Partners: Dr. Monica Mottin, Mithileshwar Jhijhiya, and EITV2024

March 2024

In collaboration with the Heritage as Placemaking Spring School “Living heritage, performance, and placemaking” (Organized by Dr. Monica Mottin, Dr. Monalisa Maharjan, and Binita Magaiya)

This outreach initiative supported the travel and performance space for Mithileshwar Jhijhiya, a team of jhijhiya dancers from the Dhanusha district of Nepal, to Kathmandu, welcoming them as performers in the international festival of folk music, Echoes in the Valley. During their time in Kathmandu, the team interacted with other folk musicians from Nepal and abroad and shared their work with participants of the HaP International Spring School “Living Heritage, Performance, and Placemaking.”

Dr. Monica Mottin, lead organizer of this initiative, describes its impact and the potential for future collaboration:

Jhijhiya dance and the Mithileshwar Jhijhiya

Jhijhiya dance is a Hindu religious dance that is practiced ritually by Maithil women of specific castes during Dashain to worship goddess Durga and to protect their communities from negative energies. Over the past decade, it has also become a much loved symbol of Maithil identity and is performed on stage as a folk dance during cultural programs by dancers of any caste, even though it is not usually known outside Maithil circles. The Mithileshwar Jhijhiya perform ritually in their own village during Dashain, but over the past couple of years they have also performed on the stage during cultural programs in Janakpurdham and in the surrounding areas. Since last December, they have performed regularly at the Cultural Village in Mithileshwar as an income generating activity that has infused new interest in practicing this dance.

I (Monica Mottin) have met this group and other jhijhiya groups in Dhanusa district while researching heritage performances for HaP. Led by Mr Pancha Mandal, the Mithileshwar Jhijhiya team includes Mamta Kumari Mandal, Sarita Kumari Mandal, Laxminiya Kumari Mandal, Sudira Kumari Yadav, Rubi Kumari Mandal, Meenu Kumari Mandal, Sabika Kumari Mandal, Chandani Kumari Mandal, Sanjhira Kumari Mandal, Sarita Kumari Mandal, Prem Devi Mandal, Shiv Kumari Mandal, Kiran Devi Mandal, Shushila Das, Ram Lochan Mandal.

“From the Tarai to the Valley”

Thanks to the support of HaP Outreach and Engagement fund, in March 2024, fourteen team members and a representative of the Cultural Village travelled from Mithileshwar to Kathmandu to both perform at Echoes in the Valley and interact with the participants of the HaP International Spring School on “Living heritage, performance and placemaking”. The aim of the HaP Outreach and Engagement project “Jhijhiya dance: from the Tarai to the Valley” was twofold: First, it sought to provide the jhijhiya team with an international platform that could appreciate their art while offering the Kathmandu audience a new experience, as Maithil heritage performances are almost never showcased in Nepal’s capital. Second, the initiative created a space for exchanging experiences about the dance and other personal stories related to individual heritage practices between the dancers and the Spring School students.  

Teaming up with Echoes in the Valley and the HaP Spring School

Echoes in the Valley has turned out to be the ideal arena for partnership, as it is not just a music festival. To quote the producer Bhushan Shilpakar, “EITV is a philosophy.” The festival, in fact, aims at offering families a space to engage with music and other artistic and creative activities while at the same time discovering the places in which the festival takes place. Started by a group of Newar men in 2017, over the years the EITV organizing group has been mindful of including female performers, groups from non-Newar backgrounds, artists from throughout Nepal and abroad, well-known performers and new groups. An EITV volunteer called this year’s additions “revolutionary” because of the participation of both the jhijhiya team and a group from the Sunuwar Kiranti community. EITV organizers have also found that this formula really works. Before and after performing, the jhijhiya team were accompanied by two EITV volunteers, Anjali Sah and Shishir Kharel, to visit Kathmandu and Patan, as most of the artists had never been to the capital (and those who had, had not gone sightseeing). Even though two artists suffered from motion sickness after the night bus ride to Kathmandu, the enthusiasm was such that they preferred to visit the valley instead of resting at the hotel. 

Thanks to Anjali Sah’s translation, the interaction between the Spring School participants and the jhijhiya team was much appreciated by both parts and ended in a multilingual exchange of songs. One of the Spring School students also remarked that a community group could never participate in an international event like EITV in other South Asian countries, and praised the freedom and openness that currently exists in Nepal.

Videos taken during after Mithileshwar Jhijhiya’s performance: