[Reader-list] Music for a Goddess, 4th March, NCPA

[OISHIK SIRCAR]

 *Music for a Goddess: A Devi's Devotees in India's Deccan
Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy* and* Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy
*DVD Screening and Discussion
*Little Theatre, NCPA*
Wed. 4th March - 6.30 pm - 9 pm

It's always been a vexed issue, the worship of the Goddess Yellamma/ Renuka
mostly by the Dalit communities in the border regions of southern
Maharashtra, northern Karnataka and adjacent areas, because this benevolent
fertility goddess elicits typically negative responses: media reports
usually deal with the controversial aspects of her worship, and their links
to children, sexuality and prostitution. Now, here is a DVD that explores
the sacred music, dance and rituals of the* jogtis* and* jogtas*,* devidasis
* and* devidasas*, and others who have dedicated themselves to the goddess
and attempts to balance this view. The focus here is on the goddess's unique
musical instruments and the ritual forms essential to her worship. Police
threats to confiscate her musical instruments, and protest songs sung within
the tradition against the dedication of children, attest to contemporary
conflicts within the worship and the human rights issues at stake.

Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy and Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy are professors of
Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nazir, a
native of Mumbai, who went to Doon School, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation that
has become the classic book,* The Ragas of North Indian Music: Their
Structure and Evolution*. Amy is a graduate of Vassar College and Yale
University, and received her Ph.D. from Brown University, after two years
spent in Madras researching her dissertation on Carnatic music. Both are
internationally recognized and widely published in the fields of classical
and non-classical musics.

This is a* CHAURAHA* presentation.

-- 

Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy, Ph.D.
Associate Professor (Visiting)
Ethnomusicology Department
UCLA
Box 165706
Los Angeles CA 90095
(310) 206-3033
http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/people/catlin.htm



-- 
OISHIK SIRCAR

oishiksircar at gmail.com
oishik.sircar at utoronto.ca