Dance Matters Too Markets, Memories, Identities

Dance Matters Too: Markets, Memories, Identities is a rich intellectual contribution to the growing field of dance studies in India. It forges new avenues of scholarly inquiry and critical engagement and opens the field in innovative ways. This volume builds on Dance Matters (2009), which mapped the interdisciplinary breadth of the field. The chapters presented here continue to underline the uniqueness of a field that is a blend of critical scholarship on aesthetics and performance with the humanities and social sciences. Including diverse material, analytical approaches and perspectives from scholars and practitioners, this multidimensional volume explores debates on dance preservation and tradition in globalizing India, multimedia choreographies and the circulation of dance via electronic media, embodiment and memory, power, democracy and bourgeoning markets, classification and censorship, and corporatization and Bollywood. This tour de force will appeal to those in dance and performance studies, cultural studies, sociology as well as to readers interested in tradition, modernity, gender and globalization.

Dance Matters II: Introduction Pallabi Chakravorty and Nilanjana Gupta Part 1 Mah Laqa Bai: The Remains of a Courtesan’s Dance Scott Kugle Conflict between Cultural Perpetuation and Environmental Protection: A case study of Ritual Performance in North Malabar, South India Yoshiaki Takemura Bodies and Borders: The Odissi Costume Controversy Nandini Sikand I know it and I name it as I do it: Embodied Practice as a key to understand Performance Shruti Ghosh Cosmopolitan Then and Cosmopolitan Now: Rabindranrtiya Meets Dance Reality Shows Pallabi Chakravorty Part 2 Corporatisation of Dance: Changing Landscape in Choreography and Patronage since Economic Liberalization in Bengaluru Veena Basavarajaiah Negotiating Space for Dance within the Spectrum of Contemporary Performing Arts in a Globalised India: The Experiences of an Indian Arts Manager Arshya Sethi Bollywood Dance: Desire for the ‘Other’ Indrani Das Gupta Part 3 Rasalila Remixed: Tracing the Dances of an Image Pika Ghosh Why Dance Today In India? The Role of Dance Performances in an Era of Transdisciplinarity: A Philosophical Approach Jean-Fredric Chevallier Playing Dance and Dancing Music: The Work of Intimacy in Kathak Ameera Nimjee Embodiment, Reflexivity and Practice-as-Research in Indian Dance: A Case Study Parthana Purkayastha Remixing Natya: Revanta Sarabhai’s LDR and Post Natyam Collective’s Super Ruwaxi: Origins Sandra Chatterjee and Cynthia Ling Lee Part 4 Dancers and Critics: Re-viewing Tagore Aishika Chakraborty Pedagogy of Manipuri Dance: In and beyond the Temple Premise Sruti Bandopadhay Text, Context and Interpreter: Understanding the Paradigms of Sattriya Dance and Dancer in the Changing Space Anwesa Mahanta Why dancing the sensual sculptures matters?: Considering a sensory paradigm for Odissi dance Sabina Sweta Sen Index

Pallabi Chakravorty is Associate Professor and Director of the Dance Program in the Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College, USA. Nilanjana Gupta is Professor of English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.