World Dance Cultures

From Ritual to Spectacle

Patricia Leigh Beaman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317441069
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Danza

From healing, fertility and religious rituals, through theatrical entertainment, to death ceremonies and ancestor worship, World Dance Cultures introduces an extraordinary variety of dance forms practiced around the world.

This highly illustrated textbook draws on wide-ranging historical documentation and first-hand accounts, taking in India, Bali, Java, Cambodia, China, Japan, Hawai'i, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Africa, Turkey, Spain, Native America, South America, and the Caribbean.

Each chapter covers a certain region's distinctive dances, pinpoints key issues and trends from the form's development to its modern iteration, and offers a wealth of study features including:

• Case Studies – zooming in on key details of a dance form's cultural, historical, and religious contexts

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• 'Explorations' – first-hand descriptions of dances, from scholars, anthropologists and practitioners

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• 'Think About' – provocations to encourage critical analysis of dance forms and the ways in which they're understood

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• Discussion Questions – starting points for group work, classroom seminars or individual study

• Further Study Tips – listing essential books, essays and video material.

Offering a comprehensive overview of each dance form covered with over 100 full color photos, World Dance Cultures is an essential introductory resource for students and instructors alike.

1
India

Devotion, dance, and mythology

1.1 Overview

After India’s long-sought independence from Britain was achieved in 1947, several indigenous genres of dance became institutionalized by its new government and received “classical” designation. In this chapter, bharatanatyam of Tamil Nadu, kathak of Uttar Pradesh, and kathakali of Kerala will be explored. Bharatanatyam was historically practiced by devadasis – a term that may be translated as “female devotees of god.” As a profession, they performed ritual duties in temples and danced as entertainers in royal courts in South India from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. Similarly, kathak derived from the hereditary tradition of tawaifs, women who were professional entertainers at the North India courts of Hindu and Muslim rulers during the Mughal Empire. Kathak combines Hindu elements with Islamic influences from Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Many parallels to kathak can also be seen in the footwork and expressive arms inherent in flamenco, a form that many speculate was influenced by Gypsies from North India who migrated to Spain.¹ When kathakali originated in the seventeenth century, it was traditionally performed as a dance drama by men and patronized by nobility and wealthy families. Its practitioners were members of a warrior caste, who were highly trained in a martial art that is still currently practiced in kathakali institutions.

In all three of these dance forms, royal patronage was crucial in supporting the tradition and profession of the performers. With the onset of British rule in the mid-nineteenth century, the ability of Indian rulers to financially maintain patronage of artists at their courts waned considerably. By the early twentieth century, tawaifs and devadasis became viewed as “nautch” dancers – a pejorative term for a common street dancer and prostitute – and were persecuted in an anti-nautch campaign. Although male kathakali performers did not suffer disdain, their professions were also affected by the loss of aristocratic support. By the beginning of the twentieth century, all three of these forms were altered or reconstructed due to a variety of sociopolitical factors. Today, bharatanatyam, kathak, and kathakali have become systematized and designated as “classical” Indian dance, and what was once a hereditary profession, passed between generations, is apt to be learned in an academic institution. These genres are global and continue to evolve through the innovations of vital artists who are honoring the cultural specificity of their respective discipline, yet transcending its boundaries in myriad ways.

Case study: British interests and rule in India

When Christopher Columbus inadvertently encountered the New World in 1492, his intended destination was India, and he called the indigenous people “Indians,” a misnomer that persists today. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had more success: by circumnavigating Africa in 1498, he reached India’s Malabar Coast. Soon, other European powers such as the Dutch, Danish, French, and British followed, all coveting spices. In 1600 the British East India Company was formed and came to rule most of India, demonstrating an unprecedented and unrestrained desire for supremacy and profit. After an Indian rebellion occurred in 1858, the British government officially took control of the country, which was known as the British Raj (“rule”). In 1947, after years of fervent nationalist activity by political luminaries such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, India finally gained its hard-won independence.

1.2 Bharatanatyam: concertizing a sacred form from South India

Key points: bharatanatyam

1. 1 Bharatanatyam is derived from sadir, a devotional dance form from South India practiced by devadasis, who performed ritual duties in temples and danced as professional entertainers in royal courts from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century.
2. 2 Traditionally, devadasis lived in extended family households run by female elders and had a lifestyle with more economic stability and rights than those of married women. Normally, Hindu households followed patterns of patrilineal inheritance, but devadasis could pass on both their land and wealth to their daughters.
3. 3 At puberty, a devadasi was symbolically “married” to a Hindu temple deity. This prohibited her from marrying a mortal man, but she could maintain a lucrative courtesan relationship with an upper-caste male patron, chosen by her female elders.
4. 4 In 1892, an “anti-nautch” campaign was launched against devadasis by the Indian Women’s Movement and British colonial rulers, which condemned their courtesan lifestyle and profession and led to the demise of the devadasi profession. Anti-dedication legislation was passed in 1947.
5. 5 The anti-colonial Indian nationalist movement took pride in indigenous arts, and reformists restructured sadir into bharatanatyam, a new symbol of Indian cultural identity. This label justified the dance by associating its origins with principles of Sanskrit drama and Carnatic music found within the ancient Bharata Natyasastra, an ancient dramaturgical text.

Our class is mentioned in all the works of literature and religion of our country through its various epochs … Everyone will readily admit that we have been the guardian angels of two of the most useful of arts to modern civilization: Music and Dancing.²

—From a 1927 petition by the Madras Devadasis’ Association

• Devadasis were women whose lives were dedicated to serving Hindu temples in the South Indian province of Tamil Nadu from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. Literate at a time in which many in India were not, these highly accomplished women were versed in song, dance, and music. Performing ritual functions as a devadasi in the temple was a hereditary profession, but families could also offer a young daughter to serve. Starting around age seven, a devadasi would be rigorously trained in music and the solo form of sadir, also called dasiattam (dance of devadasis) by male teachers called nattuvanars. At the conclusion of her formal training, a devadasi would perform an arangetram – a solo dance before the main deity in the temple. At puberty, a devadasi would be symbolically “married” to the deity in a dedication ritual known as pottukkattutal that served as her initiation into full temple duties. After a priest tied a necklace (pottu) around a girl’s neck, she symbolically entered into a divine marriage that ensured her the status of nityasumangali – an eternally auspicious woman.³ In Hindu society, a wife’s social welfare depended upon her husband being alive; unlike most married women, a devadasi was freed from the hardship of widowhood by being wedded to an immortal spouse.

Case study: Hindu gods: Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna

In Hindu mythology, deities are like normal people: they can feel jealousy, anger, and passion, and have spouses, lovers, and enemies. In order to facilitate their missions among mortals, they may be incarnated as avatars into other gods, goddesses, children, or animals. Some gods who appear frequently in mythology are Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna. Brahma is known as the Creator, while Shiva, the Destroyer, is also known as Lord of the Dance in his incarnation as Nataraja. In this guise, he destroyed the old world through his forceful dancing called tandava, allowing Brahma to create a new one. Vishnu is the Preserver and has ten avatars – incarnated beings that help him in his role as protector. Krishna, Vishnu’s eighth incarnation, is one of the most widely worshiped gods in the Hindu pantheon. Stories abound of his antics as a butter-stealing child and as heartthrob of the gopis – the milkmaids he enchants by his flute playing.

Devadasis received salaries from the temple, supplemented with money earned from special performances. They lived with their children in extended family households run by female elders, following a lifestyle that deviated considerably from traditional Indian values. Normally, Hindu households followed patterns of patrilineal inheritance, but devadasis could pass on both their land and wealth to their daughters. Since females continued the hereditary profession, devadasi families preferred their children not to be boys and could adopt girls whom they would train in temple service. As a symbolic bride of a deity, a devadasi was not expected to remain sexually abstinent, but could have liaisons with a wealthy upper-caste Hindu male patron selected for her by the elder women of the household.⁴ Her dedicated status made it a privilege for him to maintain her. In this lucrative arrangement as a courtesan, a devadasi lived independently and did not do domestic tasks for her patron. Many achieved considerable wealth through this lifestyle.

The Thanjavur court, salon performances, and the attack on devadasi tradition

By the seventeenth century, devadasis had begun to perform at the royal courts of Indian rulers, who displayed their political and moral responsibility as protectors of the society through their patronage of temples.⁵ At the Thanjavur court in the nineteenth century, King Serfoji II and his heir Sivaji II employed numerous temple dancers and innovative composers, notably the Thanjavur Quartet (1802–1865), founded by four brothers working as nattuvanars. Their experimental collaborations radically altered music and dance by creating new repertory and compositions, codifying the dance lessons, and integrating sadir into a coordinated performance order still followed today. In the mid-nineteenth century, Thanjavur court dancers and musicians began to appear in salon performances in homes of wealthy landowners and elite Brahmins of Madras. In these intimate settings, far from the temple or a king’s court, a new secular system of patronage developed between the dancers and their hosts that ignited the ire of some members in Indian society.

Figure 1.1 (p. 4)
Aparna Ramaswamy depicting Shiva on Nandi, the bull that is the bearer of truth.

Image: Amanulla....