Explicating More-than-Human: Dance, Indigeneity, and Virtuosity of the Maibis of Manipur

Abstract

Chronicling and translating a world of unknowns, Maibis are inimitable movement and ritual specialists who belong to the Meitei community of Manipur in the northeastern region of India. The photo essay focuses on the many roles of Maibis during the unfolding of Umang Lai Haraoba—a ritual that is performed to honor divinities and reenact creation myths and the making of the cosmos, as believed by the Meiteis. The essay, through images, illustrates movements and rituals of a woman-led, indigenous socioreligious tradition. In a world inhabited by humans, a more-than-human domain is imagined, translated, and danced by Maibis. They are respected as bearers of myth, gestures, and oracles. The essay charts the danced domain of the Maibis, an infinitesimally small group of practitioners, who have rarely been acknowledged in the danced canon of the South Asian subcontinent.