DESPERATELY SEEKING SAMMI: RE-INVENTING WOMEN'S DANCE IN PUNJAB

Based on original fieldwork among professional performing artists, interviews with culture promoters, and observation of unfolding events, this article details the history of a dance form little known outside Punjab. The dance samm? is, in fact, little known within India?s Punjab state as well, despite recent efforts to revive it through staged presentations. In the late 20th twentieth century, culture promoters in Punjab began to recognize dances that had previously been marginalized – by the over-commodified bhangra – in an effort to regain a sense of the region?s diverse yet fading artistic heritage. Sammi, a dance of the Western Punjab, was among those that were promoted. Yet unlike the case for some other dances, information on sammi, mostly possessed in India by displaced tribal people – and especially the cloistered women of those communities – was not readily available. After surveying the historical sammi dance, the article presents the recent history of modern stagings of the dance, wherein it now functions to provide equal performance opportunities in folkloric dance for Punjab?s growing number of educated young women. However, in order for this to be, a sammi dance has had to be essentially reinvented from scanty memories and imagination. Since the initial blow dealt by the Partition, local cultural dynamics of gender and ethnicity have created a scenario as to where and what has become presented under the name of ?sammi? may bear little resemblance to the heritage form it purports to revive.