Christel Stevens | American University in Washington, D.C. (original) (raw)

Drafts by Christel Stevens

Manipuri Dance is one of India's myriad forms of traditional, highly stylized theatrical dance. D... more Manipuri Dance is one of India's myriad forms of traditional, highly stylized theatrical dance. Dance in Manipur, a remote state on the border between Myanmar and India, serves to transfer specific information from generation to generation. The shamans of the Meiteis, called Maibis, depict the entire way of life through dance. The farming, fishing, weaving, and housebuilding skills, which originally set them apart from the hunter-gatherertribes of the hills, all appear in step-by-step order in the dance rituals of the Maibis. As with any ancient tradition emerging out of a closed society and exposed to outside influence, Manipuri dance is thought to be in danger of radical change and possible corruption. A threat is felt by some to have come from the influence of the Natya Shastra, the artistic "Bible" which informs the mainstream classical dance styles of India. The influence of the Natya Shastra is a subject of much heated discussion among dancers and scholars in Manipur. The appeal of Manipuri dancing for the non-Manipuri audience lies not in its points of similarity with other Indian dance styles, but in its points of contrast. Not only the dance researcher, but also the general audience, seems fascinated by the unique flavor of Manipuri dance. In bringing Manipuri dance to the world, it is the opinion of this researcher that one can highlight its special qualities, and its status as a kind of anthropological microcosm. 2. Introduction Manipuri dance has been in existence since long before the beginning of any written history of the people of Manipur. In fact, Manipuri dance is the vehicle of pre-literate tribal memory for the Meiteis, who inhabit the valley of Manipur, a small state in the northeastern corner of India. Their oldest myths make mention of dance, and the continued existence of the same dances featured in the old stories serves to reinforce the validity of the mythology, in terms of tracing the origins of the dance tradition. According to the Australian anthropologist Louise Lightfoot, the Meithei word for dance, jagoi, actually means chak-koi, or "the going round (koi) of the ages (chak)." [1] That is to say, dance among the Meiteis is synonymous with history. To take only one example, the most popular dance among young people in Manipur is called "Thabal-chongba", or "moonlight-jumping." During the full-moon nights of spring, the Meithei New Year season, young men from various neighborhoods and villages go from house to house, calling the young women out to dance. The young people form a chain,

The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United... more The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United States of America. At the beginning of the 21 st century, the terms "multi-cultural" and "global village" are used to characterize many events and organizations whose business is educational entertainment. Asian heritage festivals, concerts in schools, university dance and music departments, and community celebrations are some of the venues used for presentation of the classical and folk traditions from India, often performed by local Asian Indian Americans, and sometimes by visiting performers from India. Teachers of music and dance are resident in almost every state. Several universities have faculty who specialize in Indian performing arts. In the middle of the 20 th century, however, the situation was quite different. Far fewer Indian immigrants had made America their home. Visits by performers from India were rare. When sitarist Ravi Shankar appeared at the Monterrey Pop festival in 1967, a wave of interest in Indian culture was sweeping across America. Many young American dancers and musicians were inspired to learn about these ancient arts. The best way to learn in those days was to travel to India. As these travelers returned, they began performing and teaching whatever they had learned. Indian immigrants, seeing the extent of the interest, revived whatever they could remember from lessons learned while growing up in India, and set up schools of Indian dance and music in the basements of their homes. When I saw my first Bharata Natyam dance concert, it was performed by an American dancer, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, named Georgia Cushman. A student of Martha Graham, Georgia had traveled to India as a Fulbright scholar and spent two years learning dance at Kalakshetra College of Fine Arts outside of Chennai (then Madras). I was immediately put under a spell of some kind, as though her flashing eye movements and seductive gestures had hypnotized me. I immediately began attending her dance classes. During the academic year, Georgia taught only modern dance, but in the summer time, she initiated her students into the divine mysteries of Bharata Natyam. As American dance students, we learned on a Western training model. The classes took place at specified times in a dance studio, part of a community center in New Jersey. The classes began with a series of yoga-based warm-up exercises and stretches, as do modern dance and ballet classes. At the end of the summer session, our dance group toured in the New York area and traveled to Vermont to participate in a concert series at a summer music festival sponsored by the Peabody Conservatory. We performed a mixed program of modern dance and Indian dance compositions. When I graduated from college, I was recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship that enabled me to travel to India for further studies in Bharata Natyam. Once again I was enrolled in an institution, Kalakshetra College of Fine Arts outside of Chennai. I did not realize at the time that I was being trained by more Westernized methods than most dancers of the day. I attended daily, regularly scheduled practice sessions in the morning and afternoon, along with music, theory, and language classes. In each case, a teacher faced a group of three to six students and followed a systematic syllabus. Later I came to understand that the traditional Indian model of training in the arts was completely different from what I had experienced. As I became more advanced, and trained in different cities, in different styles of dance and music, I began to see the ancient tradition of gurushishya parampara, the direct passage of art from one senior individual to a single student over a number of years, in the guru's residence rather than in an institution or school of some kind. I

Defining Traditions of Indian Dance When Michael Flatley asked Amrapali Ambegaonkar about the Ka... more Defining Traditions of Indian Dance
When Michael Flatley asked Amrapali Ambegaonkar about the Kathak dance she performed on the recent TV program, International Superstars of Dance, she told him, “This is pure classical North Indian dance, and it originated something like 4,000 years ago. It’s from the actual scriptures of Indian classical dance from ages ago, and it’s passed down from generation to generation.”
Does anyone hear anything wrong with this statement? Please show us your pataka hastas.

The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United... more The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United States of America. Asian heritage festivals, concerts in schools, university dance and music departments, and community celebrations are used for presentation of the classical and folk traditions from India. Indian immigrants consider training in cultural arts, along with religious education, to be essential tools in the upbringing of an Indian child in America. Nostalgic for the milieu of their native land, immigrants develop a mental image of an idealized India, influenced by the Orientalist viewpoint pervasive in the mainstream American

This study is an exploration of the status of women in classical Indian dance and popular Hindi f... more This study is an exploration of the status of women in classical Indian dance and popular Hindi films; as society perceives them and as they perceive themselves. As professional dancers, the authors have personally experienced the entire range of complicated reactions described in the text. We believe that these reactions and opinions are common, in varying degrees, to dancers of every culture. Dancers face a peculiar challenge because it is

Afghanistan, a barren and rocky country located at the crossroads of history in central Asia, has... more Afghanistan, a barren and rocky country located at the crossroads of history in central Asia, has seen traditional culture submerged under waves of colonialism, revolution and Islamization over the course of its 2000-year history. Inside Afghanistan, the last 40 years of conflict and displacement have almost completely erased Afghanistan's traditional dance culture. Women who might have maintained folk dance traditions are confined to their homes. Except for weddings, all social events are for men only. The present day situation finds only two forms of dance visible in Afghanistan. The first is Attan, a primarily male-only circular dance, descended from war dances of Alexander the Great's army. The second is Bacha Bazi, the dance of boys dressed in female attire for audiences of men. These dances usually end in abusive sexual encounters. This paper will show the challenge of preserving traditional cultural dances amid war, revolution, and religious extremism.

Conference Presentations by Christel Stevens

The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United... more The dances and music of India have become familiar elements of cultural programming in the United States of America. Asian heritage festivals, concerts in schools, university dance and music departments, and community celebrations are used for presentation of the classical and folk traditions from India. Indian immigrants consider training in cultural arts, along with religious education, to be essential tools in the upbringing of an Indian child in America. Nostalgic for the milieu of their native land, immigrants develop a mental image of an idealized India, influenced by the Orientalist viewpoint pervasive in the mainstream American