Индийский придворный танец науч: история и традиции

Popular court dance in royal India

The nautch ('/n//ɔː//tʃ/, meaning "dance" or "dancing" from Hindustani: "naach") was a popular court dance performed by girls (known as "nautch girls") in later Mughal and colonial India. The word "nautch" was a British corruption of Nachna, the Hindi verb to dance. Over time, the nautch travelled outside the confines of the imperial courts of the Mughals, the palaces of the nawabs and the princely states, and the higher echelons of the officials of the British Raj, to the places of zamindars. However under the British Raj they came to be reviled as lewd by the Victorian standards of the British and not well tolerated. As a result many nautch girls lost their former patrons and were pushed further into prostitution, as local mistresses for the British were replaced with wives from Britain.

Earlier, devotional dances were performed in the temples by the devdasi for spiritual reasons only. Nautch girls were also invited to perform on the special events of the native Indians where guests congregated in a separate performance hall, nautch girls sat with the nautch party, composed of attendant musicians and two or more nautch girls, whose numbers vary depending on the status of the host.

The nautch, performed only by the girls, evolved into several styles, three of which were most essential, the mor nach (the dance of peacock to attract peahens), patang nach (the kite dance imitating both the kite and the kite flier) and qahar ka nach (the palki pallbearer's dance, erotic and suggestive dance performed as finale) were popular types of dance.

The "zamindari nautch" patronised by the Zamindar of Baghmundi was known as the araiha, in which two or four nautch girls and two jhumar singers in company of about 20 male dancers took part in the singing and dancing. Part of the songs were repeated by the dancing girls and by the male dancers, and the nautch girls formed a line or a circle to perform a dance similar to the fox trot as two or three sang, and they repeated the refrain.

The nautch girls performed in small troupes called the "nautch parties", which consisted of just one or two people to 10 or more, including dancers and singer, and their husbands often played the role of musicians and handlers.

A mama, usually an older and experienced maidservant, who sat in a corner of the dais preparing paan (betel nut) and beedi (Indian cigar) for patrons, was responsible for taking care of nautch girls, their meals, and safekeeping of the jewelry worn by them. A muhafiz was an unarmed guard who maintained order, acted as usher, and ensured protection during performance and travel. Mashalchis (one or two lamp bearers) of the troupe were responsible for the lighting during night performances. In 1561 Akbar's army, led by Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad Khan, attacked Malwa and defeated Baz Bahadur in the battle of Sarangpur (29 March 1561). One of the reasons for Adham Khan's attack seems to be his lust for Rani Roopmati. She, however, poisoned herself upon hearing of the fall of Mandu. Baz Bahadur fled to Khandesh. "Pyari Jan" was a famous nautch girl of Delhi in 1815.

The shift in attitude to nautch girls can be attributed to the British Raj, who after capturing Lahore from the Sikhs after the Anglo Sikh wars did not share the same attitude towards dancing girls. While the British men were happy to take local women as concubines and mistresses they were uninterested in becoming patrons of the formerly well tolerated courtesans of Lahore, and even less interested in spending lavish sums upon them. The Victorian purity movement, which spread from England to the colonies and the Indian mutiny of 1857 further reinforced these views on local practices such as dancing girls which were seen as lewd by the Victorian standards of the British Raj. British women were imported into India (and modern day Pakistan) as respectable wives to replace local mistresses.

In the mid nineteenth century, with the spread of western education and pressure from the increased number of Christian missionaries after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, dance was stigmatized and shunned by Europeans and Indians alike. Consequently, nautch girls abandoned by their patrons were often forced to take up prostitution for survival,