Mukti's Marvel — Heritage as Placemaking: The Politics of Solidarity and Erasure in South Asia

Partners: Pushpa Palanchoke, Folk Lok and Let’s Play

July 2024

In collaboration with Tahnani Dapha Khalah and Dapha Dhuku, and Shree Bishwo Rastriya Secondary School and Hilltown International School

This outreach project in Kirtipur, Nepal, brought secondary school students from two schools, one government and one private, together through a games workshop based on a graphic novel on the multidimensionality of music, heritage and place. Through a partnership between Tahnani Dapha Khalah and Dapha Dhuku, and Shree Bishwo Rastriya Secondary School and Hilltown International School the project aimed to enhance a social fiction and make it representational of both the past and desired future, before it is sent to publication, by working with twenty five secondary-level students from a government and a private school in Kirtipur.

In what follows below, Pushpa Palanchoke, the lead organiser of this initiative reflects on the workshop and it’s goals and outcomes.

Pushpa Palanchoke, lead organiser of this initiative reflects on the workshop and its outcomes:

Mukti’s Marvel: Collaborating, creating and playing; placemaking

Meta-narratives on heritage often overlook the interests of younger generations. Teenagers are frequently perceived as passive participants, merely expected to absorb heritage knowledge and pass it on to future generations, without fully recognizing their capabilities or addressing assumptions about their lack of motivation (Zhang et al., 2024). Globally, Authorized Heritage Discourses, often influenced by nationalism or ethnic identity (Smith, 2006) seek out experts and authorities who shape these narratives, and Nepal is no exception. Such discourses significantly impact the national curriculum, which in turn affects the younger population. Although local governments, particularly in the Kathmandu Valley, support incorporating local heritage into the curriculum, the experience of youth growing up in a diverse, urban environment like Kathmandu raises questions: How do they perceive heritage, and what are their expectations for its preservation?

Between July 19th-27th, our collaborative team led by Folk Lok, a community-based arts program reached out to 25 students from two different secondary schools of Kirtipur municipality— Shree Bishwo Rashtriya Secondary School and Hilltown Secondary School. These students from grade six to eight came from different socio-cultural and ethnic backgrounds, perfectly representing the heterogeneous Newa urban settlement of Kirtipur. Half of the students were Newa from Kirtipur’s localities and the other half represented different ethnicities from different geographical regions (as far as Far-Western Region) of the nation with recent history of having to move to Kirtipur. In recent years, Kirtipur municipality, home to Tribhuvan University, the country's oldest university, has emerged as a major destination for migrants from across the nation.

As part of HaP outreach, we engaged with the students through various activities in three phases based on a graphic novel titled Mukti’s Marvel. The graphic novel is a social fiction that places a young teenage girl named Mukti at the center of a Dapha music tradition. Dapha among Newa indigenous people is a music tradition that incorporates singing with Khim barrel drum invocations for Newa protecting deities, and seasonal, socio-historical as well as celebratory or tragic songs. These songs are sung in groups and during different times of the year and hours of the day. Each Newa neighborhood with high influence of agricultural sedimentary living has at least one dapha music group. These historical groups first were established by Malla courts in 1600s as caretakers for temples these neighborhood housed. Dapha music tradition hence is an amalgamation of musical elements under Raag and Taal system, common to most South Asian music traditions, and rituals and festivals based on the agricultural calendar of the Newa people. The social fiction, Mukti’s Marvel is a result of my three years of collaboration as Folk Lok’s lead (in support of Satori Center for the Arts) with Tahnani Dapha Group of Kirtipur, and my observation of their musical traditions and associated rituals, history and folklore, and its aspirations to adapt to the current socio-political environment.

The social fiction is intended to;

contribute to the revitalization of dapha music heritage by informing young audiences specifically about the unique dapha tradition, and in general about underlying indigenous values.
encourage gender-inclusive placemaking within music heritages by introducing female protagonists in association to men-dominated heritage.

The outreach with 25 students of the schools was designed with objectives to:

reach out to the audience outside of the dapha community and Newa ethnicity, and share with them the joy and values of the dapha music heritage that are still of relevance to present-day society.
create an environment of exchange between the traditional dapha community and young audience further receiving feedback from the latter to enhance the graphic novel.

The outreach was designed as three overlapping phases including storyboard coloring contest, game design workshop and contest, and heritage walk. The total twelve students from each school were grouped into four groups of three for all of the activities.

For the coloring contest students were provided with a set of acrylic color kit and pencil color. The school which didn’t have art class facilities was also facilitated with a ninety minutes of coloring basics workshop. The groups were given a week of time to color a total of forty pages of visual storyboard of the graphic novel. They were explicitly mentioned to be open to engaging with the visuals the way they like, and were not given any specific instructions. They were, however, suggested to be mindful about specific elements like the color of the temples’ roof. The intention for this contest was to have students engage with various plots and characters of the story creatively on their own will. Many of the participants responded to this as a fun activity that not only allowed them to understand the storyline of the novel, but also to work with students from different classrooms of their own school. Many also shared about their challenge of not having enough time to read the dialogue boxes and the narrative texts, hence lacking context for the activities that followed in later phases. Almost half of the participants shared about the language barrier because of the English texts and suggested the need to have the text translated into Nepali language.

The coloring contest was brought to a decision by members of Tahnani Dapha Khalah picking Group A from Hilltown Secondary School whose color palates resonated best with their tradition. Their work also visibly showed group-effort put into completing the task. The members of the group were Sudeshna Dangol, Mishan Karki and Sachita Maharjan. Misan Karki mentioned how she enjoyed learning about different Newa deities and musical elements of Dapha through coloring and other activities that followed. This will be a reference for our illustrator going forward to pick color palettes for various characters and their moods in the graphic novel. The winning group is excited to have contributed to this effort.

The second phase of the outreach invited same groups to participate in three hours of game-design workshop– where these participants were led by facilitators of our collaborators Let’s Play and volunteers of Local Youth Nepal to first play and understand a game based on folklore of Bagh Bhairav temple inception and later design similar game based on different plots of the graphic novel. The workshop allowed young participants to explore existing games and recreate them based on stories of various characters of the novel. For many of them their favorite characters were Mukti, the protagonist young girl and her pet chick Khecari who turns into a carousel being and her ride in her voyages to the other realities. The participants created various games incorporating other characters like Nasa Dya and Gana Dya, Indrayani Goddess, Laal-Heera and Kutiya Buri. These characters, most of them who Mukti meets during her multiverse travel, created much space for the participants to explore dynamics between human and godly world in Newa epistemology.

The designed games were taken out to final phase where students were taken for a heritage walk to Kirtipur town in the route of Devi Pyakha, a processional masked dance Tahnani Dapha Khalah hosts annually. While the women lead of the Dapha Khalah showed around the route, and shared about their experiences with Dapha while walking around, Let’s Play led game play in various open public spaces of Kirtipur like Layaku, Dev Dhoka, Bagh Bhairav Temple and Tahnani Dapha Khalah.

The gameplay and heritage walk provided participants with opportunities to engage with details of each plot in the novel and further connect them with the traditions of Tahnani Dapha Khalah on ground. Those who complained about the language barrier and lack of understanding the context found themselves enjoying the overall exchange with the Dapha Khalah. Tahnani Dapha Khalah hosted a welcome offering of saga (an offering of red-marks on forehead) at their Phalcha, and brought the engagement to a culmination with communal samay feast and gifts offering to each participant at Ankha Chen. The elder masters at the Dapha group rejoiced seeing young people of their grandchildren’s age engage enthusiastically with them and their tradition. A master commented he was very impressed to see them design games using the musical and cultural elements of their tradition. As per a suggestion from a young participant to make the graphic novel interactive, we are exploring ways to incorporate some of the designed games between the chapters. Based on the engagement of the audience and players, Group D of Shee Biswo Rashtriya Secondary School were announced winners for designing and executing the best game. The group members Bhabesh Timalsina, Saurab Limbu and Khushbu Limbu had designed a game similar to red light and green light; hold and run. Saurab Limbu shared that it was a great opportunity for him to creatively and artfully engage and understand Newa ways of doing and being.

The outreach program reveals that young people, even when growing up in a heterogeneous urban environment, have a dynamic and interactive relationship with heritage, contrary to the perception that they are passive observers. The students engaged in the program were not merely absorbing information about the Dapha music tradition but actively participating in creative processes that allowed them to reinterpret and personalize their understanding of this heritage. Their participation reflects a desire for heritage to be presented in ways that are accessible, engaging, and relevant to their lives. For instance, the challenges some students faced with language barriers and time constraints during the coloring contest indicate that traditional modes of heritage transmission might not always align with their needs or capacities. However, when given the freedom to explore heritage through activities like game design and interactive walks, the students demonstrated a strong ability to connect with and reimagine the cultural narratives.

Moreover, the students’ engagement in designing games based on the novel and their enthusiastic participation in the heritage walk suggest that they view heritage as something that can be integrated into their daily lives in creative and playful ways. They are not just interested in learning about the past; they want to experience it actively and see how it can be adapted to their contemporary world.

This indicates that young people expect heritage to be more than a static set of traditions to be preserved. They seek opportunities to engage with it in ways that are inclusive, interactive, and reflective of their diverse backgrounds. By doing so, they are not merely carrying heritage forward but are also transforming and revitalizing it to fit the evolving cultural landscape in which they live.

References:

Adhikari, R. (2020). Local Curriculum and Mother Tongue Education in Nepal. INVENTIVE A Peer Reviewed Open Access Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2. https://digitalglobenepal.com/1_Dr.%20Rishiram%20Adhikari.pdf

Rolling, J. H. (2017). Arts-Based Research in Education. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of Arts-Based Research (pp. 493–510). Guilford Publications.

Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203602263

Smith, L. (2015). Intangible Heritage: A challenge to the authorised heritage discourse? Compilation- Revista d’Etnologia de Catalunya, 40, 133–142.

Zhang, Y., Ikiz Kaya, D., Van Wesemael, P., & Colenbrander, B. J. (2024). Youth participation in cultural heritage management: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 30(1), 56–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2023.2275261