Manipur's Lightfoot

Akendra Sana *

Disclaimer: The narration is largely based on the fact that Australian Louise Lightfoot, dancer, choreographer, impresario and scholar was a guest during her stay in Manipur in the 1950s at the house at Keishamthong Elangbam Leikai of Imphal of my maternal grandfather Yumnam Gouramani Singh, popularly then known as Gouramani Saheb, the first practising modern architect of Manipur. And my mother Binodini then a young girl gave company to Louise Lightfoot during those days and the text here is based primarily on the experiences as understood and related by her during her lifetime.

Louise Lightfoot can be introduced as a nearly rare Westerner who helped popularize the traditional dance forms of Manipur to the outside world. She was born in 1902 in Victoria, Australia.

Louise Lightfoot, when she first came to stay in the house, said her name was 'Light' pointed skywards to the sun, then slowly to her 'feet' and completed saying "Lightfoot" and smiled at my mother. Next it seemed she said she was from Australia and was coming to stay with them to be in Manipur.

My mother must have spoken very little English then but Lightfoot soon introduced her to many English words and certainly a different way of life. It turned out that my mother was going to be the only person she communicated regularly other than my grandfather in those conservative ways of the household of the 1950s.

On hearing stories about Lightfoot from my mother once I asked my grandmother why she did not learn some English to be able to converse with the Mem. Lightfoot was always addressed Mem in the family. Grandmother only smiled and did not say anything and left it to my mother to narrate.

The rest of the household found the Mem so very different probably meaning that the Mem looked different, tall and fair, dress different with her flower print flowing frock, ate differently, moved around differently, and lived differently from the way of life the household was used to.

My mother said that she probably considered the quick bath in the morning before starting the day with a puja and any work in the kitchen soon after different and exotic because the Mem had said she would never be able to do that.

Early in life Lightfoot was influenced by Theosophical thinking which encouraged racial and gender equality among different other belief positions. This possibly shaped her to lead the kind of life she led in several parts of India and in Manipur exploring.

She had already earned a name in her native Australia becoming the first woman qualified architect in Melbourne, having graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1923 aged 21 years. Before coming to India she had already choreographed and produced ballets and co-founded a ballet studio and a large dance school in Sydney.

She always loved dance and while still an architecture apprentice she showed promise in the study of dance forms and slowly realized that she would be moving away from architecture.

Before Manipur, she had already lived in Kerala, studied Kathakali and promoted the art form in India and abroad after arriving in India for the first time in 1938. She is believed to be the first Westerner to study Kathakali.

She also spent years in Tamil Nadu during her stay exploring India and the dance forms. For years she was learning different techniques of the dance styles of Kathakali and Bharat Natyam.

Lightfoot arrived to Manipur in 1951 presumably organized by Rajkumar Priyo Gopal Sana Singh, the master exponent of Manipuri dance who had performed in Bombay and Calcutta and elsewhere under the able tutelage of his father and guru Rajkumar Surjaboro Sana Singh.

She stayed at an old army building in the present DM College campus which was used as an office of my grandfather, the local contractor who was awarded the project of constructing the DM College Academic building.

Later and in her latter visit to Manipur in early 1957 she stayed as a guest occupying the first floor at the house of my grandfather at Elangbam Leikai. It was while she staying here that she researched the ritualistic aspects of Manipuri dance and life.

Food must have been a major adjustment she had to make. She had provisions to prepare her meals separately. Food habits was so different, there was no other way. My mother said she found it strange that the Mem ate so little in her meals and at times she would throw in an egg to a boiling small pot of rice to complete a meal.

This my mother said she could not understand but she did notice that the Mem ate a lot of fruits during the day.

She would never sit idle. She would take out her bicycle and go out and moved around Imphal. Imphal those days must have been very different with drains getting wider during the rains and the makeshift wooden plank and bamboo mini bridges would wash away.

She told my mother that whenever she had to cross such drains she would look around holding her bicycle handles and that soon boys nearby would help her lift the bicycle to cross them so that she could continue.

She was not happy that the smaller boys laughed at her when she passed them but then she took them in her stride knowing that nothing could be done even as she could not understand whether it was simple banter or jeer.

She did tell my mother that they did not seem to mean harm and that their reaction must be because she looked different and hence the curiosity. My mother said when Mem tried many times to teach her to ride a bicycle she could never lift herself to the bicycle and had to give up. It seemed she said that my mother was confident only at home and in the car with her father.

Most afternoons Mem would spend time with Kshetrimayum Ibetombi Devi, my grandfather's niece, then a talented young Manipuri dancer who had given performances with a number of dancers and the dance practices were a daily affair. Lightfoot would be there in those practice sessions observing and soaking in the art form.

She showed particular interest in the older traditions of the art form notably the Maibi Jagoi, the dance of the Maibis, the shamans of Manipur. The dance is about communion with the Divine while depicting many aspects of everyday social and economic life from farming to house-building.

She witnessed and recorded the happenings at the Lai Haraoba, the communal offerings to the sylvan deities, festivities those days.

All these dances form rituals for the Supreme Being. She was possibly trying to understand the mystique of the art form, which at once was considered divine and earthy.

A culmination of that interest was perhaps her publication of a monograph titled, Dance-Rituals of Manipur – An Introduction to Meitei Jagoi in 1958 and later her recording of songs and ritual music was released in the American Ethnic Folkways series in 1960 as "Ritual Music of Manipur".

It was evident that to her, Manipuri Dance was a happy confluence of aesthetics and Asian mysticism. She always had a word about Maibi Jagoi when there was any discussion about Manipuri dance as a whole.

Lightfoot, the competent impresario managed to present Manipuri Dance to appreciative audiences across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan and the western world through the period from 1938 to 1958. In these performances the lead performer was Rajkumar Priyo Gopal Sana Singh and Kshetrimayum Ibetombi Devi with whom she shared a long fulfilling relationship.

Through her association with many things Manipuri during her stay, it was clear that she was absorbing a lot of Manipur as much as for the Manipuris like my mother it was about appreciating a different approach to life and what art does to people to cross boundaries.


Views are personal.