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Paper short abstract:

By focusing on the relation between the gestural dance units, the local myths, and the notion of the ancestors, this paper examines the characteristics and modalities of cultural continuity and change and the kinds of sociality generated through the sakela dance of the Dumi Rai of Eastern Nepal.

Paper long abstract:

Among the Dumi Rai of Eastern Nepal, the sakela dance, linked to a fertility ritual, is considered the most important dance in society. Moving in circles, the dancers follow a leader, who, after each completed round of basic step, introduces special gestural movement-unit called sili. The sili, of which nearly 200 could be documented in this ongoing post-doc research project, are linked to the mythology and the notion of the ancestral world of the Dumi Rai, especially to its cosmological myths and myths of the cultural heroes. In sakela, the dancers remember this genealogical link reaching back to the founding of humanity, feel, and embody it. In the world-view of the Rai, the ancestors live in a parallel world and can be addressed directly through ritual and dance. Dancing sakela therefore means dancing in the presence of, and with the ancestors. The sociality generated in sakela performance thus encompasses a deep-time, all-embracing community of all living and past beings, including flora and fauna, a notion of togetherness that roots the local unit of dancers in the wholeness of the world and the completeness of history. Far from solely reproducing a normative, primordial notion of society, new inventions of sili and styles of performance attest to the dynamics of the social process, reflected and induced by dance practice. Focusing on the relation between the gestural sili dance units and the myths, this paper examines the characteristics and modalities of the cultural continuity and change as observable in the sakela dance.