I have always been intrigued by representations of dance in the visual arts. On my 2012 dance study trips to India, I was briefly in area of Gol Tekadi Hill, near Daulatabad, near the city of Aurangabad, in Maharashtra. My study trip had been funded through the Shastri Indo-Canadian Fine Arts Fellowship for dance, and I was primarily based in Odisha for my study of classical Indian Odissi dance of Guru Debaprasad Das's lineage, of which I continue to be a lifelong performer, student and researcher. One of the areas of my research was how the local, regional and folk art forms, including those of indigenous communities intersect and inform the revived classical dances, an area which continues to interest me today. My stay in Bhubaneswar was interspersed with watching many dance concerts, and ofcourse daily learnings, and visiting events such as the state-hosted Adivasi Mela (Indigenous Culture Exhibition), where I had the opportunity to witness many pavilions from different parts of Odisha.
I had a brief sojourn to a different part of India, to Maharastra during my stay and was taken to Aurangabad, to the region of Gol Tekadi Hills. There I encountered a different form of adivasi (indigenous) art, and the representation of dance within this art. I was fascinated by the visual representations/iconography of the Worli Paintings, and their usage in decorating outdoor spaces.
The Worli community is an indigenous community native to the northern Sahyadri hills of Maharashtra. Their paintings are most often done on the walls of the houses. This tradition is believed to date back to the 2500-3000 BCE, and traditionally only used white paints and pigments.
I had a brief sojourn to a different part of India, to Maharastra during my stay and was taken to Aurangabad, to the region of Gol Tekadi Hills. There I encountered a different form of adivasi (indigenous) art, and the representation of dance within this art. I was fascinated by the visual representations/iconography of the Worli Paintings, and their usage in decorating outdoor spaces.
The Worli community is an indigenous community native to the northern Sahyadri hills of Maharashtra. Their paintings are most often done on the walls of the houses. This tradition is believed to date back to the 2500-3000 BCE, and traditionally only used white paints and pigments.
As seen below, this style of painting frequently depicts multiple human bodies engaged in day-to-day tasks, such as preparation of food, grinding of grains, hunting, or dancing in a group. The body shapes are depicted primarily through triangles, with a triangle each forming the upper and lower part of the body. Frequently the dancing is represented with a large ensemble of individuals, mostly women, with joined hands, and dancing in spiralling group formations. This dance form is called "Tarpa", and is a large social dance form. There is a sense of movement indicated in this spiraling.
These paintings, while adorning non-indigenous spaces, are also sometimes shown in larger scale than in traditional Worli paintings, such as the larger figures seen on the walls below.
I did not get a chance to speak with the practitioners of these paintings and of the dances, but I was fascinated by these large paintings. It is also interesting to find that the traditional Worli paintings have influenced designers, fashion designers and several contemporary artists in India. I was gifted a garment by a Pune-based fashion designer, and she had painted traditional Worli dance motifs on the garment designed especially for me, as she knew I was a dancer.
The visit to the Gol Tekadi Hills was defnitely an enriching encounter with the world of Worli painting!
