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I first saw Our Stories, Our Songs, Amelia Maciszewski's compelling video documentary about hereditary female performers in North India, at the enormous Musical Intersections Conference in Toronto, Canada. The audience reacted instinctively. Touched by the women's stories, appalled at their present living conditions and intrigued by the evocative music and dance, they immediately asked how they could help, how the aging singers' lives might be improved and whether the film could be used to raise funds.

Even after repeated viewings, it is still difficult not to be affected by this film. From the initial montage of miniatures, old photographs and short clips of some of the featured women to the poignant performance by Mustari Bai at the end, we are persuasively pulled into a world of marginalized lives and marginalized music. Maciszewski presents nine women, eight singers and one kathak dancer, who are living recipients of a lineage of North Indian music and dance inherited from the courtesan or tawa'if culture that flourished before the turn of the century. The women, most of whom are in their sixties, tell their own stories in their own languages. The interviews are interspersed with cameo performances and one is easily transported back in time on the sounds of thumri, ghazal, khayal and dhrupad. Maciszewski herself is rarely on screen. One hears her ask the occasional question and murmur an encouraging accha, but her philosophy seems clearly to be one of stepping back and allowing the women to speak in their own voices. The result is an extremely personal view into the homes, lives and memories of these often forgotten women.

Our Songs, Our Stories travels from Bow Bazaar in Kolkata (Calcutta) to Muzaffarpur in Bihar. The first singer introduced is Lalita Devi, who can trace her musical lineage matrilineally through several generations. Next is Madhuri Devi, a kathak dancer who still teaches young baiji--s how to sing and dance: she demonstrates both classical kathak and more suggestive forms for the film. Sadly there are only still photographs from the home of Shanti Devi, a third generation singer trained in the Lucknow style, although we do hear her grandsons sing a tappa to their father's harmonium playing. At the next stop, the home of Aruna Devi we join in a qawwali lesson that is in progress. The visit ends with a ghazal performed by ten-year-old Chandri Kumari, the charming daughter of Aruna. Aruna's mother, Kali Dasi is also a fine singer, and she and Aruna perform for the camera a few days later. Next the camera is invited into the kitchen of former singer, dancer and stage actress, Daya Kumari. The film's emotional impact becomes even more intense as the last three women tell their stories. Forced by her husband to take a twenty-five year break from the singing she loved, Braj Bala Devi was able to return to her career only after his death. Asgari Bai, now in her eighties, is one of the only female dhrupad singers of her generation. Patronized by maharajas and music connoisseurs in her youth, she was reduced to poverty after the death of her supportive husband. Recently she has been recognized and presented with awards by the Indian government, but her wild eyes communicate the difficulty of her journey. The last singer, Mustari Bai, has a face and voice that sum up the collective fates and feelings of the aging tawa'if-s. Through Maciszewski's closing translation, she shares her feelings of frustration and betrayal - "after a lifetime of laborious dedication to their art" she and the other skilled, hereditary musicians have been marginalized and all but silenced as the classical music world has embraced mainstream and "respectable" women performers.

The film's presentation matches the intense yet personal tone of its content and contrasts with more slick and professional productions. For the most part the women are relaxed, comfortable and communicative. My favourite performance is Daya Kumari's seemingly impromptu rendition of Jhooli Radha Pyari. Unaccompanied and uninhibited, she interrupts her performance first to tell her granddaughter to stop making noise in the kitchen, then to bring Amie's attention to the beauty of the last verse. It is charming and unaffected, and we the audience feel as welcome and complicit as if we were also guests in her kitchen. One can easily, therefore, accept camera-work clearly adapted to the informal but sometimes less than ideal circumstances. If space constraints made it impossible to film Madhuri Devi's entire body as she danced, we are more than compensated by the closeness of her face and her final flirtatious wink right into the camera. The paran she performs is certainly recognizable as a choreography by her guru Ram Narayan Misra, a version of which is also taught by Madhuri's guru-bha'i Chitresh Das.

One could wish, however, that some of the editing was smoother. Several changes in scene have sudden cuts in both visual and musical material that are disconcerting, even jolting. There are focus problems in Kali Dasi's interview and the sound fades when we see a picture of Kamala Devi, Lalita Devi's mother. I also found that the credits went by much too quickly: in this type of film, the names of the women, places, musicians and music are important and one should be able to savour them as one remembers each cameo. Maciszewski's narration is even more important, and not really as effective as it could be. Her careful style is measured and clear, but a little dry especially considering the marvellous stories she is recounting. Edited on top of the engaging voices of the baiji-s, the narration becomes difficult to focus on - one is tempted constantly to listen to the singing instead!

In the end, however, it is the women themselves that make this film so convincing. It is very clear, especially to the knowledgeable viewer, that these are voices, faces and stories seldom heard today, although at one time they belonged to an esteemed elite. Maciszewski's inspiration in devising this project, work in locating and contacting these marvellous women and production of a film in which each situation is allowed to speak for itself deserves nothing but praise. Our Songs, Our Stories: North Indian Women's Musical Autobiographies is not only a unique and valuable addition to Indian ethnography, but also a deeply touching film able to communicate beyond a scholarly audience.

A note from Amelia Maciszewski:

Amelia Maciszewski comments on Margaret's review:

• The sound problem on the clip of Lalita Devi's mother is largely due to the fact that the recording I got was a cassette of a scratched-up, chipped-up 78rpm that Lalita Devi kindly retrieved from her village home near Jaunpur, UP, and my research assistant, Arup Sen Gupta, taped on his rigged up turntable-to-walkman system.

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