UNITED STATES, October 24, 2023 (RNS): The garba, a folk dance from western India once performed by women at home to celebrate the Hindu Goddess Durga, has improbably inspired Bollywood-sized performances at social gatherings and competitions in the United States. The garba originated in Gujarat, the state along India’s western coast, as part of celebrations of the holiday of Dussehra that marks the end of Navaratri, a nine-day festival of devotion to the Hindu Goddess Durga that ends Tuesday (Oct. 24). Honoring the divine feminine energy of Durga and her incarnations, the garba, whose name comes from the Sanskrit word for womb, has been danced by thousands of colorfully dressed South Asians across New York and New Jersey over the past nine days. It is often danced on college campuses and at local community centers until long after midnight. Many of those dancing will be non-Hindus, as second-generation Hindu Americans have hosted garba events that emphasize the dance’s fostering of community.

According to Shana Sippy, an associate professor of religion and chair of Asian studies at Centre College in Kentucky, the traditions of Hinduism, diverse as they are, readily adapt to the local context. Garba, as it has migrated out of Gujarat, has transitioned from a domestic folk dance to become “a way to represent your culture and your tradition,” said Sippy. “Not only are you embodying your culture by dancing, but you are representing it to others.” The United States lends itself to pan-Hindu celebrations, where immigrants and their first-generation offspring can share the nuances of local traditions their families left behind, said Vasudha Narayanan, a Hindu scholar at the University of Florida “It is the transmission of culture through music and dance, both horizontally — communicating it to Hindus from other parts of India — as well as vertically, to the next generation,” said Narayanan. “That kind of transmission helps us understand the diversity of Hinduism and that it’s not a single way of celebration or belief.”

More at source.
https://religionnews.com/2023/10/24/in-the-hindu-diaspora-dancers-and-feminists-celebrate-the-modern-cultural-significance-of-navaratri/

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