移动的身体,驾驭冲突:在斯里兰卡科伦坡练习Bharata Natyam

IF 0.6 1区 艺术学 0 MUSIC ETHNOMUSICOLOGY Pub Date : 2022-04-01 DOI:10.5406/21567417.66.1.14
Ameera Nimjee
{"title":"移动的身体,驾驭冲突:在斯里兰卡科伦坡练习Bharata Natyam","authors":"Ameera Nimjee","doi":"10.5406/21567417.66.1.14","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Moving Bodies is a detailed and critical examination of the role of the South Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam in the context of war-torn Sri Lanka, specifically as practiced in the capital city, Colombo. Drawing on choreographic analysis, dance ethnography and dance history, Satkunaratnam traces the rise and evolution of bharatanatyam within Colombo, and the different roles and resonances that the dance form has sustained in the face of a changing and frequently violent political backdrop. While there are growing bodies of scholarship considering the history and role of bharatanatyam in India and beyond, as well as reflecting on the history and significance of the twenty-six-year Sri Lankan civil war, apart from an excellent article by martial artist and scholar Janet O’Shea (2016), there is no work hitherto that has brought these two areas of enquiry together. Satkunaratnam’s book fills this gap. At the heart of the book is a reflection on the construction of identity, a process that takes on a particular urgency and significance in the context of a “time and place” made “dangerously transient” by war (46). Key to her discussion is a commitment to understanding identity as inherently fluid, following cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s insistence on culture as “transnational and translational” (21). At times of war, she argues, the space for the recognition of cultures as shifting and hybridized is submerged by the desire for a fixed cultural signifier that can serve as an identitarian rallying point. The first half of the book considers ways in which “bodies and movement” (6) are represented and refracted in ways beyond their control to serve the specific ideologies and institutions of politics and state. The second half looks at ways that dancers and choreographers negotiate and challenge such imposed identities, reasserting agency through choreographies of resistance. In this way, Satkunaratnam records how bharatanatyam has been classified variously as “Oriental,” “Indian,” “indigenous,” and “Tamil,” depending on the differing agendas and contexts of those imposing the classifications. She highlights, for example, how the experience of the vicious anti-Tamil riots in July of 1983 (“Black July”) “inscribed [bharatanatyam] with significance as a uniquely Tamil practice” in the face of “institutional, national and social exclusion” (49). She shows how, since 1972, bharatanatyam has been included within the mandatory “aesthetics” module of Sri Lankan state education, as a signifier, she suggests, of a Sri Lanka that is “multicultural” and accepting of diversity. And yet, a little probing reveals the limits of this inclusion and the extent to which it can serve to contribute still further to segregation along ethnic lines and an ultimate positioning of bharatanatyam as “Other.” In the second half of the book, she explores how creative choreography can subvert the very fixity that nationalism clings to, permitting a sense of choice in a space and time where there can be little or no choosing” (7). Drawing on Diana Taylor’s distinction between the “archive” and the “repertoire,” she shows how a seemingly unexceptional choice to stage an “often excerpted” (80) section of the Mahabharata (drawing on the familiarity of the archive) can be used to critique the present without the danger of explicit protest. Following the well-known archival narrative, the piece Draupadhi Sabatham highlighted “the suffering of civil society” (89), whereby an innocent woman is victimized due to the cruel and irresponsible actions of two opposing factions of “the same family” (85). Any parallels with the brutality and the weaponization of rape in the civil war are left for the audience to draw for themselves, though for Satkunaratnam, the echoes with the contemporary situation are compelling. Against the backdrop of “white van syndrome” (89) and a growing number of “disappearances” of perceived dissenters, the appeal of a critique of the abuse of power focused on a canonical story is clear. Other danced interventions that can be seen to disrupt or question the status quo include the hard-won inclusion of a piece privileging bharatanatyam within the Sri Lankan TV show Shakthi Superstar, navigating the demands for the more immediately accessible forms of","PeriodicalId":51751,"journal":{"name":"ETHNOMUSICOLOGY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka\",\"authors\":\"Ameera Nimjee\",\"doi\":\"10.5406/21567417.66.1.14\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Moving Bodies is a detailed and critical examination of the role of the South Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam in the context of war-torn Sri Lanka, specifically as practiced in the capital city, Colombo. Drawing on choreographic analysis, dance ethnography and dance history, Satkunaratnam traces the rise and evolution of bharatanatyam within Colombo, and the different roles and resonances that the dance form has sustained in the face of a changing and frequently violent political backdrop. While there are growing bodies of scholarship considering the history and role of bharatanatyam in India and beyond, as well as reflecting on the history and significance of the twenty-six-year Sri Lankan civil war, apart from an excellent article by martial artist and scholar Janet O’Shea (2016), there is no work hitherto that has brought these two areas of enquiry together. Satkunaratnam’s book fills this gap. At the heart of the book is a reflection on the construction of identity, a process that takes on a particular urgency and significance in the context of a “time and place” made “dangerously transient” by war (46). Key to her discussion is a commitment to understanding identity as inherently fluid, following cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s insistence on culture as “transnational and translational” (21). At times of war, she argues, the space for the recognition of cultures as shifting and hybridized is submerged by the desire for a fixed cultural signifier that can serve as an identitarian rallying point. The first half of the book considers ways in which “bodies and movement” (6) are represented and refracted in ways beyond their control to serve the specific ideologies and institutions of politics and state. The second half looks at ways that dancers and choreographers negotiate and challenge such imposed identities, reasserting agency through choreographies of resistance. In this way, Satkunaratnam records how bharatanatyam has been classified variously as “Oriental,” “Indian,” “indigenous,” and “Tamil,” depending on the differing agendas and contexts of those imposing the classifications. She highlights, for example, how the experience of the vicious anti-Tamil riots in July of 1983 (“Black July”) “inscribed [bharatanatyam] with significance as a uniquely Tamil practice” in the face of “institutional, national and social exclusion” (49). She shows how, since 1972, bharatanatyam has been included within the mandatory “aesthetics” module of Sri Lankan state education, as a signifier, she suggests, of a Sri Lanka that is “multicultural” and accepting of diversity. And yet, a little probing reveals the limits of this inclusion and the extent to which it can serve to contribute still further to segregation along ethnic lines and an ultimate positioning of bharatanatyam as “Other.” In the second half of the book, she explores how creative choreography can subvert the very fixity that nationalism clings to, permitting a sense of choice in a space and time where there can be little or no choosing” (7). Drawing on Diana Taylor’s distinction between the “archive” and the “repertoire,” she shows how a seemingly unexceptional choice to stage an “often excerpted” (80) section of the Mahabharata (drawing on the familiarity of the archive) can be used to critique the present without the danger of explicit protest. Following the well-known archival narrative, the piece Draupadhi Sabatham highlighted “the suffering of civil society” (89), whereby an innocent woman is victimized due to the cruel and irresponsible actions of two opposing factions of “the same family” (85). Any parallels with the brutality and the weaponization of rape in the civil war are left for the audience to draw for themselves, though for Satkunaratnam, the echoes with the contemporary situation are compelling. Against the backdrop of “white van syndrome” (89) and a growing number of “disappearances” of perceived dissenters, the appeal of a critique of the abuse of power focused on a canonical story is clear. Other danced interventions that can be seen to disrupt or question the status quo include the hard-won inclusion of a piece privileging bharatanatyam within the Sri Lankan TV show Shakthi Superstar, navigating the demands for the more immediately accessible forms of\",\"PeriodicalId\":51751,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"ETHNOMUSICOLOGY\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.6000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-04-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"ETHNOMUSICOLOGY\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.5406/21567417.66.1.14\",\"RegionNum\":1,\"RegionCategory\":\"艺术学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"MUSIC\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ETHNOMUSICOLOGY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5406/21567417.66.1.14","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka
Moving Bodies is a detailed and critical examination of the role of the South Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam in the context of war-torn Sri Lanka, specifically as practiced in the capital city, Colombo. Drawing on choreographic analysis, dance ethnography and dance history, Satkunaratnam traces the rise and evolution of bharatanatyam within Colombo, and the different roles and resonances that the dance form has sustained in the face of a changing and frequently violent political backdrop. While there are growing bodies of scholarship considering the history and role of bharatanatyam in India and beyond, as well as reflecting on the history and significance of the twenty-six-year Sri Lankan civil war, apart from an excellent article by martial artist and scholar Janet O’Shea (2016), there is no work hitherto that has brought these two areas of enquiry together. Satkunaratnam’s book fills this gap. At the heart of the book is a reflection on the construction of identity, a process that takes on a particular urgency and significance in the context of a “time and place” made “dangerously transient” by war (46). Key to her discussion is a commitment to understanding identity as inherently fluid, following cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s insistence on culture as “transnational and translational” (21). At times of war, she argues, the space for the recognition of cultures as shifting and hybridized is submerged by the desire for a fixed cultural signifier that can serve as an identitarian rallying point. The first half of the book considers ways in which “bodies and movement” (6) are represented and refracted in ways beyond their control to serve the specific ideologies and institutions of politics and state. The second half looks at ways that dancers and choreographers negotiate and challenge such imposed identities, reasserting agency through choreographies of resistance. In this way, Satkunaratnam records how bharatanatyam has been classified variously as “Oriental,” “Indian,” “indigenous,” and “Tamil,” depending on the differing agendas and contexts of those imposing the classifications. She highlights, for example, how the experience of the vicious anti-Tamil riots in July of 1983 (“Black July”) “inscribed [bharatanatyam] with significance as a uniquely Tamil practice” in the face of “institutional, national and social exclusion” (49). She shows how, since 1972, bharatanatyam has been included within the mandatory “aesthetics” module of Sri Lankan state education, as a signifier, she suggests, of a Sri Lanka that is “multicultural” and accepting of diversity. And yet, a little probing reveals the limits of this inclusion and the extent to which it can serve to contribute still further to segregation along ethnic lines and an ultimate positioning of bharatanatyam as “Other.” In the second half of the book, she explores how creative choreography can subvert the very fixity that nationalism clings to, permitting a sense of choice in a space and time where there can be little or no choosing” (7). Drawing on Diana Taylor’s distinction between the “archive” and the “repertoire,” she shows how a seemingly unexceptional choice to stage an “often excerpted” (80) section of the Mahabharata (drawing on the familiarity of the archive) can be used to critique the present without the danger of explicit protest. Following the well-known archival narrative, the piece Draupadhi Sabatham highlighted “the suffering of civil society” (89), whereby an innocent woman is victimized due to the cruel and irresponsible actions of two opposing factions of “the same family” (85). Any parallels with the brutality and the weaponization of rape in the civil war are left for the audience to draw for themselves, though for Satkunaratnam, the echoes with the contemporary situation are compelling. Against the backdrop of “white van syndrome” (89) and a growing number of “disappearances” of perceived dissenters, the appeal of a critique of the abuse of power focused on a canonical story is clear. Other danced interventions that can be seen to disrupt or question the status quo include the hard-won inclusion of a piece privileging bharatanatyam within the Sri Lankan TV show Shakthi Superstar, navigating the demands for the more immediately accessible forms of
求助全文
通过发布文献求助,成功后即可免费获取论文全文。 去求助
来源期刊
CiteScore
1.30
自引率
14.30%
发文量
30
期刊介绍: As the official journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology is the premier publication in the field. Its scholarly articles represent current theoretical perspectives and research in ethnomusicology and related fields, while playing a central role in expanding the discipline in the United States and abroad. Aimed at a diverse audience of musicologists, anthropologists, folklorists, cultural studies scholars, musicians, and others, this inclusive journal also features book, recording, film, video, and multimedia reviews. Peer-reviewed by the Society’s international membership, Ethnomusicology has been published three times a year since the 1950s.
期刊最新文献
Mizrahi Rap in Israel: Ethnicity and Intertextuality in the Cosmopolitan Post-Genre Era Song King: Connecting People, Places, and Past in Contemporary China Ritual Speech in the Himalayas: Oral Texts and Their Contexts “The War Songs Continue ’til They Find Peace”: Music and the Politics of Death on the Ethio-South Sudanese Border Congregational Music, Conflict and Community
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1