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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Uttara Asha Coorlawala
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Extract

It is my pleasure and honor here to introduce three articles by prominent scholars and practitioners of Indian dance to celebrate a set of profound, meticulous acts of devotion—the writings of Kapila Vatsyayan. These essays, originally presented at an honorary panel for Kapila Vatsyayan at the 1998 CORD Conference, offer diverse perspectives and conceptual frames that significantly enrich our appreciation of Vatsyayan's outstanding contribution to dance scholarship. The first frame, that of Janet O'shea, focuses on the interactions between body, subjectivity, a system of dancing, and their combined implications for dance studies. Joan Erdman's frame draws attention to the ways in which Vatsyayan's vision of dance interacts with Indian culture and becomes expressed as thought, art, architecture, and poetry. Mohd Anis Nor considers the impact of Vatsyayan's scholarship on the works of East Asian scholars. Finally, Vatsyayan herself speaks in an informal interview about formative influences on her writings. Her spontaneous responses reflect and confirm issues that the set of papers have raised concerning her postcolonial experience of scholarly research.

Janet O'shea, a performer of Bharatanatyam, explores how Vatsyayan's understanding of the bodily experience of dancing informs her organization of the components of dance structures. She observes that Vatsyayan's concept of dance demonstrates how the various Indian dance forms groom the body to reflect the concepts of body-shape, posture, and of articulation of movement that are listed in the theoretical texts. O'shea notes that “this methodological framework situates dance as an active cultural participant in relation to other systems of thought” and offers a model for exploring dance as a system.

Type
Kapila Vatsyayan∼Honorary Papers
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Summer 2000 , pp. 78 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2000

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References

Notes

1. Kapila Vatsyayan, personal conversation, CORD (Congress on Research in Dance) Conference, Ohio State University, November 1998.

2. Shringy, R.K. (trans.), Sangita-Ratnakara of Sarngadeva Vol. 1. Treatment of Svara. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978).Google Scholar The term marga is found much earlier in the Natyashastra and is generally dated at between 200 B.C.E. and C.E. 200.

3. Redfield, Robert, “The Social Organization of Tradition,” Far Eastern Quarterly (November 1955): 13-21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Redfield's work was extended by Singer, Milton in When a Great Tradition Modernizes (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972).Google Scholar

4. Bose, Mandakranta, The Idea of Dance in the Sanskritic Tradition (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991).Google Scholar

5. Bharatiya Natya Sastra, directed by Dr. V. Balakrishnan, was broadcast in a twelve-part series on Doordarshan (Indian television) in 1992. Here, Subrahmanyam discusses the marga and demonstrates common movements in various classical dance styles. Sucheta Bhide Chapekar often used this term in her articles published in Sruti Magazine for Indian Classical Music and Dance. Most recently Kothari, Sunil has used marga in Bharata Natyam (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1997), p. 199.Google Scholar

6. Vatsyayan cites a legend from the Vishnudharmottaram Purana where the sage Markandeya narrates the interconnectedness of all the arts. See Vatsayayan, Kapila, Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts (New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1968), p. 2.Google Scholar