Bhavai

Understand

Where Bhavai comes from

Bhavai has two overlapping strands in western India: a folk theatre (Bhavai / Vesha / Swang) of Gujarat traceable to the 14th-century Brahmin playwright Asaita Thakar, and a balancing dance (Bhavai dance) more strongly identified with Rajasthan but also performed across Gujarat. The dance is widely associated with the goddess Amba — the name may derive from the Sanskrit bhava (emotion/expression) or be parsed as bhav (universe) + aai (mother), making Bhavai literally an offering to the Mother of the Universe. The Bhavai folk-theatre tradition is performed in open spaces in front of temples, particularly during Navaratri at the Ambaji temple near Mount Abu on the Gujarat–Rajasthan border.

How it's practiced

In the dance form, the lead performer — a woman in the classical Rajasthani tradition, with mixed troupes in Gujarat — balances up to a dozen or more earthen pots, brass pitchers or metal thalis on her head while dancing on the rim of a brass plate, the edge of a sword or even broken glass. The dance is accompanied by male singers and an instrumental ensemble of pakhawaj, dholak, jhanjhar, sarangi and harmonium. The Bhavai theatrical tradition adds scripted drama on top: an evening of vesha or swang plays staged by hereditary Bhavaiyya communities of the Taragala, Nayak, Bhojak and Vyas castes.