Songs for Sadhana, Music for Money: Baul Songs and Performative Spaces

Abstract: The 21st century records a huge repertoire of Baul Gaan performances and concerts all over the world. Baul Gaan as a process therefore has largely dealt with adaptation to changing circumstances, generational struggles, governmental intervention and tendencies of universalization. The term “performance”, as have been recruited in the work of the previous scholars, usually conveys a dual sense of artistic action: a) the doing of folklore, and, b) an artistic event. Artistic events as a domain of performance involves the performer, the art form, the audience and the setting. Hence, the performance approach develops in doing folklore and in considering the performance situation. Baul songs (when seen as folkloristic products) put into performance, re-orients itself from a ‘folklore of materials to a folklore of communication’ (Bauman 1984:4). Hence, a performance centered approach calls for the performance itself and its linguistic features stand secondary to the nature of performance (ibid:6). Baul song in performance thus become as a mode of communication in a particular frame. And as folklore of communication, not as materials facts, Baul songs constantly negotiates with its overlapping companions—-the individuals, the venues, the patrons, the music, and the contextual identity of the song in performance. Therefore instead of looking at the corpus of the songs trough an exclusive interrogation of their esoteric beliefs and practices, Aratrika’s deliberation will aim to enquire the negotiations of Baul composer—Baul performer—the audiences and their patrons by a multi-local analysis of the multitude of performative settings of Baul songs. Her intention throughout the talk, thus, will been a constant effort to re-insert Bauls and their songs within a flexible socio-economic and performative framework.

 

Bionote: Dr.Aratrika Bhattacharya is an Asst.Professor of Sociology at St.Xavier’s College, Burdwan. Her doctoral thesis largely dealt with the politics of the performative contexts of the Baul songs in performance in Bengal and beyond. Coming from a family of musicians, and with her own training in North Indian classical vocals for two decades from Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Dr.Aratrika had always been curious about the anthropology of different musical forms. This, in combination with her research interest in religion, religious communities and culture studies, led her to the Bauls of Bengal. She is passionate about Baul music and travels extensively to collect and learn songs from them. Aratrika completed her doctoral journey from the Presidency University, Kolkata and is keen on further research in music and folklore.