Rajasthan: An Oral History: Conversations with Komal Kothari (original) (raw)
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Method & Theory in the Study of Religion , 2009
Th is article presents issues encountered in ethnographic fi eldwork in Kerala, south India, on a tradition of Sanskrit theatre called Kūṭ iyāṭ ṭ am. Key issues include recent changes in both the audience and performing troupes as Kerala's society has become more egalitarian, and reduced ritual activity by priests. Kūṭ iyāṭ ṭ am has been transformed from a devotional off ering in temples to a cultural performance viewed as an art form. Ethnographic research on this tradition has contributed to international recognition and patronage. In this case, ethnographic fi eldwork aff ects both the researchers and the subjects of their research.
Tribal Dance-drama Gavari : Theatre of Subversion and Popular Faith
Folk drama has a long tradition in India. Unlike the classical tradition of Sanskrit drama with a well documented and codified methodology of scripting and performance in the texts like Bharat Muni's Natyasastra, folk drama is oral and is a creation of the collective wisdom of the people. It is composed, improvised and performed by the same group of people with little formal training in theatre. The indigenous communities in India which constitute nearly eight percent of the country's population have their own very rich tradition of theatre. As is obvious, in their case drama means performance. The script is always fluid and allows a great degree of improvisation with every performance, the stage is often any piece of ground and the performers are amateurs. Music, song and dance form a very significant aspect of the performance and the plots are often multiple having sufficient scope of digression into sub-plots. The paper attempts to discuss the tribal dance drama Gavari performed by the Bhil tribe of South Rajasthan as a subversive performance. It is perhaps the longest folk drama performed by any folk community. The traditional notion of social, religious , political , administrative and class hierarchy is subverted by several episodes enacted in the course of the performance. The play is performed for forty days beginning from the day following the festival of Rakshabandhan. This is the time when the peasantry is comparatively free after the sowing of monsoon crop is over and the people engaged in agriculture are able to spend some time away from their farms. The paper attempts to discuss how the plot and the sub plots, performance and the participation of the audience subvert the classical tradition of mainstream theatre. In the absence of an authentic script the discussion relies on the recordings of performances seen in various parts of Udaipur district of Rajasthan, India.
History and Society as Described in Indian Literature and Art
2011
Maria Angelillo, University of Milan, Italy Caste in the making, dance in the making This communication is based on fieldwork in Rajasthan with Kalbelia’s caste: traditionally associated to snake charming, the caste has been turning its own musical and dance heritage into a distinguishing feature of Rajasthani folklore. This paper, through the description of the ethnohistory of the Kalbelia’s dance, leads to some considerations concerning the social status of female professional dancers in modern Indian society. The present social status of female professional dancers will be here described as an outcome of the past British colonial presence in India. The analysis will prove how the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian social and cultural present. Besides, through this case study, the paper will argue that caste is not the unchanging, historically frozen structure that ethnographic imagination has largely presented it as. On the contrary caste will be considered to be the pro...
The present paper is based on fieldwork in Pushkar (Rajasthan) with the Kalbelia caste: traditionally associated with snake charming, it has recently been turning its own musical and dance heritage into a distinguishing feature of Rājasthānī folklore. This paper, through the description of the ethnohistory of Kalbelia dance leads to some considerations concerning the social status of female professional dancers in modern Indian society. The present social status of female professional dancers will be here described as an outcome of the past British colonial presence in India. The analysis will prove how the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian social and cultural present. Besides, through this case study, it will be argued that caste is not the unchanging, historically frozen structure as ethnographic imagination has largely presented it. On the contrary, caste will be considered to be the product of a dynamic balance ruled by economic, ideological and cultural requests.
The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture
Table of Contents Chronology Introduction Rashmi Sadana and Vasudha Dalmia Part I. Cultural Contexts: 1. Scenes of rural change Ann Grodzins Gold 2. The formation of tribal identities Stuart Blackburn 3. Food and agriculture Amita Baviskar 4. Urban forms of religious practice Smriti Srinivas 5. The politics of caste identities Christophe Jaffrelot Part II. Cultural Forms: 6. History and representation in the Bengali novel Supriya Chaudhuri 7. Writing in English Rashmi Sadana 8. Dalit life histories Debjani Ganguly 9. Three traditions in modernist art Sonal Khullar 10. Mass reproduction and the art of the bazaar Kajri Jain 11. Urban theatre and the turn towards 'folk' Vasudha Dalmia 12. Aesthetics and politics in popular cinema Ravi S. Vasudevan 13. Musical genres and national identity Amanda Weidman 14. Voyeurism and the family on television Amrita Ibrahim Further reading Index
Documenting The Cultural Traditions of Rajasthan-Through The Lense of Raghav Kaneria
Introduction The Vadodara based artist, Shree Raghav Kaneria is a veteran sculptor, photographer, a versatile artist, mentor and Art Educator to many since the last few decades. He taught at Vadodara's famous Art institute-The Faculty of Fine Arts for 25 years. He had mentored a number of students, artists and professionals and has valuable contributions in documenting India's vanishing folk art scene. His scrap metal sculptures and bronzes have inspired and influenced many art pupils, artists and Art lovers in the country. The cock, the bull, the calf were inspired by his village life, that became his subject matter for further exploration. He was awarded Commonwealth Scholarship(194-67) to study at the Royal College of Art in London. While in England, he taught sculpture at the Walthamstow school of Art, London and at the Hull College of Art. He exhibited all over the world, at the Paris Biennale, the Commonwealth Art Exhibition, Expo 67 in Montrail, Belgium, Tokyo, Germany, the Muse De L'Elysee, Lausanne and so on. Raghav Kaneria was involved in Documentative photography of folk and living traditions of India since his return from U.K It was there in U.K, that he realized the importance of preserving our rich culture and traditions of India which are fast disappearing and which needs to be documented. The nostalgia he felt for rural life and culture, never left him. Like many other villages, his village too has changed beyond recognition. We cannot stop the change, yet it will be tragic, if this old lifestyles were to vanish without any record. With this in mind, since 1969, with some of his friends, he has been photographing the few remaining traces of typical rural and tribal art forms and their integral relationship with village life, particularly in the region of rural Western India. He traveled remotest areas on rented bicycle or on foot and documented these images. Some of these places were tribal zones and people were suspicious and hostile, yet he managed to document their paintings on walls, embroidery on clothes, torans and tatoos on their bodies, jewellery that they wear, the beautiful floor decorations or Alpanas that they do in front of their house. He was troubled by the fact that can we save our culture and traditions in the face of such rapid modernization? Will we able to stop the changes and if not then how can we retain these art forms? There is an urgent need to document all these vanishing art forms that are
Asian Music, 2013
This paper investigates a performance of the Māhadevjī kā byāvalā, a kathā or story, by Kishori Nāth, a Rājasthani musician. The story is familiar: performers engage audiences through several strategies. I outline two of these: tone and heteroglossia. Performers are never evaluated primarily for musical ability, and most present the kathā using only a few melodies. Kishori Nāth's performance was atypical, using 110 distinct melodies. I examine this performance from several perspectives: musical variety, affect, episodic structure, and the interaction of melody and heteroglossia, arguing that a complex meshing of these leads to a powerful event to which musical skill contributes greatly. Introduction: familiarity and heteroglossia The Māhadevjī kā byāvalā is a kathā or story that represents part of the repertoire of musicians of the Nāth-Jogī 2 caste in Alwar district of Rājasthan. It is a local, caste specific version (as regards who tells it), of a story known through much of India in different forms: the canonic Sanskrit of the Śiva and Skanda Purānas and the dramatist Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhavam, through to children's popular comics, Amar
Asian Music, 2013
Th is paper investigates a performance of the Mahādevjī kā byāvalā, a kathā or story, by Kishori Nāth, a Rājasthani musician. Th e story is familiar: performers engage audiences through several strategies. I outline two of these: tone and heteroglossia. Performers are never evaluated primarily for musical ability, and most present the kathā using only a few melodies. Kishori Nāth's performance was atypical, using 110 distinct melodies. Analysis of this performance from several perspectives-musical variety, aff ect, episodic structure, and the interaction of melody and heteroglossia-demonstrates that a complex meshing of these leads to a powerful event to which musical skill contributes greatly. Introduction: Familiarity and Heteroglossia Th e Mahādevjī kā byāvalā is a kathā or story that represents part of the repertoire of musicians of the Nāth-Jogī 1 caste in Alwar district of Rājasthan. It is a local, caste-specifi c version of a story known through much of India in diff erent forms: the canonic Sanskrit of the Śiva and Skanda Purānas and the dramatist Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhavam, through to children's popular comics, Amar Chitra Kathā, and the Indian television serial Om Nāma Shivaya. 2 Th e kathā is performed on Monday nights in Śrāvana (July-August), other nights of that month, other Monday nights, or at any time someone cares to sponsor a performance. 3 It is "familiar" to its audience, and A. K. Ramanujan's famous assertion, "no Indian ever hears the Rāmāyana story for the fi rst time, " applies (Brockington 2003, 128). Part of any eff ort to understand Jogī performance must deal with how a story can be retold successfully, and thus what might make one singer more eff ective than another. Th ough kathā are presented as an alternation of sung and spoken sections, musical ability is seldom a primary criterion for such evaluation. I will examine this below, drawing in both audience expectations of performance, and Jogī performers' own discussions of melodic use. I will then examine two performances that are atypical in their musical richness. I will analyze the second of these, that of Kishori Nāth of Kohera village, in detail, demonstrating rich relationships