[sarav]

Note from the moderator: The following is an outline of the points involved in the teaching of Bharata Natya outside India. It was distributed to the participants of the Summer Residency Course in 2003. Please feel free to comment on any of the points mentionned below.

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What is tradition?

- a historically established legacy whose roots can be traced back in time.
- a framework for continuity taking advantage of the past experience.
- a framework with defining characteristics.

Is tradition limiting or liberating?
"Freedom is to be able to do what one wants to and not only what one likes to"
– Dame Ninette de Valois.

Tradition is the framework that gives the freedom to express; add to it discipline and one has a launch pad for creativity. It is limiting only for those with limited imagination.

Defining characteristics of the Bharata Natya tradition
The Bharata Natya tradition is made up of hastas, facial expressions, body positions and adavus that provide an extraordinary capacity for a wide range of movements and expressions of moods and sentiments, which have provided a rich storehouse of music and dance compositions, accumulated over centuries.

The following might be considered, among others, as the defining characteristics of the Bharata Natya tradition:

1. The narrative elements using codified gestures to interpret the accompanying song or for telling stories.
2. Facial expressions and body postures that express emotions and sentiments.
3. Ardhamandali, the half knee-bend position and the geometrical patterns that emanate from it as the hands and feet change positions.
4. Addami, the free movement of the head.
5. Ankle bells and bare feet.
6. The margam repertoire from Alarippu to Tillana.
7. Themes and stories from the religious texts.
8. The dress, jewellery and make-up.
9. Carnatic accompanying music.
10. Nattuvangam, the rhythmic framework provided by a conductor of the dance.

For any given piece, a certain minimum number of these, not all, are necessary to constitute what has been called the ethos of Bharata Natya.

Evolution of tradition and going beyond

1. Tradition is not something handed down frozen in time.
2. Perpetuation of the practice as found: Is it protecting tradition or limiting it?
3. What is the role of individual talent in tradition?
4. Repossession of tradition with understanding and its enrichment over different periods of history.
5. Repossessing under different circumstances and in alien soil.

Going beyond

(a) Explorations in themes and treatment.
(b) Using new technologies.
(c) Looking anew at the old and the forgotten.
(d) Moulding tradition to suit the environment.
(e) Sprouting branches with new leaves and fruits: is tradition evolving or a new art emerging.

It is what we want to do that leads us into uncharted territory and takes us beyond what we inherit.

Points to ponder
What is “going beyond”? How to go beyond?
Working within the tradition and yet pushing its frontiers.
Using the tradition in other areas, as in

i. therapy
ii. scholarship and history
iii. Arts in education programme.

[nandita]

Hello everyone!

This is indeed an exciting moment as this is my first post to this eagerly awaited forum. This is the first 'flowering' of our summer SRC efforts! My deepest and most inexpressible thanks go to Mamatadi and Bans Uncle for founding our new (flowering) garden of knowledge; and thanks in advance to all of you friends who will contribute on an ongoing basis.

I want to ask you about your impressions concerning the relationship between 'text' and 'tradition'. We have, in the past, talked about what tradition is, but we have not quite explored the many possibilities of what constitutes 'text'.

When we think of 'text', we most often think about the graphic representation of thoughts or objects in the world -- namely 'written' but also sometimes 'oral' or 'performative' texts (for example, abhinaya, narrative, storytelling, etc.). But does 'text' always necessarily involve the representation of something else? Can we not call the body itself a 'text'?

The Latin word from which we derive our own word for 'text' is 'textus', which means "tissue or fabric", and 'texere', which means "to weave". In other words, 'text' is both a process and the outcome of this process (textus and texere): I may, for example, interpret a text through Bharatanatya movement, but my interpretation need not be a 'representation' of something -- instead, it could be considered a textual "weaving together" in itself of emotion, thought, and movement.

Those of you who have read the ancient Greek poem called the 'Odyssey' will recall the artful character Penelope, wife of the cunning Odysseus, who, as she waited for her husband (believed to be dead, but in fact on his own god-imposed 'odyssey'), was pursued by many suitors who vied for her hand in marriage and the glory of Ithacan kingship. Penelope liked to weave, and she told her many suitors that when the fabric on her loom had been completed, she would announce her decision. And day by day, those who watched Penelope sit at the loom and weave her thoughts believed that they were ever closer to the day of completion. But what they did not know, is that at night, when nobody was watching, Penelope would go to the loom and unweave the threads of her day's work.

What does this show us? It suggests that 'text' involves both 'doing' and 'undoing'; it is a process of both weaving and unweaving. This is an important point, I think, when it comes to the relationship between 'text' and 'tradition'. We have to realize that interpreting 'tradition' also involves a continual process of weaving and unweaving, doing and undoing.

But in order to undo, for instance, a fabric on a loom, one has to have developed the technique of 'looming'. Unweaving, in other words, demands expertise, technique and conscious engagement. This is why, when one undoes tradition without the appropriate skill or technique, it cannot be said that one has created a text (textum, texere).

The point I want to make is this: it is not the undoing of tradition (i.e., traditional texts, etc.) that threatens the artistic process and the work of art, but the lack of technique that is necessary to interpret and create text.

Text and technique (the Latin 'textus' and 'technicus' -- the latter meaning "skill or craft") are inextricable in this sense. And tradition itself is nothing more than the received repository of text and technique over a span of time. In order for a text to be created, tradition demands to be upheld (held up?) and undone; but this is only possible through proper technique.

Nandita and Dan, in Toronto

[Dan]

Hello! I thought I’d post reports "A" and "B" on the Toronto and Montreal showings of ALCHEMINEMENT part one -- melanosis -- here in the “Tradition and Beyond” section, perhaps to generate discussion specifically focused on issues of what the modernist poet and critic T.S. Eliot would call “tradition” (what we have) and “individual creation” (what we are here calling beyond). What does it mean to go “beyond”? Can one truly go “beyond” tradition? What, in fact, is tradition? ... these are all excellent questions, and perhaps we can begin with reference to Eliot’s essay (“Tradition and the Individual Talent”) and go on/beyond from there.

Here (below) are reports "A" and "B" from the Montreal and Toronto showings of melanosis (the first of ALCHEMINEMENT's three stages), posted here to start off our discussions, perhaps with reference to Eliot's essay ("Tradition and the Individual Talent"), on the topic of "Tradition and Beyond":

Post Number One (A):

[Dan]

Our resident multi-instrumentalist,
Debashis Sinha* has started
with fellow multi-instrumentalist
Ben Grossman, a discuission-forum
devoted to the concept of Tradition and Beyond,
which they aptly entitle the "Post-Traditional" --
cf. http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/ptrad/messages
for more. -- Thought we would "post" this here,
if only for the sake of synchronicity
(meaningful coincidence).
Yours as Ever,
NANDAN

* http://www.debsinha.com

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+ http://www.eemarecords.com/postrad
+ http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/ptrad