Synopsis

The Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre, in Tamil Nadu, India led by two radical Catholic nuns uses the Tamil folk arts to develop self-esteem and economic skills in young Dalit women (outcastes or untouchables). Sakthi reclaims the degraded parai frame drum to re-humanize and empower the young women through the physical embodiment of confidence in performance and a regenerated cultural identity in a complex campaign against gender, class and caste subjugation. This ethnomusicological documentary seeks to reveal and analyze Sakthi’s outstanding model for Dalit women’s development that integrates folk arts performance with social analysis, micro-economic sustainability, self-esteem and community development.