Efforts to keep Lavni in public memory

One of the best ways to understand a particular community is to listen to its folk songs. The locally-developed music acts like a window, providing a true picture of a community and its neighbourhood.
In its upcoming annual folk music fest, the India Habitat Centre will brings our attention to folk music of Maharashtra. The two-day event, titled IHC Lok Sangeet Sammelan, attempts to recall a bygone era when folk songs were created for almost every event in a community. 

Vidyun M Singh, Director Programmes, India Habitat Centre, informs how folk songs were created for birth, harvest, weddings, lullabies, forests, rivers and seasons. “These stir forgotten memories for one generation but are of little relevance or interest for another. Through IHC Lok Sangeet Sammelan, we are assimilating traditional folk music with fresh narratives for the public,” Singh says. 

Setting the scene and providing a bird’s eye view of the shifts and transformations in the art, is Dr Urmila Bhirdikar’s talk on The Emergence of Folk through Classicisation of Music: The Case of Lavani and Other Genres in Maharashtra. Using archival recordings and images, it provides an informed and absorbing narrative on the making of early modern theatre, the gramophone industry and the new trends in the theory and pedagogy of music in the Marathi region.

Similarly, Sangeet Bari – an interactive theatrical presentation on Lavani, written by Bhushan Korgaonkar and directed by Savitri Medhatul is the result of years of research and documentation of the hidden lives of Lavani dancers. It combines multiple narratives such as the Lavani woman, the musicians, the customer and the researcher/narrator. Bringing back on stage, performances of some unknown and some forgotten traditional Lavani, it comes to us after a successful run across multiple theatre festivals around the country. 

 Korgaonkar says, “We were introduced to this hidden world of Lavani dancers nearly 10 years ago and it fascinated us. We travelled extensively to various Sangeet Bari theatres across Maharashtra and were able to meet the Lavani women and observe their lives closely.  Our first venture with Lavani was the documentary film in 2008 called Natale Tumchya Saathi: Behind the Adorned Veil.

With the wealth of these amazing life stories, came the critically acclaimed book Sangeet Bari in Marathi, published by Rajhans Prakashan in 2014. The book and the film focus on the lives of these women and attempt to portray them as artists and human beings unlike the popular image of a seductress or as victims.”  July 20-21India Habitat Centre