Dancing Bodies of Devotion

Katherine C. Zubko

doi:10.5771/9780739187296

Summary

Dancing Bodies of Devotion: Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam examines how Bharata Natyam, a traditionally Hindu storytelling dance form, moves across religious boundaries through both incorporating choreography on Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and Jain themes and the pluralistic identities of participants. Dancers traverse religious boundaries by reformulating an aesthetic foundation based on performative rather than solely textual understandings of rasa, conventionally defined as a formula for how to physically craft emotion on stage. Through the ethnographic case studies of this volume, dancers of Bharata Natyam innovatively demonstrate how the rasa of devotion (bhakti rasa), surprisingly absent from classic dance-related texts, serves as the pivotal framework for expanding on their own interreligious thematic and interpretive possibilities. In contemporary Bharata Natyam, bhakti rasa is not just about enhancing religious experience; instead, these dancers choreographically adapt various religious identities and ideas in order to emphasize pluralistic cultural and ethical dimensions in their work. Through the dancing body, multiple religious and secular interpretations fluidly co-exist.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2014
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7391-8728-9
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7391-8729-6
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 252
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. List of Illustrations No access
3. List of Abbreviations No access
4. Note on Transliteration No access
5. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 32
1. Chapter 1. Rasa: A Taste of the Divine No access
2. Chapter 2. Balasaraswati and Krishna Ni Begane Baro No access
3. Chapter 3. Francis Barboza and Christian Themes No access
4. Part I Conclusion. Bhakti Rasa: A Re -Personalized Aesthetic of Devotion No access
1. Chapter 4. Rasa and Bhakti as Indian Categories No access
2. Chapter 5. Dhananjayans’ Saṇghamitrā No access
3. Chapter 6. Kalai Kaviri’s Gāyatrī Mantra No access
4. Part II Conclusion. Is There an Indian Way to Dance Devotion? No access
1. Chapter 7. Nāṭya as Visual Education and the Ethics of Rasa No access
2. Chapter 8. Dhananjayans’ Stree (Woman) No access
3. Chapter 9. Monica Cooley’s Morality Tales and Bhagavad Gītā Śabdam No access
4. Part III Conclusion. An Ethics of Bhakti Rasa: Performance of a Moral Mood No access
1. Chapter 10. Unity and Multiplicity of Rasa No access
2. Chapter 11. Malini Srinivasan and Sufi Qawwāli No access
3. Chapter 12. Tehreema Mitha and Ratt Jaga (The Vigil) No access
4. Part IV Conclusion. Revisiting “Unity in Diversity” No access
Conclusion. Toward a Poetics of Mediation No access Pages 219 - 226
Glossary No access Pages 227 - 230
Illustrated Glossary of Gestures No access Pages 231 - 234
References No access Pages 235 - 244
Index No access Pages 245 - 250
About the Author No access Pages 251 - 252