Ranri (widow/courtesan)

Here is the excerpt of Ranri that I performed at Highways on Feb 12. I tried to integrate Anj's feedback about using more dance by adding footwork and movement roughly based on one of the kathak compositions in the Skype call, though I think this can be developed further. The courtesan flashback idea which I'm curious to try hasn't been integrated in this version yet.

Ranri (widow/courtesan) - in progress excerpt from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Mixed Bag: structure w/ music and costume notes

PRE-SHOW: (as audience enters and takes seats): Cynthia and Shy getting dressed behind scrim, with Sandra's shadow video and index cards of cliches that the audience writes down passed under the camera.   

Costumes: Shy BN leather vamp; Cyn kathak princess w/ long lacy red vest
Sound: something melodic, maybe alap-type thing, sensual, light classical and reminiscent of courtesan’s world – around 20 min.

PAUSE: Curator’s introduction (in silence)

TAT TAT TA TUKA AMAD – VILAMBIT LAY

Password "cliche"

Mixed Bag Round 1 with recitation from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

tat tat ta tuka: coy/shy ghunghat girl (Cyn, giggling, peeking behind scrim)

dun dun: coy/shy ghunghat girl (Shy) jiji kita: coy/shy ghunghat girl (both, enter space)

to- turun-ga: crass pelvis thrusting.

taka/tun taka gadi gena: Shurpanaka

thai WTF?!?

- - taka/tun taka gadi gena: Oriental doll (blinking, in place)

thai - - taka/tun taka gadi gena: loose woman (flailing limbs)

ta thai – ta ta thai - - -: reverent disciple (adab)

a thai – ta ta thai - - -: exotic dancer (sexy shoulders)

thai – ta thai – ta thai: vogueing (3 poses on each thai – vogue, classical, and Oriental doll)

thai thai tat tat/ ta - -: Oriental doll (little steps on balls of feet, smile on ta)

thai –: exotic dancer (sexy shoulders)

ta thai: reverent disciple (full body prayer to ground)

thai thai tat tat/ta: courtesan (put on bangle, ding on ta)

- - thai – ta thai/thai thai tat tat: sexy vagina flower (leg swings around, opens)

ta: STD (crunch hands and toes inward)

TRANSITIONAL THEKA: change costumes, interact with cliches on back wall, banter, etc

costumes: Shy teeny bopper; Cyn butch (take off crown and vest, put on gray hat)

TAT TAT TA TUKA CHAKRADAR - MADHYA LAY

password is "cliche"

Cliche Chakradar with sounds from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

uninhibited girl child: whee!  whee!

self-flagellating: AAA! AA AAAA!

courtesan – (put on bangle, ding!) 1 2 3

reverent disciple (adab): oh my gu-ru 1 2

exotic native: ohhhhh 1 2

feminine Indian-ness (ghunghat): mmmm... 2 3-
WTF!?!: What the Fuck?!? 1 2

scared little girl: gee gee gee gee

sex-crazed maniac (male): oh baby yeah yeah yeah--

shurpanaka (sexually aggressively female): ohbaby, yeah, oh baby yeah yeah

protesting: no... --

overeager geeky student: me me me?!

oriental doll: ding! dinga linga linga linga ling 2 3 4

exotic native: oo ga boo ga ga

dominatrix (S&M): slap slap (feet)

crass - WTF?!?: WHAT!

exotic dancer (strip/lap): deedee deeee dee

ghunghat (veil): 1-2 ji ji kita - -

sex-crazed maniac (crass thrusting): OH- (male yeah baby)

helpless victim: oh-! [oh oho! 1 2 ] turunga opera style

shy girl: guh guh guh guh

shurpanaka: oh daddy come to me--

bangle: cha cha ching tak

viva la vulva: oh i am so very yum-my--

Indian exoticism, Madonna style: like a vir-gin touched for the very first

prideful: time 2 3 4

reverent disciple: don’t be mad, guru 1 2 3

exotic dancer (strip/lap): uh uh slurp tsss 1 2 rar rar rara 1 2

emblem of ancient spiritual tradition: OMM 1 2 All is Maya. - -

diva: bada pshh

servile oriental doll: ding.  Would you like some tea or cof-fee?--
helpless victim: uhhuh huh huh (crying) Somebody res-cue me! --

crass (masculine): What the fuck, schmuck?!?

lollypop catholic school-girl: hee hee heeheeheehee slurp

TRANSITIONAL THEKA: 

Change costumes, lead cheerleading chant with audience: "VICTIM, HARLOT, MARTYR, WHORE!"

Costumes: Shy frumpy housewife, Cyn red wig/Chinese shirt/pink boa

TAT TAT TA TUKA CHAKRADAR - MADHYA LAY – with expanded cliches

password is "cliche"

Mixed Bag Round 3: elaborations from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.
The four cliches are: uninhibited girl child (Cyn leaves boa in audience), Oriental doll, reverent disciple/WTF?!?, helpless victim.

DRUT SECTION: 

helpless victim investigation:

Shy as helpless victim in audience, Cyn fixes red wig and makes judgmental commentary as valley girl, rewinds her.  Makes her take off pink apron and put on mannikin with BN belt, then coaches her.  Shy gets grossed out by the self-sexualization, stumbles onstage, retching.

word vomit/conversation

Shy vomits “VICTIM!” on Cyn. 

Cyn – “That was my new dress!” (takes off red Chinese vest)

Shy – “HARLOT!”  “MARTYRWHORE!”

The words go into Cyn and she gurgles then regurgitates the words backwards: “MITCIV TOLRAH RYTRAM EROHW SHURPANAKA!”

Shy – “Huh?”

Cyn – “Shurpanaka, you know, the sex-crazed monstrous vagina with teeth.”

Shy – “With teeth?” 

Cyn – “With teeth!”

Shy – “With teeth?” 

Cyn – “With teeth!”

“with teeth teeth with ” establishes pulse

call and response composition:

Callandresponse cliche by cynthialinglee

(Shy = purple; Cynthia = red; Unison = black)

I. CELEBRATORY, SELLING EACH OTHER

titekata gadigena dha:

Oriental Dominatrix, wow!

Sexy Virgin Guru Shisya, now!

kata gadigena dha

bitchy helpless victim cheap!

yummy geeky girly treat!

gadigena dha

Courtesan so crass!

Sassy and bad-ass!

gena dha

Sexy toy

Femmy boy

dha dha dha

Oi, oi, oi!

II. CONFUSION (UP/DOWNSTAGE) INTO COMPETITION

titekata gadigena dha:

titekata Dominatrix, OW!

Sexy Virgin namo namo, dha!

kata gadigena dha

kata oho [crying] victim eek!

[slurp!] geeky gena treat!

gadigena dha

Courtesan-na dha!

rar-rar-rarding ding!

gena dha

Sexy whee!

AA AA boy

dha dha dha

dha, HEE! me??

III. LABELING EACH OTHER

Oriental Dolly gena dha (Cyn rips plastic mannikin off of Shy)

titekata bad disciple ha!

kata gadigena dha

kata helpless victim bah!

What a geeky girly dha! (Shy takes off Cyn's red wig)

gadigena dha

Courtesan no bra!

gadigena dha

gena dha

Dancing toy (Shy grabbing braid)

Femmy boy (Shy looking at Cyn with judgement; Cyn turns back to her)

dha dha dha

Oi, oi, oi! (quietly)/Dance, last chance! (Shy jams braid on Cyn's head)

Learning to Walk Like Radha

After developing the material during our Jan residency, I performed "Learning to Walk Like Radha" at Highways Performance Space on Feb 11-12 as part of my shared show with Prumsodun Ok, Retracing Histories, Redancing the Past.

Learning to Walk Like Radha

improvised choreography and performance: Cynthia Ling Lee

A talking dancer negotiates a really long piece of cloth while humorously commenting on the cultural collisions experienced as an American feminist attempting to learn kathak in Calcutta.  Learning to Walk Like Radha draws on Simone Forti’s improvisation structures and is lovingly dedicated to my kathak guru, Bandana Sen.

Here is video of the piece from both nights.  The password for both is "oh krishna".

Saturday:

Learning to Walk Like Radha (Sat) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Friday:

Learning to Walk Like Radha (Fri) from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Skype call with Anj

When we're on tour and Anj can't be live, we thought it would be good to have her live on SKYPE at some point. Cynthia is already SKYPEing Sandra, so it seemed fitting that I would be the one to SKYPE Anj. Only possible if there's wireless internet at the theater, of course. Even if Anj is with the kids it would make it all the more real and novel for audience)

So here are a bunch of possibilities:

-We could stage the Carlos story (Anj illustrating while shy dances)

-We (including Cyn) could do the gossipy chakradar made out of the Sunoh material. Anj could keep reciting/keeping time as Cyn and Shy do Anj’s contemporary/creative Sunoh phrase which is similar material.

-Shy could be expressing her struggle with Bharata Natyam to Anj and wanting help to reingage with it. In response, Anj could teach shy the jati material over skype (maybe just the rhythm, maybe the whole dance).

-Shy could tell Anj more about the Uma story (if we didn't have the words in the dance, I could tell her story here). Perhaps hearing the story about silencing causes Anj to tell/do her tonsil/voice story.

-we could whine about our roles as women, either in English or in bowls as a development of the helpless cliche.

Let me know if you have any other ideas, especially if they help fill a missing element in the larger show.

Mixed Bag (Cyn and Shy develop the cliches)

Round 1:
we're indicating a little of the mixed up cliche costuming here. In the beginning we're peering out from behind the "scrim." We do it once (about a minute), then there's a few seconds before it repeats again. The second time we explored the vocal range a bit more exaggeratedly.

Password "cliche"

Mixed Bag Round 1 with recitation from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.


Round 2:
It's meant to be all 2, 3, or 4 of us the whole time, but right now Cyn's doing her section, we're both doing Anj's and Shy's doing her section (we haven't gotten the whole thing continuously in our bodies yet). I cut and pasted the sections together for now, but because of this, the gaps between are not accurate lengths.

password is "cliche"

Cliche Chakradar with sounds from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.


Round 3:
Here we explore a few of the cliches more and then end in a shouting match....that part we're still working on so we'll post it when we're done.


password is "cliche"

Mixed Bag Round 3: elaborations from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Expanding Cliches and More (Bootleg Rehearsals)

This week Shy and I started working on expanding the cliches for the Bootleg show in a couple of weeks.

We made a new vocalized sound score for the cliche chakradar.  Listen to it here:

Clichechakradar by cynthialinglee
And here is the written score:

chakradar cliches:

uninhibited girl child: whee!  whee!

self-flagellating: AAA! AA AAAA!

courtesan - sringar (bangle, ding!) 1 2 3

reverent disciple (adab): oh my gu-ru 1 2

exotic native: ohhhhh 1 2

feminine Indian-ness (ghunghat): mmmm... 2 3-
WTF!?!: What the Fuck?!? 1 2

scared little girl: gee gee gee gee

sex-crazed maniac: oh baby yeah yeah yeah--

shurpanaka: ohbaby, yeah, oh baby yeah yeah

protesting: no... --

geeky professor: duh duh duh?

oriental doll: ding! dinga linga linga linga ling 2 3 4

exotic native: oo ga boo ga ga

dominatrix (S&M): slap slap

crass - WTF?!?: WHAT!

exotic dancer (strip/lap): deedee deeee dee

ghunghat (veil): 1-2 ji ji kita - -

sex-crazed maniac (crass thrusting): OH- (male yeah baby)

helpless victim: oh-! [oh oho! 1 2 ] turunga opera style

shy girl: guh guh guh guh

shurpanaka: oh daddy come to me--

bangle: cha cha ching tak

viva la vulva: oh i am so very yum-my--

Indian exoticism, Madonna style: like a vir-gin touched for the very first

prideful: time 2 3 4

reverent disciple: don’t be mad, guru 1 2 3

exotic dancer (strip/lap): uh uh slurp tsss 1 2 rar rar rara 1 2

emblem of ancient spiritual tradition: OMM 1 2 All is Maya. - -

diva: bada pshh

oriental doll: ding.  Would you like some tea or cof-fee?--
helpless victim: uhhuh huh huh uhhuh huhhuhuhuuh-- (crying)

crass: What the fuck, schmuck?!?

lollypop catholic school-girl: hee hee heeheeheehee slurp

We also brainstormed some other ideas about how to expand the cliches:

NEW CLICHE IDEAS -

*choreograph to the other rhythm in the skype call…

(or other rhythms)

can play with doing it cross rhythmically

*Integrating the words somehow (in rhythm?)

*big pile of costumes and props:  either audience dress us, or they get dressed up, or have the audience label us (index cards)

*collecting their clichés in intermission then performing them

*black slips as a way to tie into skin remix

pleasure of embodying them needs to be investigated (write about it, embody it?)

*how find underbelly and turn it around…one at a time gets stuck in a particular phrase that they’re grappling with, response words Carole asked us for might be a way to investigate this. 

*teach a bunch of audience members some of the cliché movment with the rest of the audience shouting them out. 

-Having a pre-show installation where audience write down stereotypes/cliches either that they have experienced personally or of women on index cards, which then get given to Carol and projected on the small scrim.
-During the installation, having a pile of ridiculous clothing and letting the audience dress us up according to their cliche of choice.  They could also sculpt us into positions embodying those cliches.
-Perhaps during the pre-show installation, as audience are filing into seats, we could have interviews with people telling personal anecdotes about stereotypes that they experienced in the past?
-Incorporating the actual words the cliches are based upon in the musical score
-Ending with us verbally choking on the cliches (like a hairball) escalating into a competitive shouting match where I (Cynthia) win, shouting something like "authentic Indian classical dancer" while jamming the giant white braid on my head that I wear for the beginning of my Logomotion solo.  This would then set up the next piece.

And here are some of the response words that we originally wrote for Carole that might provide guidance on how to further explore certain cliches.  We thought we could further explore the cliches that are most relevant to the rest of the show, thereby introducing/setting them up.

remix

torn

viva la vulva

swallow

escape

repressed

fading

sringar

FAKE

doll

release

explode

subvert

ignore

refuse

dressing the part

misfit

solidarity

resignation

frustration

inevitable

surface

muted

dismember

EAT ME

in the dark

silenced

strategic exoticism

can you hear me?

strategic silence

resist

alternatives

confusion

annoyance

laugh it off

framed!

someday?

closed fist

what the fuck?!?

dry mouth, salt water

avoidance

Last, we analyzed what strategies are currently being used to deal with cliches/stereotypes throughout the show:

Cliche Section

Chakradar: juxtaposition, contradiction.  Parody.

Spitting/Hairball: physical rejection

-for example, shy gets a hairball, i smack her on the back, and then she vomits a horrible stereotype onto me.  i’m mad and so i should another cliche at her.  this leads into shouting match. 

Shouting Match/Competition/Barrage: Self-victimization, wound-sharing, collusion, divisive, re-claiming

Getting Dressed: Reclaiming stereotype on your own terms.  Contradiction/Friction. Parody.

Installation/Audience: creating dialogue, acknowledgment rather than ignoring, awareness, community, Sunoh!

Logomotion: questioning, calling out the gender expectations, denaturalization, humor

Uma Stories: on Uma’s part: voicing, revealing and unveiling herself/finding an alternative, unbinding, coming out, contesting the expectation (to be good wife, mother, martyr); the horror of the lived reality of the stereotype, the cost of it, the toll it takes, no longer a flat image

skin remix: aestheticizes the cliche, a variety of strategies, solidarity (end)

 And we analyzed the relationship between the performers throughout the Bootleg version of the show:

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERFORMERS

Cliches: unison/solidarity into competition/division

Logomotion: supportive

Uma Stories: empathetic friend

skin remix:

1.     2 women isolated in parallel situations of negotiating cliches

2.     approaching the other (who is in a similar situation)

3.     partner, strategizing together, support?

4.     witness (looking at flagellating skin video)

5.     unison, solidarity

 

Cyn/Sandra SKYPE call: rough script

 Here is a rough draft of the script of Cyn calling Sandra that would lead to hidden tamarind.

FEEDBACK QUESTIONS: 
(1) How is the tone?  Is it too academic or does it work for a general audience?
(2) Length - too long or too short?  If the former, what would you cut?  If the latter, what needs to be expanded?
(3) Do you like the order in which the conversation unfolds, or would you move some sections around?
(4) Are there any parts that you don't understand?

Cyn at computer.  Trying to write a paper but failing.  In frustration, Cyn calls Babli on Skype. Babli answers in classical costume while taking off classical jewelry and Kuchipudi braid. [Contingent on the actual time during the show and whether Babli can get up and get dressed so early.]

Cyn: Hey Babli

Sandra: Hi

Cyn: Sorry to bug you so late at night; I'm was wondering if I could pick your brain about something.

Sandra: Sure, no problem.

Cynthia Ling Lee: Wait, were you just performing?

babli: yes just finished

Cynthia Ling Lee: where was the gig

babli: oh at the local ethnological museum

Cynthia Ling Lee: oh not again. on display as tradition eh? did they make you not
speak in german so that you would seem more indian?

babli: actually, i got to make my own announcements this time. translating abhinaya seems to be
the other option. [clarify what "abhinaya" is?]

Cynthia Ling Lee: well there's some progress...you get to have something of a voice .

BABLI: What was it that you wanted to talk about?

Cynthia Ling Lee: I'm writing this paper for that conference on performance, sexuality, and power in the UK, but I'm having the hardest time. i wanted to look at the history of the tawaif (the courtesan) and kathak, but there's like, NOTHING written in the archive. i keep running into these tantalizing hints, like a brief mention of how the courtesans were in the highest economic bracket in the tax archives, or a footnote about how she used to sing the same love songs for patrons in the court and at sufi ceremonies, but they're just fragments.

babli: you will just have to work from the fragments then..... its so crucial to draw attention to those gaps and offer thoughts on what may be missing

Cynthia Ling Lee: but the thing is, i feel like i'm just making her up. you know, this empowered, independent woman in charge of her own art and sexuality who would move between between the secular and sacred, the hindu and muslim, between the carnal and the divine. but maybe that's just the tawaif i would like to have as the ancestor of my form and not who she really was.

babli: well who she really was may not be possible to reconstruct but that does not mean its not worthwhile exploring the fragments. The most important part is how to frame it

Cynthia Ling Lee: what do you mean

babli: i mean there is analysis by historians out there who work from postcolonial or subaltern studies approaches who draw attention to the lack of documented facts [clarify that subaltern voices have been written out of History?]. This allows you to talk about the politics of basing History solely on facts and also the politics of documenting. For example, what gets documented by who and why. And what do we take seriously as a document-
http://vinaylal.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/thesis-one-postcolonialism-never-mounted-an-effective-critique-of-history/
[Cyn likes the part about "alternative modes of accessing the past" and myth cause may be a nice transition into using the body/choreography as a mode of remembering]

babli: a believable one
babli: scientifically speaking
Cynthia Ling Lee: right, history gets written by the winners, right?
babli: yes
babli: could you imagine that kind of approach?
babli: well there are fragmented facts
babli: and there are facts of exclusion that beg for analysis

Cynthia Ling Lee: you know what that makes me think of? how the body remembers parts of history that aren't documented in the archive. i feel like my sense of the tawaif - her sensual power and how it was erased - comes largely out of the physical tradition of kathak that i've learned. there are these hints of her sensuality, femininity, and power in, say, the way we use our eyes, but then that that sensuality gets domesticated and turned into something...spiritual. there's this moment i always remember from class. i was in calcutta, we were practicing that thumri "kahe rukata," and this one girl performs a line in a really coy bollywoodish way. my guru got really mad and told her, "not sringara, bhakti!" you know, "not sensuality, devotion!"

babli: well, you could speak as a practitioner-researcher. hence dancing and training becomes research and evidence of some sort

Babli: i remeber this article by saly ness in the book corporealities, where she takes dance lessons she took in indonesia and the philippines as her field research and constructs her paper around her fieldnotes. and her observations of the bodily experience of learning the techniques as well as the interactions with the teachers

Cynthia Ling Lee: interesting, i'll have to look that up.

Babli: yes. also remember the piece we saw together in delhi fabian barba's reconstruction of Mary Wigmans work? {YOU COULD SUGGEST I DO A PERFORMATIVE PAPER; IE WRITE THE PAPER THROUGH THE ACT OF CHOREOGRAPHING }

Cynthia Ling Lee: ah, yes. the venezuelan modern dancer who felt that the form of modern dance practiced in quito and the wigman tradition were connected, so he did all this extensive archival research to reconstruct the dances.

Babli: while he did not present a paper but a evening of dances and there seems to be no lack of documentation of Wigman's work he still had to fill in the gaps since there was no video yet. And there were only films of three short dances he worked with

Cynthia Ling Lee: you know what that makes me think of - at the end of the day i am a choreographer, and i make sense of my fragemented legacy through choreographing - imagining possibilities through the body. so maybe instead of writing a traditional paper, I should do a performative paper, in which I perform my imagined dance of the tawaif. you know, based on both my physical knowledge and the research I've done so far. {I THINK AFTER I MAKE THIS STATEMENT IT SHOULD SEGUE TO HIDDEN TAMARIND FAIRLY SOON}
Cyn starts putting on tawaif costume as the conversation continues.

Babli: and what - for me- made his interpretation sincere, i believe was that he was very clear about how he positions himself vis-a-vis the material. and that lended it integrity,even if a lot of what he presented was his guess of what the pieces may have looked like

Cynthia Ling Lee: so you think i should start the performative paper by positioning myself - as a taiwanese american feminist postmodern dancer who started learning kathak 9 years ago and who senses some sort of contradictions surrounding sensuality and the hidden voice of the tawaif in the tradition she learned. And maybe acknowledge that my abhinaya is messed up and "impure" because I also learned a little while from a bharatnatyam teacher.

Babli: yes, because that will give the reader a sense of how you are interpreting the fragments and connecting them without filling the gaps {CYN: WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITHOUT FILLING THE GAPS?}

Babli: i think that ok as long as you frame it that way

Babli: yes. so be attentive to, how knowledge is produced and validated and be self-reflexive about how and from where you interpret and clear about what is documented and what is interpreted. After all there are a number of books out there about the Tawaif and about courtesans more generally. THere is some amount of documentation- historical and ethnographic.
i think thats the best that can be done. and, you know. i think if framed right the contribution of a dancer thinking about these issues can add a valuable layer to the research done about the tawaif historians will do a different kind of research, ethnographers yet different

Babli: all these different knowledges and research approaches all have their place

Cynthia Ling Lee: okay great, this is really helpful. i will try to choreograph that dance then. :) you're probably tired, i'm sorry for keeping you up so long!

babli: oh no worries
babli: always love our nerdy chats

Cynthia Ling Lee: yes, always good to have a SKYPE adda with you. i'll go start working then. thanks for all your help! bye now :)

babli: bye!!!!!!



Segue into hidden tamarind.

Also, as reference, here is the actual introduction to the paper I am supposedly to be struggling with  during the Skype call:

"In a talk-back after the recent Indian Film Festival screening of Sringaram – Dance of Love, a

film about the devadasis, director Sharada Ramanathan stated that sringara rasa, the emotion of erotic love, is unique for its constant oscillation between the mortal and the divine.  Mystical traditions such as bhakti and Sufism position longing for one’s beloved as a metaphor for the devotee’s longing for God: this is usually the justification given for depicting romantic love in Indian classical dance.  Yet, the spiritual interpretation can so easily descend into the carnal, evoking shadowy memories of singing, dancing prostitutes suggestively peeling back their veils to lascivious male gazes.  I distinctly remember my Kathak (North Indian classical dance) guru Bandana Sen correcting a student in class, saying, “Not sringara, bhakti!” (Not sensuality, devotion!).  Anxiety about performing the erotic plagues the modern-day Indian classical dancer, and examining this anxiety reveals a knotty, naughty history.  

Without a doubt, I admit to sharing that anxiety.  In a way, this paper is a small attempt to

unravel my complicity with Kathak’s sanitized, hegemonic history, being an American feminist who studied Kathak in India under a fellowship entitled “Dancing the Body Divine: Religious Dance.”  Yet how to (re)write such a history?  As scholars such as Dipesh Chakrabarty have shown, History, as a coherent, authoritative set of facts following a linear chronological development, is a European modernist construct.  Attempts to emulate that historiographical model inevitably leave the non-West as the sad figure of lack and inadequacy, as became painfully obvious to me during the research process: there is so little written documentation on Kathak that the attempt to write its history seemed, and still seems, an impossible task.  

Research-wise, I have chosen to deal with this problem in two ways: first, by coming at Kathak’s history through the back door of its somewhat more well-documented music, focusing on the thumri vocal genre, and second, by regarding the dance itself as containing embodied traces of the past. 1  In choreographing my writing, feeling my way into a complex, fragmented, and barely documented dance history, I have been inspired by three models.  First, I have tried to make space for incomplete memories and imaginative speculations, following the subaltern theorists, who have proposed “reconceptualizations of history as a contested narrative, where supposed ‘facts’, documented in texts privileged as sources of ‘truth’, grapple with human memories and dreams, engage with oral histories and incomplete memories” (Chatterjea, 143).  Second, much of my writing emulates Marta Savigliano’s model of scholar as detective.  Lastly, I have been inspired by the choreographic techniques embedded in Kathak itself.  Abhinaya, the story-telling aspect of Kathak, consists of improvised interpretations of song texts.  As a performer-historian, abhinaya requires you to visualize and become emotionally invested in the (historical) images you conjure, to imagine and feel in order to express.  Poetic lines repeat, allowing you to bring multiple interpretations to the same text (historical evidence).  Non-linear, abhinaya doubles back on itself, makes unexpected connections, suddenly metamorphoses.  Within a single song, you shift from narrative description (historical facts, situations) to taking on the persona of a particular character (self-reflexivity and outright impersonation).  Abhinaya as history-telling privileges image and evocation over argument, holding the ambiguity of multiple possible meanings in radical tension."

Indian Tigress demonstration draft 1

In this item, the heroine longs for her college crush, Carlos. She describes his passion for anthropology and documentary filmmaking, his elusive mysterious nature. She tells her friend, sakhi, of the time she was invited to dance at a party. It was after her Bharata Natyam performance that he showed interest in her after a year long friendship. She was in disbelief. They spent the evening together chatting. He even asked for a kiss: (Mexican accent) "Just don't take off your stage make-up or jewelry--it will destroy my Indian fantasy." Disgusted, she left. From that day on he ignored her in Anthro class. It was only much later that she heard he had gossiped about that night, telling his friends she was an "Indian Tigress"
For real?