Paper short abstract:

The paper will examine the ritualistic Chhau dance performance of the Mahishasuramardhini saga that presents a dialectics of the sublime and the grotesque, good and evil, power and the lack of it, in the role play of the victor and the vanquished.

Paper long abstract:

Rituals are symbolized through the expressivity of performance and provide the occasion and space for its perpetuity and possible variations. The annual enactment of the ritualistic victory of good over evil is the Hindu festival celebrating power and energy configured as the feminine warrior deity Mahishasuramardhini, or more popularly goddess Durga the slayer of the demon asura Mahisha. The ritual worship of power and energy as Durga is symbolized through different performative events, some running through nine nights of the festival. One such is the serial performance of Chhau Dance at Purulia, a suburban town in Bengal, performed through nine nights recounting the steady build-up of the battle and the epiphanic moment of the revelation of power leading to the vanquishing of the metaphoric evil. As the performance moves away from sacred spaces, it works not only on the level of literal meaning-making but overflows into political dialectics between empowerment and the disempowered. The performances entice the audience into their energetic vortex through the enactment of the eternal drama of the sublime and the grotesque, both invoking 'awe' in their own ways and the victorious finale is not without its subversive and subliminal pulls.