, theatre, or dance, say about existing here together. Even Caribbean dance experts may not have Indian dancers' histories and performative languages on their radar, and therefore miss how much is said about belonging through these aesthetic forms.

I’m not referring to brilliant crossover collaborations, such as by Mungal Patesar whose music is included in the show, where the mix of Indian, African (and other) rhythms, dress, melodies, and movements makes something appear both more inclusive and homegrown, and more greatly expressive of regional belonging.

Indian arts are still mainly considered (by both Indians and Africans) to be about India and for Indians in the Caribbean. Yet, within the realm of Indian classical and folk dance, so much is said about what it means to call these islands home that is broadly relevant to us all. That it is delivered in the languages of Indian dance make it less immediately familiar to some, but no less capable of speaking across difference to shared experience.

I think this has been both missed and misunderstood in much of Caribbean scholarship and in teaching of Caribbean arts where Indian dance and music become visible and comprehensible as national when they are "mixed," both douglarising and becoming douglarised, thus replacing a narrative of purity with one of inclusivity and becoming more Caribbean (and modern) by being less Indian.

[caption id="attachment_1033905" align="alignnone" width="683"] Dr Gabrielle Jamela Hosein -[/caption]

Jagran contests this. Much stands out about the show that is captivating and unique, both the musical direction and the gorgeous costuming; the white, orange and green, black and gold, and red also speaking symbolically.

The show opens with music from the album, Ravi Shankar in the Kremlin, and with salutations to God in gestures representative of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Orisha, First Peoples, and Hinduism.

The morning raag by Sachin Boodram on violin and Anup Ramsundar on tabla was exquisite. The folk songs by the iconic Rukmini Holas Beepath, with accompaniment which included Ranjan Singh on dholak, Dion Dookie on harmonium and vocals, and Anelia Baijoo as vocal backup, brought the biraha and Phagwa traditions of rural life to the high arts space of a seated auditorium, and filled the air with the high-pitched liveliness that reverberates through a village celebration. People were ready to dance in their seats.

The scenes from the Ramleela, showing