Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-685pp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-08T01:50:21.790Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward Defining Contemporary Indian Dance: A Global Form

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2013

Ketu H. Katrak
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores innovations in contemporary Indian dance based in classical Indian dance, martial arts and Western dance vocabularies. Who is making change and how does change work? I delineate the parameters of contemporary Indian dance as a genre (since the 1980s) and distinguish it from Bollywood style “free” dance. I analyze the creative choreography of one prominent contemporary Indian dancer, Chennai (India) based Anita Ratnam. Ratnam's signature style, evoking the “feminine transcendental,” is rooted in Indian aesthetic along with a pan-Asian scope. Ratnam's over twenty-year dance career of solo, group, and collaborative work, along with pioneering artist, Astad Deboo, serve as role models for second-generation contemporary Indian dancers such as Los Angeles–based Post-Natyam Collective's movement explorations, among other dancers based in the diaspora.

Type
Research Article
Information
Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings , Volume 40 , supplement S1: Dance Studies and Global Feminisms , 2008 , pp. 129 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Anand, Anjana. 2007. The Hindu (Chermai), January 19.Google Scholar
Brecht, Bertolt. 1978. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Edited by Willett, John. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Chatterjea, Ananya. 2004. Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies Through Works by jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Coorlawala, Uttara Asha. 2004. “The Sanskritized.” Dance Research Journal 36 (2): 50–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katrak, Ketu H. 2004. “Cultural Translation from Bharatanatyam to Contemporary Indian Dance.” South Asian Popular Culture 2 (2): 79–102.Google Scholar
Krishnan, Hari, and Ratnam, Anita. 2005. Program Notes to 7 Graces. Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, India, [also used at Joyce Soho, New York, 2007]Google Scholar
Ratnam, Anita. 2008a. “The Contemporary in You.” At a Glance: Understanding India (June): 40–41.Google Scholar
Ratnam, Anita. 2008b. “The Sacred Spiral: Musings on Dance and Life.” India Perspectives (June/July): 17–22.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 1994. “Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?” Journal of American Folklore 107 (Winter): 9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar