Darshan and Abhinaya: An Alternative to the Male Gaze | Dance Research Journal | Cambridge Core (original) (raw)

  1. The Nātyaśāstra defined abhinaya as that which carries the performance towards its fulfillment when the observer is bathed in the resonances of the narrative or “tastes” its emotions. Abhinaya carries the action forward through prescribed conventions of movement, costume, decor, instrumental or vocal accompaniment and inner attitude (Nātyasāśtra VIII, 6-9).

  2. Birju Maharaj, now recognized as India's foremost exponent of Kathak dance and repository of the Lucknow lineage, has often reiterated that rhythms are most clearly understood when they are visualized as patterns that are drawn on paper and that performance of the dances should explicate this perception. Such statements are recorded on an audiotape of a press interview in New York, May 28, 1991 and in a videotape of a lecture demonstration at an International Conference on Time and Space in Dance, in New Delhi, December 12, 1990. See Coorlawala, Uttara Asha, “Classical and Contemporary Indian Dance: Overview, Criteria and a Choreographic Analysis” (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1994), 101 Google Scholar.

  3. Freud, Sigmund, trans, and ed. Strachey, James. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1962), 23–33 Google Scholar. For Freud's construction of a love-object, see 88-96.

  4. For Lacan, seeing involves the act of naming, interpreting or translating the seen object. What is “seen” is constructed out of the encounter between the seeing subject's worldview and psychological baggage and the physical and essential qualities of the seen. However, the seeing subject cannot see his or herself and by simply existing has entered the scopic field. Each seeing subject in turn is named and informed by how s/he is seen by the Other. The gaze thus remains elusive and beyond the control of even the one who is looking. See Grosz, Elizabeth, Jacques Lacan, A Feminist Introduction (London: Routledge, 1990), 77–79 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. She cites Lacan's, J. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis (London: The Hogarth Press, 1977), 182–83Google Scholar. For how a multiplicity of forces interact in the formulation of hegemonies, see “The Deployment of Sexuality” in Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (New York: Vintage Books 1990), 75–80 Google Scholar.

  5. Odissi. A Prakash Jha Production featuring Kelucharan Mahapatra, Guru Mangani Dass, Kokil Prabha and Hari Priya, Guru Pankaj Charan Dass, Guru Debu Prasad Dass, Smt. Sanjukta Panigrahi. Videotape of Television Broadcast sponsored by Doordarshan, New Delhi.

  6. Translations from Sanskrit of the two verses of the twenty-fourth song of the Geeta Govinda that Mahapatra performs in this film are:

Yādava hero,

your hand is cooler than sandalbalm on my breast.

Decorate my breasts with leaf designs of musk;

Paint a leaf design with deer musk

here on Love's ritual vessel!

She told the Joyful Yadu Hero,

playing to delight her heart, [verse 12]

Fix flowers in shining hair loosened in loveplay, Krishna!

Make a flywhisk outshining peacock plumage to be the banner of Love.

She told the Joyful Yadu Hero,

playing to delight her heart, [verse 17]

Miller, Barbara Stoler, ed. and trans. Jayadeva's Gila Govinda. Love Song of the Dark Lord (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1977), 124–25Google Scholar.

  1. The mark of sindoor indicates that a woman is married. It consists of red turmeric powder (auspiciousness) which is usually applied to the center part of the woman's hair starting from the hairline on the forehead and extending a few inches towards the crown of the head. In this context it indicates the status of Radha. Though she loves Krishna, she is another's wife (parakiya).

  2. This is not a given of Indian solo narrative dances. If an experienced female choreographer-dancer, as say Kalanidhi Narayanan, were to interpret the same poem, the gender and person constructions could differ.

  3. Bennett, Peter, “In Nanda Baba's House. The Devotional Experience in Pushti Marg Temples” in Divine Passions. The Social Construction of Emotion in India, ed. Lynch, Owen M. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 189–96Google Scholar.

  4. Masson, J. L. and Patwardhan, M.V., Santarasa and Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics (Poona, India: Bhandarkar Oriental Reseach Institute, 1969), 161 Google Scholar.

  5. Trimillos, Ricardo D., “More Than Art: The Politics of Performance in International Cultural Exchange.” Proceedings of a Conference of the Dance Critics Association, California State University, Los Angeles, 2 Sept. 1990, 4 Google Scholar.