WOMAD

The Gotipuas, young dancers and acrobats from Orissa

From India

Child performers recreate sacred rituals

Scroll back through the ever-thickening mist of time, almost three whole decades back in fact, and a certain five-letter acronym you know so well was coined - WOMAD. It stood - and still stands - for World Of Music, Arts and Dance. The latter element has been put into the shade a little over the intervening years, a state of affairs that the Gotipuas will do their utmost to redress. Through a combination of dance, acrobatics and sacred music, these androgynous child performers recreate the rituals of the temples of Orissa. But the purpose of the acrobatics is not to merely put on a show-stopping spectacle to elicit applause and admiration. As they themselves explain, "in the traditional world, acrobatics is an expression of the sacred and is intended to embody the supernatural through the human dexterity pushed to its climax, to create real living frescoes celebrating and honouring divinity".

(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2011)
Photo: JF Mousseau