Mujra is a form of dance created by tawaif (courtesans) during the Mughal era. It combines elements of the native classical Kathak dance with native music including thumris and ghazals. It could also include poems from other Mughal regions like Bahadur Shah Zafar. Mujra was traditionally performed at mehfils and in special houses called kothas. During Mughal rule in the subcontinent, in places such as Jaipur, the tradition of performing mujra was a family art and often passed down from mother to daughter. The profession was a cross between art and exotic dance, with the performers often serving as courtesans amongst Mughal royalty or wealthy patrons. As a musical genre, mujras historically reconstruct an aesthetic culture of sixteenth- to nineteenth-century South Asia in which heightened musical and dance entertainment afforded a medium for exchange between one woman and many men — what ethnomusicologist Regula Qureshi calls “an asymmetry of power that is tempered with gentility.”
