Igor Spanò, Dal tempio alla piazza: il Karakāṭṭam o ‘danza della brocca’

In Indian cultural traditions, dance plays a significant role, closely connected, in most cases, to expressions of cultic and ritual life. In particular, the element of the jug held balanced on the head is present in religious contexts as early as the Vedic period in the description of a dance performed at the end of the mahāvrata ritual by a group of maidens: among the meanings of this performance emerges specifically that related to the promotion of fertility linked to female sexuality. Even in present-day India, several dances in the course of the choreography involve a particular skill on the part of the perfomers, often women or girls, in balancing a jug on their heads, symbolically representing the Goddess. There are notable differences, but also interactions and sometimes forms of symbolic borrowing or appropriation between folk dance forms and those legitimised by the Brahmanical tradition. Such characteristics emerge particularly in a dance belonging to the Tamil Nadu tradition, the karakāṭṭam or karagāṭṭam (the 'jug dance'), of which there are two forms of performance: the first, linked to temple celebrations and called sakthi karagam, is danced on the occasion of festivities linked to the cult of the goddess Mariyamman, the 'Lady of the Rain', and takes on an apotropaic significance aimed at propitiating rain and guaranteeing prosperity; the other, called ātta karagam, is a form of entertainment that constitutes a true expression of street performance today, particularly at folk festivals celebrating the harvest in farming villages. The study of the symbolism linked to the jug in the history of Indian religiosity makes it possible to glimpse a possible process of re-signification and re-use of ancient symbolic elements and to highlight analogies and forms of continuity, despite the changing contexts and the temporal distance that separates today's India from the expressions of Vedic religiosity, with contemporary performances and rituals.