Browsing by Subject "Indian classical dance"

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    Building a Natya Shastra: Individual Voices in an Evolving Public Memory
    (2011) Salinas, Anandi

    In this project, I reassess fundamental assumptions about tradition, classicality, and authenticity by exploring how artists of various Indian dance forms construct and engage these terms in the retelling of the history of their dance styles. To explore the nuances in the negotiation of terminology in the creation of oral histories, as well as to showcase the dancing itself, I have chosen to look at both dance and narrative in multiple formats of video and text. This paper serves both to survey the ethnographic process of making the film as well as to further explore the theoretical possibilities that were evoked in the many narrations in the film. I will eventually suggest that the formulations of classicality and authenticity in relation to text and temple point to the importance of concept of public memory in the creation of a dynamically constituted tradition rooted in foundational texts such as the Nāṭya Śāstra and living traditions connected to dance lineages and teachers.

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    Musculoskeletal effects and injury risk in collegiate Indian classical and ballet dancers
    (2016-06-07) Prakash, Roshni
    Dancers of all forms often engage in aesthetic yet challenging movements. Their training, choreography, and performances require strength, stamina, flexibility, grace, passion, and emotion. Ballet and Bharatanatyam (an Indian classical dance form) dancers utilize two movements in each of their dance forms that are similar—a half-sitting pose and a full-sitting pose, both requiring external rotation of the legs and bending at the knee joints. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the biomechanics of joint reaction forces and knee angles in both styles of dance for these particular poses. The study included nine female ballet dancers and seven female Bharatanatyam dancers. Hamstring and gastrocnemius flexibility were measured for each dancer. Knee angles, vertical peak forces, and moments were determined for dancers at the lowest point of their bending positions. Mann-Whitney U tests found significant differences in hamstring flexibility, right gastrocnemius flexibility, and knee angles for the full-sitting poses between ballet and Bharatanatyam dancers. No significant difference was found in the vertical peak forces as a ratio to total body weight and moments between the two styles of dance. Further research can be done to more directly assess a difference in injury risk between the ballet and Bharatanatyam dancers.