The Bhil Tribe of Rajasthan - Gavari Theatre Ritual (film)

This short film serves as an introduction to the Gavari festival in India. Gavari has been celebrated for at least the last five centuries by the Mewari Bhil tribe – who are among India’s oldest inhabitants and settled in Rajasthan well before the Aryans arrived. It is a unique spectacle of art, trance and ecstasy unlike any other in the modern world. Indeed, in the West the closest parallels to the Gavari festival were probably the Greek Dionysian mystery plays or the medieval passion plays – which in a similar fashion combined theatrical performing art with religious enactments of a deeper reality experienced directly by the actors and their audience.

“Whether or not you fancy dramaturgy and archaic myths or eco-mysticism and tribal sociology, one must admit that the Bhils’ Gavari tradition presents the world with a rare epiphanous art form that is both sensuously stunning and spiritually profound.” – W. David Kubiak

“The modern or contemporary concept of ‘total theatre’ in which music, dance and drama find their own voices is foreshadowed in Gavari.” - Shri Mangal Saxena

“If you see these dramas, you’ll fall in love with their presentations!” - Lokesh Paliwal