This narrated film explores the sacred music, dance, and rituals of devidasis and devidasas, women and men dedicated to the goddess Renuka/Yellamma. Worshipped by millions of devotees in the border regions of southern Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, and adjacent areas of India, this fertility goddess is best known through media representations and social activism protesting practices linked to sexuality and prostitution. Her musical and social traditions have parallels in the devadasi (women dedicated to male deities) system in Tamilnadu before its reform and classicization in the early 20th century.
Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy (B.A. Vassar College 1970; M.M. Yale University 1972; Ph.D. Brown University 1980) is a visiting faculty member in the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA, where she teaches courses on the classical and folk musics of South and Southeast Asians and Asian-Americans, field methodology, ethnographic film, music and the sacred, and applied and public sector ethnomusicology. Amy’s research, writing, teaching, curating, and multi-media publications often have an applied focus aimed at community development of minority traditions, especially in diasporic settings. Her applied research includes projects with Cambodian-American refugees and the Hmong-American tribal minority of Laos. She and UCLA historian Edward Alpers co-edited Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians (New Delhi: Rainbow Publications, 2004) concerning the African-Indian Sidi community of India. Her recent writings address the impact of international touring on the sacred traditions of Sidi Sufis. She is currently an affiliated professor at the University of Visual and Performing Arts in Colombo, Sri Lanka.