Dawn newspaper, Karachi, describes Lahore's Heera Mandi area as, "Pakistan's oldest red light district was for centuries, a hub of traditional erotic dancers, musicians and prostitutes." The women are trained in mujra in Agra of India and Lahore and Karachi of Pakistan. In 2005, when dance bars were closed across Maharashtra state, many former bar girls moved to 'Congress House' near Kennedy Bridge on Grant Road area in Mumbai, the city's oldest hub for mujra, and started performing mujra there. To a lesser extent, dancers in Pakistan often perform a modern form of mujra along with popular local music. Modern Mujra dancers perform at events like weddings, birthday and bachelor parties in countries where traditional Mughal culture is prevalent, such as Pakistan. "The wealthy even sent their sons to the salons of tawaifs, high-class courtesans that have been likened to Japanese geishas, to study etiquette." Īs a musical genre, mujras historically reconstruct an aesthetic culture of sixteenth-to-nineteenth-century South Asia in which heightened musical and dance entertainment afforded a medium for exchange between one woman and many men - what ethnomusicologist Regula Qureshi calls, "an asymmetry of power that is tempered with gentility." In Lahore, Mughal empire's Heera Mandi neighbourhood, the profession was a cross between art and exotic dance, with the performers often serving as courtesans amongst Mughal royalty or wealthy patrons. They were sometimes called Nautch girls which included dancers, singers and playmates of their patron nawabs. Some noble families would send their sons to them to learn etiquette and the art of conversation from them. These courtesans or tawaifs had some power and prestige due to their access to the elite class and some of them came to be known as authorities on culture. During Mughal rule in the subcontinent, in places such as Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, the tradition of performing mujra was a family art and often passed down from mother to daughter. Mujra was traditionally performed at mehfils and in special houses called kothas. It also includes poems from other Mughal periods like the emperors from Akbar to Bahadur Shah Zafar's ruling periods. It combines elements of the native classical Kathak dance with native music including thumris and ghazals.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |