Joep Bor & Tiziana Leucci: The European Tour of Five Tamil Devadasis, Their Nattuvanar and Two Other Musicians, 1838-1839
Sometime in 1838, a troupe of five devadasis, their nattuvanar and two other musicians signed a contract for a term of eighteen months with a French impresario, E.C. Tardivel. The dancers and their accompanying musicians were attached to the Perumal temple of Thiruvendipuram in the French territory of Pondicherry. Billed as the ‘real’ Bayadères or Priestesses of Pondicherry, they were the first Indian artists to perform all over Europe. As soon as they arrived in Bordeaux on 24 July, the novelty was widely announced in French and British newspapers. A few weeks later, the ‘interesting strangers’ became instant celebrities after they danced for the French royal family at the Tuileries.
Tardivel had chosen the right time to present the devadâsî. Paris was in the midst of an oriental vogue in the 1830s, and Marie Taglioni had made fame as the lead dancer of the opera-ballet Le Dieu et la Bayadère, which was known in England and the USA as The Maid of Cashmere. There was also an increasing interest in ‘national dance’ and ‘national music,’ particularly the dance and music of the oriental Others. Not only that, from Marco Polo (c.1298) onwards the temple dancing and singing girls from southern India had been a standard topic in European travel writing. Although many descriptions are superficial, biased and based on earlier reports, we will demonstrate in the first part of our presentation that some writers presented original and lively eyewitness accounts. These tell us a great deal about the female dancers and singers, not only temple and court artists but also itinerant performers. And perhaps more importantly, they reveal the different ways such Indian artists were perceived by European travelers and missionaries.
Next we will focus on the European tour of the artists from Thiruvendipuram. In Paris they performed at the Théâtre des Variétés and threatened ‘to eclipse Marie Taglioni and her fairy train.’ In London they danced at the Theatre Royal Adelphi and in the Egyptian Hall. After this, in 1839, they performed in Brighton and other European cities such as Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Vienna. Examining 50 articles and reviews, we will analyze their dances and their costume, and what was written by the press about their art. The presentation will be illustrated with iconographic material found in city archives, and the archives and libraries of various theaters and opera houses.
Finally we will show that the presence of these authentic devadâsî on European stages had a profound effect on writers, composers and other artists, particularly in France and England. Their impact was not only felt in the dramatic productions of nineteenth-century operas and ballets, but also in bayadère songs, female fashion, and several literary works
Biographical Statement:
Joep Bor is the founder of the World Music Academy at the Codarts Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Rotterdam. In addition to numerous articles, he has written and co-edited six books on Hindustani music, including The Voice of the Sarangi and The Raga Guide, which has received wide acclaim and three awards. Born in Amsterdam, Joep Bor has lived seven years in India, first studying sarangi with Ram Narayan and Abdul Majid Khan in Bombay (1971-72), and then continuing his studies in New Delhi (between 1974 and 1985) with the renowned vocalist Dilip Chandra Vedi. He received a M.Sc. in Botany from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. in Indology / Musicology from the University of Utrecht. At present he is Professor of Extra-European Performing Arts Studies at Leiden University and Vice-President of the Indian Musicological Society. Bor was the Artistic Advisor of the Concertgebouw for the 2008 Amsterdam India Festival.
Tiziana Leucci studied ballet and contemporary dance at the National Academy of Dance, Rome. She graduated in History of the Performing Arts and Indology at the University of Bologna, Italy, with a dissertation on Indian dances. With the help of Indo-Italian government scholarships, she spent twelve years in India (1987-1999) to learn bharata natyam in Kalakshetra, dasi attam with V.S. Muthuswamy Pillai, T.K. Pattammal and Kadur Venkatalakshamma, and odissi with Kelucharan Mohapatra. A lecturer of Italian Language and Literature at Madras University, she then went to France to complete a Ph.D. thesis in Social Anthropology and Ethnology on the artistic and socio-religious tradition of Indian temple and court dancers (devadasi and rajadasi) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Member of the International Dance Council of UNESCO and the Italian Association of Dance Research, Leucci collaborates with universities, research institutes, opera houses and museums in India, Europe and the USA. She is a performer and a dance teacher.
