The Making of a Heroine Through Time

The dances and memories of British Bangladeshi women set in harmonious pasts in rural East Bengal often feature outstanding female protagonists. The focus on heroines, fantastic and real, is part of mnemonic transactions that do not simply reproduce and maintain memories in London but reassert women as agents and engage with alternative endings in an inherently creative and embodied process. The figure of the heroine or Birangona, initially invented by the first independent government of Bangladesh, was quickly abandoned institutionally; however, British Bangladeshi women today stick to the idea and keep on inserting their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and friends as heroines in the making of the past. Focusing on the adventures and violence they recollect, today in dance, these heroines are celebrated for their remarkable contributions and sacrifices during the long durée of Partition.