We know from numerous studies (Levy, 1990) that public performances of music and dance are to be expected at a religious festival in a Newar town. And this evening at Dasai – more precisely, on 18 October 2010 – this is precisely what we find here in Bhaktapur, the easternmost of the three ex-royal cities in the Kathmandu Valley. A large crowd has gathered in an open square to watch song and dance performances being presented from the square's dabu, the permanent open-air platform. Performers – not only from Bhaktapur but also from towns such as Kirtipur and Panga, at the other end of the valley – have been invited to participate. They present emblematically Newar cultural items to the audience: dancers in red-bordered black saris, ensembles such as a basuri khalah (with wooden transverse flutes and a khi drum), instruments such as dhimay drums, ragas such as Malashri, Basanta and Byanculi, the melody known as Ghintangmay, and the melodies of the songs ‘Va Chu Galli’ (‘What Alley is That?’) and ‘Sirsaya Heku’ (‘The Spinning Wheel's Handle’).

But even so, it is obvious that this is not a traditional – ‘tradition’ in the sense of ‘inherited from previous generations’ – Newar cultural event. Basanta is traditionally sung in the spring, not the autumn. While Malashri is indeed the raga of Dasai, here this traditional Newar melody is performed with sargam vocalizations of the kind found in semi-classical Indian music, and with an ensemble that includes not only the Newar khi and the pan-South Asian combination of harmonium and tabla, but also a violin, a mandolin and two bamboo flutes. The pre-recorded music that accompanies some songs and dances includes keyboard/computer-generated sonorities that do not sound like anything traditionally Newar. Quite a number of the songs are composed in a contemporary, literarily ‘modern’ (adhunik) style. And, notably, the quotes from ‘K. Mao’ (‘K.’ for kamred, comrade) on the red banners decorating the area's houses and the many invocations of ‘people's culture’ (janasamskriti) and ‘struggle’ (sangarsha) in song texts and announcements make it clear that this is a leftist, indeed a Maoist, event.