“Wicked Problem” of Locating and Safeguarding Dance in Bangladesh

The history of dances in Bangladesh reads almost like a history of the belief systems crisscrossing this deltaic plain, entrenched as these dances are within indigenous myths and philosophies. However, in the recent past, regional and global dance traditions have superseded indigenous dances by nearly erasing them from within mainstream, specifically urban, practice. Even a cursory interrogation confirms that the historical hierarchization of dance in Southasia 1 has spurred this divide between the evaluation of present-day manifestations of dance within local cultural expressions and, on the other hand, the dominant genres of classical and contemporary artistic representations of dance. This highbrow, selective notion of dance from beyond the borders has led to a gradual decline and devaluation of traditional dance, especially within the non-subaltern social classes, resulting in its “invisibility” in those circles. Therein lies the “wickedness” of the problem. Borrowing from theoretical notions in the social sciences, a “wicked problem” is a puzzle. Furthermore, adverse socio-political circumstances of the indigenous heritage-holding communities contribute to the endangerment and diminishment of their dances. At this juncture, a combination of research and practical action is the need of the hour (Nielsen). Action research, or ethnographic activism, can be a form of ethical praxis that can overcome historical bias and safeguard these dances.


Introduction
"…difference, be it racialized, gendered, sexed, nationalized, [hierarchized], et cetera, is constructed." (Frazier-Rath) "The communities, groups, and individuals who create intangible cultural heritage should benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from such heritage, and particularly from its use, research, documentation, promotion, or adaptation by members of the communities or others." (UNESCO) In Bangladesh, the monsoons come after the scorching heat of grishsho, or summer, and with it come welcome thunder, lightning, and pouring rainfall. But in rural 1 Usage of "Southasia" as one word is inspired by HIMAL Southasian, a magazine which urges us to rethink Southasia as a region beyond political dictum and geography, and to look at the historical and cultural bonds between its people. Using "Southasia" as one word is a result of "Southasian" activism which seeks to restore some of the historical unity of our common living space without wishing any violence on the existing nation states. This usage, spearheaded by Nepali journalist, Kanak Mani Dixit, believes that the aloof geographical term South Asia needs to be injected with some feeling. 2 This is the second month of the monsoons in the Bengali calendar. areas, with the downpour, comes the menace of snakes that spread a pall of fear. Thus, all over the countryside, amongst the marginalized communities, be they Muslim or Hindu, householders organize performative rituals to appease the mighty Goddess of Serpents, Manasa Devi. As the legend goes, she is the mind-born daughter of Shiva, whom the ill-fated Brahmin merchant Chand Saudagar refused to worship. Manasa retaliated by taking the life of Chand's youngest son Lokkhindor. Thus began the epic battle between Lokkhindor's newlywed bride, Behula, and the mighty Serpent Goddess. Behula resolutely carried her dead husband's corpse on a raft over the river to the great God Shiva, overcoming obstacles at seven ghats, or wharves, to finally compel Manasa to give back Lokkhindor's life.
Amazingly, this tale is performed every year on the rivers of the Tangail District of Bangladesh on Srabon Shongkranti, the last day of the month of Srabon, 2 as a riverine performance on colorfully-bedecked boats. Nothing could be more Bangladeshi than this exciting day-long performance called Shaone Dala (the offering of Shaon/Srabon), with actors dressed as Behula, Lokkhindor, and other characters of this tale of Manasa. Competing groups navigate these colorfully-decorated boats, making stops at seven ghats, emulating Behula's journey. Eventually, each boat stops at a designated household where the jiyoni, a last act representing a resurrecting from dead, is performed to bring the hapless Lokkhindor back to life. The reality, though, is that there is rare documentation or acknowledgement of practices like these within dance discourses and institutional programs.

The Premise: Marginalization of Indigenous Dances
Going back a few centuries, the history of dances in Bangladesh, such as Shaone Dala, reads almost like a history of the belief systems which have crisscrossed this deltaic plain, entrenched as they are within indigenous myths and philosophies. However, in the recent past, regional and global dance traditions have superseded indigenous dances, nearly erasing them from within mainstream, specifically, urban practice. This erasure is readily affirmed by the proliferation of high-profile Bangladeshi dance events showcasing young dancers Even a cursory interrogation confirms that the historical hierarchization of dance in Southasia has spurred this divide between the valuation of present-day manifestations of dance within local cultural expressions and, on the other hand, the dominant genres of classical and contemporary artistic representations of dance. It is this highbrow, selective notion of dance from beyond the borders that has led to a gradual decline and devaluation of traditional dance, especially within the non-subaltern classes, resulting in its "invisibility" in those circles. "Invisible" means not existing in any way of being significant or relevant. And therein lies the "wickedness" of the problem. Borrowing from theoretical notions in the social sciences, a "wicked problem" is a puzzle that's difficult or impossible to solve, generally because of its complex nature and its interconnectedness with other impediments. In the case of dance traditions of Bangladesh, the "wicked reality" is that indigenous dance and its "fascinating field of innovation, alternatives, and creativity do not reach our news or our universities. It does not reach our theories either because our theories are sometimes part of an 'epistemology of blindness,' in that they allow us to see certain things but blind us from seeing other things" . To further clarify, the contention is that there is a rare acknowledgment of these embodied practices and their practitioners within dance discourse. Dance Matters, a comprehensive anthology of dance in India, raises the question: "Can the subaltern dance?" (Chakravorty and Gupta 1). Can the non-subaltern see and acknowledge the dance of the subalterns? 641) who are the bearers of these cultural expressions, contribute to their endangerment and decrease. This adversity ultimately leads to circumstances where the transmission of these practices is at risk of becoming significantly destabilized. At this juncture, a combination of research and practical action, where "the researcher joins with and acts with practitioners to help improve practice and theory building," is the need of the hour . Action research, or ethnographic activism, can be a form of ethical praxis that can overcome historical bias through "a non-extractive approach of investigation, where subjects are not merely objects of research to be extracted, captured, measured, and quantified. Instead, ethnographers can recover alternative knowledge and (re)build new ones that developmentally change the action researcher and the external world" (da Silva, Sauerbronn and Thiollent 1-17).

Dance in Bangladesh: How the Visible Became Invisible
Bangladesh, the eastern part of Bengal, has primarily been rural in character with urbanization setting in only in the middle of the last century of the last millennium. 4 The general populace, until today, are largely non-literate and agrarian. As an aside, though, literacy in no way defines wisdom. That having been said, the agroecology of the land has produced a fount of predominantly indigenous, embodied traditions practiced by communities of varied religious, ethnic, and regional denominations for over several centuries to date. These include: (1) performances during "rites of passages" (i.e., dhamail 5 during weddings, lathikhela during circumcision, etc.); (2) rituals and celebrations of seasonal/agrarian events (i.e., baha 6 of Santhals celebrating spring, , jari nāch 7 during Muharram 8 ); (3) musical debates (i.e., kabi gaan 9 ); (4) ritual performances (i.e., shaone dala to appease Manasa); (5) martial arts (i.e., lathikhela); and (6) performances for entertainment (i.e., jatra, nosimon and others).
Unfortunately, rarely do these dances get any exposition apart from that within the practicing communities. Sadly, this "othering" of these indigenous performances has been debilitating myth-making cultural baggage that Bengal, like the rest of Southasia, has carried for centuries. This claim is corroborated by Indian poet, scholar, and folklorist, A.K. Ramanujan, in his statement, "Indian traditions are organised as a pan-Indian Sanskritic Great Tradition (in the singular) and many local Little Traditions (in the plural)" . This dichotomy has, however, long been perceived as contested and constructed, just as "the writing of Indian history, even the colonial and postcolonial histories written by westerners, has often reflected the efforts of a restricted section of Indian society to define their own situation as normative and unmarked and those of others: tribal peoples, Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, as variants" (Morrison 3).

The Genealogy of Hierarchy within Performative Traditions
Genealogy is the historical enquiry of an issue which begins with a question posed in the present. The issue at hand is the persistent "epistemological blindness" toward indigenous dance and dancers. Acknowledging hierarchy as the primary cause, it is then necessary to excavate its underlying features by "diagnosis, conceptualization, and problematization" (Garland 365-384) of the issue.

Diagnosis of the Fissure
Historically, the onus of this unwitting "hierarchization" falls heavily on the shoulders of venerable sages like Bharatmuni, the promulgator of Nāṭyaśāstra-the definitive first-century treatise and handbook on Indian dramaturgy-and Dhanañjaya, author of Daśarūpakathe tenth-century landmark exposition on theatre.
Bharata presents dharmī as the modus operandi of 10 grāmyadharmapravṛtte tu kāmalobhavaśaṃ gate/All engaged in rural religion became subject to lust and greed. theatre, without which various concepts and aesthetic principles cannot be put into practice. He then goes on to categorize the two modes of practice. Lokadharmīor realistic mode-portrays popular narratives wherein the performance depends on natural behaviour, is simple, and has no artificiality. Nāṭyadharmī, on the other hand, is a stylized mode of creative expression. Though Bharata's derision of the folk is evident right at the outset, 10 it is centuries of public usage that have given the term lokadharmī a negative connotation, representing the "pedestrian." Kālidāṣa uses the term anyathā karaṇa 11 for nātyadharmī, or craftsmanship, which corrects whatever is not right in the picture. Anyathā karaṇa is the way to transcend the mundane and the ordinariness of the loka to scale the heights of excellence. On another note, Bharata co-relates the nāṭyadharmī with aṅgas 12 and abhinayas. 13 According to the tenth-century philosopher, mystic and aesthetician from Kashmir, Abhinavagupta, the very nature of the phenomena when represented through these aṅgas and abhinayas on the stage becomes the nāṭyadharmī. 14 All of these usages affirm the labelling of loka performances as "mundane" and "ordinary" or relegate the abundance of kinesthetic movements within indigenous performances to the boondocks. Furthermore, Lokadharmī performances are seen as "crossing the bounds of aucitya, or appropriateness." Nāṭyadharmī, or idealistic, on the other hand, are those representations which the "arts of dance and drama select, fix and refine out of real situations for an idealised or stylised presentation on the stage" (Arundale 1-7), .

Two Conceptualizations of Representation Creating the Divides of Exclusion
Bharata very precisely points out the distinction as well as the interrelationship between these two practices: "While lokadharmī is the very svabhāva, or nature of things to be presented in a dramatic performance,      nāṭyadharmī makes it vibhāva 15 -endows it with artistic beauty. 16 "This brings us to the fundamentals of Indian aesthetics. The very phenomena of our own mundane world are taken up in art, but they are transformed" (Tripathi 1-11). The operative phrase here is "artistic beauty" with the implied allusion that there is a lack of it within indigenous dances. In fact, there is a categorical dismissal of dance within indigenous performances, even by later dramaturgists who locate dance only within Uparupaka-or minor Lokadharmī performances-and Bhana-a rupaka 17 with strands of the loka. Unfortunately, through the ages the conception of the term loka was devalued further, so that by the tenth century, in Dhananjaya's compendium, the modes of practices were designated as deśī and mārga. The nomenclature of deśī, meaning "provincial," now gave a slightly more pejorative turn to the "realism" of loka 18 . Mārga, literally meaning "the path," endowed idealized "art" as appreciated by the connoisseur possessing the knowledge of sixty-four skills with the power to "elevate the spirit, not to degrade it" (Arundale 1-7). Firstly, this is dismissive of the non-literate spectators of indigenous performances. Secondly, the world of good, which is related to wellness and good-health and delivered by indigenous ritual performances featuring actors who are often also "faith healers," does not even come into discussion.

Problematization of the Aesthetics of Marginalization
Aside from the above artistic and conceptual differences related to the modus operandi of the two genres of dharmī, Bharata posits two stages of the creative process within the practice of the nāṭyadharmī on the basis of which the "spontaneous" practices of the lokadharmī are excluded. The first is vyutpatti 19 the act of acquainting and equipping oneself with empirical knowledge. This is followed by the more reflexive stage of moulding the crude material derived by the processes of prakhya and upākhya, 20 the capacity of the artist to perceive and express into a beautiful and harmonious world absolved from the shortcomings of 15 Vibhāva refers to "determinant." According to the Nāṭyaśāstra (NŚ), chapter 6.31 and chapter 7, the "the sentiment (rasa) is produced (rasa-niṣpattiḥ) from a combination (saṃyoga) of Determinants (vibhāva), Consequents (anubhāva), and Complementary Psychological States (vyabhicāri-bhāva)." 16 lōkadharmī bhavēttvanyā nāṭyadharmī tathāparā/ lokadharmī is the ordinary, and nāṭyadharmī, the other: svabhāvō lōkadharmī tu vibhāvō nāṭyamēva hi /in fact, lokadharmī is literality, while nāṭya is suggestion alone (NŚ 21.203 God's creation (Tripathi). This rationale of exclusion is problematic, as all performative presentations have a certain measure of reflexivity, setting them apart from the empirical experience with merely the modes of expression remaining different. Once again, taking into consideration the performative ritual of Shaone Dala mentioned above, rarely do we see a more creative transformation of the empirical world than this riverine performance.
These were the discursive practices which defined the epistemic order of an era during which the discourses of hierarchization were written. Based on these discourses, the seemingly simplistic, spontaneous, fluid, and pastoral indigenous practices were relegated to the margins.

Socio-Political Dimensions of Exclusion and Marginality
The variance in the spatiotemporal presentations of the two modes of practice, yet again, sets them apart. Spatially indigenous performances-situated within community commons, under the sky in open fields, on boats, in places of worship, or even the humble courtyards of householders-are distanced both physically and socially from the connoisseurs and patrons of "art." Furthermore, these presentations are organized either on the basis of a seasonal calendar of agrarian events, or during 'rites of passage' where there is engaged participation by the members of the community who value, own, and undertake responsibility for its enactment. Most of the time, the spectators and performers share a permeable relationship, co-creating the space through informal interactions. This differs from a connoisseur's role as passive "observer" of the creative processes of nāṭyadharmī performances. Gender and identity issues, too, are dealt with flexibly within the lokadharmī. These issues are enhanced by performative "crossdressing," with men playing female roles.
The temporality of a performance is fluid, with

SOUTH ASIAN DANCE INTERSECTIONS 29
characters like the shong (vidūṣaka)-or the ubiquitous "jester"-often interpolating present-day sociopolitical issues within the narrative-be it mythic or epic-with aplomb. This subjective positionality, in which "presence" and "non-presence" have a natural coevalness, contributes to the lived experience of folk performances. However, these very features, which allow the actors and spectators of lokadharmī presentations to treat with disdain-even if temporarily-the hegemonic oppression within their real world, designate the performances as "illogical," "vulgar," "irrational," or "loud," pushing them further into the peripheries of discourse.

The Colonial, Regional and Global Split
The urban-rural divide of the colonial era pushed the two modes of dance further apart. While urban centers in Bengal embraced a "Western" conception of culture, notwithstanding seething anti-colonial and nationalist dynamics, it was only within rural and indigenous communities that performative traditions continued to be quietly upheld and practiced. This rupture between tradition and modernity caused a fissure between what anthropologist James C. Scott, in his book Seeing like a State, calls "high modernism." Or, it attempts to design society in accordance to scientific laws on one hand, and on the other, "mētis," or practical, locally rooted knowledge (Scott 309). This rupture continues to be a reality in Bangladesh.
Aggression of dance practices from beyond the regional and global borders further exacerbated the distancing between the indigenous arts and the urban practices of classical and contemporary dance, driving the final nail on the exercise of turning the "visible" into the "invisible."

Understanding and Resolving the Continuity of the Divide
Faith and belief lie at the heart of indigenous performances. Invocations to almighty Allah and to the Gods and Goddesses of Hindu scripture, pledges to deities to earn their blessings, faith-healing by chanting of mantras, 21 and efficacious ritual performances are all part and parcel of the performative traditions of the indigenous recitals. "In the field of knowledge, abyssal thinking consists in granting the monopoly of the universal distinction between the true and the false to science, to the detriment of two alternative knowledges: philosophy and theology. This monopoly 21 Sacred text or speech, a prayer or song of praise.
is at the heart of the modern epistemological dispute between scientific and non-scientific forms of truth" (Santos, The Resilience of Abyssal Exclusions in Our Societies: Toward a Post-Abyssal Law). How, then, does one reconcile the two forms of truth?
"Rational" mainstream discourse has, by and large, relegated indigenous dance to the margins, except for acknowledging its value in maintaining cultural diversity and perpetrating inter-faith dialogue. However, there has been little effort to build an epistemology which acknowledges the beliefs, opinions, magic, idolatry, intuitive or subjective understandings which are an important component of indigenous performances. The seeming incommensurability of the task adds to the "wickedness" of the problem.
A resolution of this conflict is the constitution of a "post-abyssal ecology of knowledges" as visualized by social theorist Boaventura de Sousa Santos based upon the idea of the "epistemological diversity of the world" which entails the acknowledgement of the existence of a plurality of knowledges beyond scientific knowledge . This implies abandoning any general epistemology, while acknowledging that the epistemologies of the South, with their dialogical dynamics, derived from an inclusive atmosphere of the "infinite experiences of the world." This idea, therefore, encompasses a "plurality of heterogeneous knowledges." As outlined by Santos, given the crisis of modern values and the ongoing global ecological disaster, instead of privileging the West and its distinctive notion of progress and civilization, there is an urgent need for a dialogue between the various systems of knowledge. "This is a dialog between different cultures that are set on an equal standing, an intercultural dialogue in which knowledge is understood as interknowledge. A dialogue conceived in such wide terms cannot be termed anything other than an 'ecology of knowledge,' one that replaces the monoculture of the dominant epistemology of the North and that allows and promotes a real intercultural dialogue" .

Identifying Indigenous Dances
Before embarking on a dialogue, there is a need to identify, document and inventory performances in Bangladesh to understand the processes of cultural formation and its modes of transmission to help situate the cultural practices.

"Circuit of Culture" and its Transmission
Meanings are produced and shared through a representational system accessible to all within the same "circuit of culture." All cultural meaning is produced through a series of stages, or "moments" which include its representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation (Hall 1). It is through discursive discourses that meaning and knowledge of a particular practice are constructed to include "a cluster (or formation) of ideas, images, and practices, which provide ways of talking about forms of knowledge and conduct associated with a particular topic, social activity, or institutional site in society" (Hall 6).
Interestingly, in Bengal, knowledge and its inherent meaning has for centuries been disseminated through performance, both esoteric and candid, within both initiates and the lay, gaining honor as tradition. Transformation and reinterpretation of received material is central to the process of cultural transmission of traditions to ensure 'continuing patterns of cultural beliefs and practices.' Over centuries, transmission of cultural practices has taken place through enculturation and socialization within the rural communities of Bengal, as most cultural practices have been public and performative in nature.

Conceptual Framework for Understanding Indigenous Traditions in Bangladesh
Bengal has neatly documented written and oral histories of the transmission of its cultural practices over a couple of millenniums. From works of literature, such as Caryācaryāviniścaya-the medieval Buddhist book of songs-to redactions of the songs of Lalon Fakir-the rustic philosopher, mystic and minstrel from 19th century East Bengal-there is an unbroken history of the transmission of traditional performative literature. Thenceforth, however, the advent of the Colonial period ushering in the "modern" era caused a seminal cleft within the social strata of Bengal and the way in which traditions were organized and understood.

The Performative Space
Within rural Bangladesh, performative spaces are wrested from the normative world to create an extra-daily and liminal platform where they are in an effective and, as social theorist Henri Lefebvre states, 22 "Mazaar" is an Islamic mausoleum or shrine dedicated to saint or notable religious leader and "mandir" is a structure which houses Hindu divinities where devotees pay homage. 23 http://www.thedailystar.net/showbiz/ode-the-serpent-goddess-134116 24 Boyatis are folk minstrels who explicate the tenets of beliefs, derived from the Arabic word 'bayan' or elucidation.
"generative relationship" with performing bodies (Lefebvre 411). Thus, "bodies and spaces, cleverly, co-produce one another through practices, gestures, and events" (McCormack 2). This is especially true for open-air, night-long performances of rural Bangladesh, where there is, often, a blurring of lines dividing the performers and the audience. Spectators sit crowded on floormats in front of make-shift stages, interspersing enactments with comments, impromptu participation, interactions with performers, applause, or slander, thus creating and recreating themselves and the actors. Spectators often walk or row boats for miles to attend these performances.
Spatially, folk performative cultural practices occur in (1) the "commons" or community spaces under open skies with easy public access, patronized by the community itself; (2) in the courtyards of householders commissioning the performances, and (3) in holy shrines such as Muslim mazaars or Hindu mandirs. 22 The riverine processional performance to depict the journey of Behula in the myth of Manasa the Serpent Goddess during the ritual performance of Shaone Dala, or the "Gift of Srabon," is a unique appropriation of the river as a community space. 23

Occasions of Performances
Most performative practices occur during: (1) rituals, commissioned against manots-or pledges-by householders; (2) auspicious occasions on the lunisolar Muslim and Hindu calendars, such as birth and death dates of sages and divinities; and (3) during rites of passages,such as births, weddings, and circumcisions.
Auspicious days are occasions during which the following are arranged and enacted to generate merit: (1) narrative-dependent presentations such as theatrically-represented myths of divinities and sages and performances of the epics and folktales; (2) popular musical debates on a range of topics by boyatis, 24 or folk singers; (3) processional rites and rituals; and (4) the supra-persona masked performances. A popular practice during rites of passage is the commissioning of skill-based presentations such as acrobatics and martial arts.
The prevalence of these practice, for centuries, is corroborated by British Administrative records from the Colonial period such as one from 1877 which informs us that "Other indoor amusements consist of games of chance…while the weavers and other Vaishnava indulge in nautches and lilás or theatrical representations of the exploits of Krishna" (Hunter 81).

Dramatis Personae
Performance is mostly an alternate vocation for the performers who are commonly from marginalized professions such as landless peasantry, masonry, and barbering. The extra-empirical space of performance, is an interstitial place which defies social structures by empowering performers and giving them agency.
Women rarely perform; men perform the roles of women. The remarkable absence of social participative practices, except for rare interactions during weddings, are worth noting and seem to reflect the insidious rise of patriarchal views and conservatism within the social strata of Bengal.

Unique Features
Aside from the above mentioned spatial and temporal diversities in cultural practices, some of the unique features of "mētis," or inherited cultural traditions of Bangladesh, are its orality, community base, ritual nature, subaltern character, and inherent plurality of belief.

Orality
Julian Jayne, in his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, posits the thesis that these works are from an era of human pre-consciousness, when people were not yet conscious of their consciousness. As a result, Roger D. Abrahams proposes "a list of three imagistic universals in oral art: (1) overstatement and understatement, (2) concrete and specific language, and (3) translation of idea and emotion into action and symbol" (Lindahl 131), thus explaining the abundant use of kinesthetic movements in these performing arts.
Though redactions are available, practitioners are mostly non-literate and perform from memory. A big advantage is that these open-ended oral scripts allow greater freedom for cross-cultural transmission and intertextual incorporation.

Issues of Rituality, Plurality, and Community Base
The use of the performative body as a vehicle for spiritual realization during rituals is a trend that commenced with the seminal Carya culture of Vajrayana Buddhism in the 8th-10th Centuries A.D. based on the philosophical concept of sahaja.
This later continued through different structures within other belief systems. Verily, underlying these performances is an entire cosmology known to both the initiated and the lay. Remnants of these kinesthetic practices, both in rituals and performances, can still be observed within the culture of the present-day Bauls and Fakirs-the initiates of a folk belief system of Bengal.
Rituals enacted against pledges, made to Hindu and Muslim divinities, are a common practice amongst the subaltern communities of both Hindu and Muslim populace. The performers are both actors and faithhealers of maladies like snake bites and diseases. Performance spaces are consecrated with a worship to that particular divinity, primarily the Hindu Serpent Goddess Manasa, beginning with incantations to Allah, Rasul, and Saraswati, all in one go. We learn from the 1920 book on folk literature by Dineshchandra Sen that, "A manual of these incantations and mantras has lately been published by Mir Khoram Ali from 155-1 Masjidbari Street, Calcutta. This writer says in the Introduction to his Manual that his name stands first in the list of those physicians who cure by charms and incantations" (Sen). This confirms the plurality of beliefs inherent in these practices. Furthermore, patronage of these practices is totally community based, with little or no acknowledgement or recognition by urban centers.
Interestingly, in the pre-Islamic eras the narratives were based on mangal-kavyas and panchalis, which are genres of Bengali-Hindu religious texts, composed more or less between the thirteenth century and eighteenth century, and consisting, notably, of myths of indigenous deities of rural Bengal in the social scenario of the Middle Ages. After the advent of Islam, this trend of narratives was transposed onto the newly arrived preachers and guides of Islam, which had given rise to many popular saints-or Pirs-graced with divine power, and are called pir panchalis. "If aspiration to come nearest to the ideal established in Nāṭyaśāstra lent grandeur to the classical performing arts, the need to appropriately and creatively respond to the sacred and non-sacred in varied circumstances lent variety to the folk performing arts" (Singh 18).

Dance Within Indigenous Traditions
It is worth remembering that all cultural forms glossed in Western academics as "dance" are not necessarily consistent with the equivalent traditional concept of nāch in Bangladesh. Seeking a political ontology of the use of various kinesthetic continuum of movements, we come across some of the most radical and subversive epistemologies of dance within the folds of the inherited traditions of Bengal.

Kinesthetic Enactments of Belief
Sahajiya philosophy proclaims the individual's capacity to realize Truth-or sahaja-through embodied practices. It is this concept of sahaja that has, for centuries, fired the imagination of the people of this amazing deltaic land that is Bangladesh. Not just a confluence of rivers from the east, west, and north, this land also has witnessed the convergence of mystic beliefs from far and wide which have all converged into the ocean of sahaja.
The sahaja culture rejects the inference of hegemonic textual religions and declares a firm belief that the finite body has the potential to realize the Infinite creative principle through corporeal practices, including dance. As this "discourse of protest was constructed within the cultural context of dominations" (Bandyopadhyay 37), it continued under various configurations as a popular practice. The polysemic nature of these practices makes it popular within the general populace, while retaining the double entendre significance for initiates alone.

Movement as Martial Art
The other exception is the martial dance, variously known as raibeshe, lathikhela, or binoti, amongst others. Martial dance is based on elaborate techniques and precision of presentation. Having evolved as an art of serious combat, using the bamboo staff as a weapon of both defence and offense, it is now merely a performative art due to its decline since the colonial era. This is when its practitioners were brought under the purview of the draconian Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts (1836-1848) enforced by the British. Presently, it continues to be one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Bangladesh.

Symbiosis of Movement and Narration
Kinesthetic movements identified as dance are embedded within narrative performances and are rarely autonomous acts of performance. This is consistent with the comprehensive concept of nāṭya-or theatreas described in the Nāṭyaśāstra, the extraordinary first-century CE compendium of dramaturgy. It states: "Theatre (nāṭya) actually encompasses all forms of art expressions. There is no knowledge, no craft, no lore, no art, no technique, and no activity that is not found within it" (Bharata 1.16). 25 Dance, therefore, "cannot be understood in isolation" (Vatsyayan 9), rather it is a symbiotic concoction of music, theatre, and movement (i). These dances are marked by an informal spontaneity and fluidity which welcomes experimentation and assimilation (ii). Though lacking the formality of the śāstra-or science-each genre of dance has a basic formation, where rhythm and melody play a major role (iii). Notably, none of the dances within folk theatre of Bangladesh use the elaborate hand gestures of classical Indian dances (iv). Underlying eroticism, use of pelvic thrusts, and swaying of hips, albeit by male dancers impersonating the female, is an integral part of most forms. In fact, there is an ambience of Bakhtin's "carnivalesque" within most indigenous performances, which celebrates "a transitory freedom from hierarchical ranks, privileges, norms, and prohibitions," and a simultaneous renewal of hope (K. Singh 8).

Safeguarding and Strengthening Dance
We may well ask ourselves: In what way does this elaborate exercise of documentation, validation, elaboration, and refinement of ideas provide usable knowledge? A reasonable response would be an acknowledgement of the investigation in collaboration of activism as a step toward empowerment of communities who are the heritage holders of these traditions. We could even go on to state that action research is a step toward social and, potentially political, change. As succinctly stated by ethnographer Dwight Conquergood: Whereas analytical interpretation and artistic creativity often are segregated in the academy (liberal arts/fine arts), I try to unpin these thinking/ doing, interpreting/making, theory/practice oppositions and help students appreciate the productive dialectical tension between ideas and action. Theory is enlivened and most vigorously tested when it hits the ground in practice. Likewise, artistic practice can be deepened, complicated, and challenged in meaningful ways by engaging critical theory. (Conquergood 5)

Action Research
Most of the time, work with grassroots, indigenous dance and dancers results in contemporary, urban-based performers appropriating information from folk forms and enriching their own repertoire of movements. The same can be remarked about academics augmenting their own theoretical work with information from the field  with little impact on the indigenous community itself. The challenge is to come up with a win-win situation for both groups. "Projects that are most successful in empowering community members in some way seem to be those in which professional researchers and community members work together as equals to decide on levels of community participation, the degree and type of action that is appropriate, setting goals, and other matters pertinent to conducting the research" .
In Bangladesh, several projects of ethnographic activism have achieved remarkable success. The project to revitalize lathikhela was aimed to combine "inadvertent teaching of content knowledge" with "analytic teaching of pedagogical knowledge," while multisectoral practitioners participated in it. The Cholo Lathi Kheli 26 project was designed in two phases, by Shadhona, a cultural organization in Dhaka, covering a fifteen-month period. The different phases were: • Phase One was a brainstorming session. The idea was to bring practitioners from all over Bangladesh for a final brainstorming workshop in Dhaka where extensive documentation of each group's performance was carried out. Also, "Sharing of the Local Knowledge" (SLK) sessions were organized to garner information from the indegenous knowledge experts through the "mapping of collective memory" still reposited in them in the form of myths, riddles, and songs about "lathikhela." • Phase two involved follow-up workshops: Sharing interactions led to follow-up workshops where twenty young practitioners of "lathikhela" trained in body fitness, acrobatics, dance, martial arts, and pedagogy of Lathikhela and Dholbadon (drum playing) with the aim of extending, revitalizing, strengthening, and safeguarding the practice. This is a continuing initiative. As a corollary, the project actively supported the teaching of the martial art to young girls with the result that in Norail it is now the norm for girls to participate in lathikhela. 27 The riverine, a processional ritual performance of Shaone Dala, is also now supported by a few groups of cultural activists. The Cholo Poddar Gaan Gai Project, 26 https://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-136708 27 https://m.theindependentbd.com/magazine/details/125036/Lathi-Khela-With-A-Message 28 https://www.prothomalo.com/entertainment/%E0%A6%9A%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%96%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B0-%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%BE%E0%A 6%AE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%87-%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B9%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE-%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%96%E0 %A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A6%E0%A6%B0 29 Body pedagogics emphasises learning as a physically embodied process. It illustrates how multisensory experience causes embodied changes which relate to the process of cultural transmission. also initiated by Shadhona, included: (1) arranging attendance of the yearly event by research scholars, heritage professionals, and government officials; (2) supporting the community of performers and (3) building an equitable relationship between indigenous performers and urban theatre/performance activists. The two groups co-produced a much-appreciated production, "Podda Behular Akhyan," 28 which also traveled to India.
There are ongoing research projects to empower ethnic communities by strengthening their cultural practices through the four-goal approach of: (1) documenting Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and living traditions in Bangladesh, (2) recognizing and celebrating ICH with festivals and commemorations, (3) supporting and encouraging the transmission of knowledge and skills, and (4) exploring the potential of ICH as a resource for community development and achieving the goals of safeguarding.

Prioritizing Human Experience
It can be argued that dance has a particular propensity to foreground cultural memory as embodied practice by virtue of its predominantly somatic modes of transmission. Indeed, in traditional forms of danced display, it could be argued that longevity of human memory is publicly enacted, demonstrating the ethereality of human existence and the continuity of human experience, as successive generations represent the dancing.  Given this context, recent acknowledgement of the "body pedagogics" 29 of human experience, on top of available literary and oral sources of knowledge, it is worth our while to explore embodied knowledge of cultural practices. Transmitted through "enskillment of" and "attention to" sensory inputs from the environment rather than through socialization and enculturation, ways of perceiving are the sedimentation of past histories of direct, mutual involvement between persons and their environments . The body carries unique knowledges of its own-both known and unknown to us. To document, analyze, strengthen, and ensure its transmission to coming generations can only enhance our fount of knowledge.

SOUTH ASIAN DANCE INTERSECTIONS 35
To enable us to do this, it is imperative to acknowledge all knowledges and formulate a general epistemology, which overrides the geopolitics of both knowledge and culture, with the aim of embracing all.
The truth is that there is no one universal and evenly distributed knowledge construct, but many-differing conceptually and difffering in their stages of critical and analytical development. Under the circumstances, the catchphrase "freeing ourselves of parochialism," from Tagore's quote and the concept of an "ecology of knowledge" could be actively examined to, at least, start a discourse about acknowledging all forms of performances sans hierarchy.