While reading about queer female blues singers, I became interested in the
connections and differences between them and the
courtesans of the subcontinent (unconventional sexuality, strong women, the prevalence of love and emotion in the lyrics -- but very different class and racial backgrounds -- anyway, I should write more about this in the future). As creative follow-up to my research, I did a quick and dirty abhinaya/Indian dance inflected interpretation of the first few stanzas of Ma Rainey's "Prove it on Me Blues."
prove it on me blues from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password: "prove it"
Here are the lyrics in case you can't understand them:
Went out last night, had a great big fight
Everything seemed to go on wrong
I looked up, to my surprise
The gal I was with was gone.
Where she went, I don't know
I mean to follow everywhere she goes;
Folks say I'm crooked. I didn't know where she took it
I want the whole world to know.
They say I do it, ain't nobody caught me
Sure got to prove it on me;
Went out last night with a crowd of my friends,
They must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men.
FEEDBACK QUESTIONS:
1. How is the vocabulary of abhinaya and kathak transformed through engagement with the blues song? Do you find the transformation promising or simply out of place? Do you feel the piece is able to access the emotional layers and depth of more "traditional" abhinaya?
2. Do you find it problematic that I'm appropriating cultural material produced from a working class black American female experience?
3. What moments and movement vocabulary stand out to you as promising directions? What would you like to see developed further? What parts would you throw out?
4. Discuss the text-movement relationship. What does the movement add to the lyrics in terms of meaning, emotion, etc?
1. How is the vocabulary of abhinaya and kathak transformed through engagement with the blues song? Do you find the transformation promising or simply out of place? Do you feel the piece is able to access the emotional layers and depth of more "traditional" abhinaya?
ReplyDeleteI watched your assignment before you posted your approach and wrote the lyrics, so I didn't realize the close correlation to the words (because I couldn't understand the words). Instead, I found you created a lively abstract embodiment of B.D. kathak! Now being able to interpret it, I find it responding to the words as well as to the feeling of the style of the song. I feel you expanded the idea of abhinaya to use the space quite effectively. I particularly like moments where you are interpreting the piece with your back to the audience. The costume adds a lot to my interpretation of you as quite masculine. To find more emotional layers I think it might need to be developed further or perhaps, as Aditee mentioned, some or all of it could be repeated and variations of meaning could be developed.
2. Do you find it problematic that I'm appropriating cultural material produced from a working class black American female experience?
yes, and no.
Yes, it is always tricky to represent a marginalized group that we are not a part of.
However, you are clearly mixing and getting inspiration from rather then just “representing” I feel the piece can point to the correlations across time, ethnicity, class and culture. Perhaps also there’s a way to reveal and acknowledge the inequities and complications involved in engaging with this material within the performance.
3. What moments and movement vocabulary stand out to you as promising directions? What would you like to see developed further? What parts would you throw out?
As I mentioned earlier, the back to the audience is a promising re-occurring approach. I wouldn't throw out anything yet!
4. Discuss the text-movement relationship. What does the movement add to the lyrics in terms of meaning, emotion, etc?
There is an element of “coolness” and swagger in the movement that brings to life this imagined hybrid character beyond just showing what the words say. I feel this character is comfortable in their mixed vocabularies and in charge of her presentation of gender and sexuality.
1) I feel the combination of abhinaya, kathak, and post-modern movement all work together to express the song, much like a modern-day padam would do. I find the exploration very promising and am interested to see where it can go. At the moment I don't feel there is an emotional depth to the piece, but I think with further exploration, it has the potential to go there. Not sure it would be the same as a traditional abhinaya piece because the music and the feeling are so completely different, but I think the combination of movement vocabularies and abhinaya have a lot of promise.
ReplyDelete2) Not really because I think so many times dancers dance to artists with ethnically vast and complex backgrounds and histories and it just informs the piece differently. I actually find it extremely intriguing to see an Asian American woman performing to this blues song by an African American woman. The slap of your foot transcends race and I feel the strength of her blues tradition and strong sexuality conveyed through your dancing body.
3) I love the slaps of the feet that serve as strong accents as well as rhythmic nuances in the study. The release movements are also interesting and of course the use of your face. I find some of the traditional hand gestures could be explored further. What are some modern-day hastha mudras that might communicate the same feelings? Perhaps a combo of some traditional and some non-traditional hand gestures could be interesting
4) Like Shy, I do love the swagger and attitude you bring to the character. Again, I feel the text relates to the movement much like a traditional padam structure, but in this case you are using full-bodied movement as well as abhinaya. I like how you use some repetition and definitely some literal representations. Perhaps you can explore story telling ( a scenario) rather than just the straight interpretation and see what happens with that
FROM SANDRA:
ReplyDelete1. How is the vocabulary of abhinaya and kathak transformed through engagement with the blues song?
I like how it affects your general physicality and Particularly in the rhythm sections, and looseness in the knees, and hips
Do you find the transformation promising or simply out of place?
Promising for sure
Do you feel the piece is able to access the emotional layers and depth of more "traditional" abhinaya?
I feel it has the potential, but given that its only a minute it did not go there yet
2. Do you find it problematic that I'm appropriating cultural material produced from a working class black American female experience?
not any more than dancing a form with a courtesan legacy :)
either way, there are of course historical, class and race differences to be addressed and reconciled in the process-- that to me makes it promising and exciting on w hole different level
3. What moments and movement vocabulary stand out to you as promising directions? What would you like to see developed further? What parts would you throw out?
don't see any movement I would chuck out as such--- I would love to see all that is there to be taken further as the piece goes on….
even though both the "crooked" mmt and the "push" on the upper chest are close to the text I love the qualities and would build on that--
also the matching rhythms
4. Discuss the text-movement relationship. What does the movement add to the lyrics in terms of meaning, emotion, etc?
At first viewing I frankly did not pay attention to the text-movement relationship as such-- your physicality, the mix of textures and physicality's and emotionalities in the abstract are way too exiting. But if you are asking me to look at it specifically: I would say it feel like a "first repetition" in abhinaya to me, which is rather close to the text. Since in the song structure of the blues songs there may not be the scope for multiple repetitions, it may actually be a challenge to go he next step. Maybe the chorus is a potential?
FROM ADITEE:
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed watching the video a lot!! The costume was very interesting and I feel that the kathak beats and blues beats match very well.
Going on to the feedback questions,
Cynthia I feel it is too early for me to say anything about the Abhinaya question. The video has only one phrase, so I feel we need to see a little more before I could address this question. I am wondering if there would be repetition of the phrase which could maybe lead to interpretation - and then maybe take the illustrative and literal nature of this phrase further and then we could discuss the element of abhinaya in detail.
2) I am wondering whether the whole project is putting our positions in perspective and the fact that we are working with cabaret is equally problematic… no? The whole class/ race/ maybe even caste questions could be equally problematic in our case.
3) For now keep all. I think the piece will develop from here so too early to chuck out anything.
4) Text movement relationship I feel at the moment is very literal/ illustrative - what is being done is what is being said. so I feel there is a lot more room to develop the relationship which presently for me is almost transliteration of the text to movement.