PW WUTST with king
Dramaturgy by Shyamala Moorty. Continuing to develop Raja/ni role, and 20 minute solo-super-minimalist-no video we used to see this version for low budget touring option. This is developing into the version for Erasing Borders next week on Sept 5 2014. Any feedback by Post Natyam Collective is most welcome and desired before Wed Sept 3, 12 noon pacific standard time! This is not the final music but I adding music trax + colonial archive text the best I could to give you a better idea of what I'm thinking for the NYC version.
Feedback Questions:
1) What do you get from the Raja/ni role? Do you associate them as male, female, fluid, etc?
2) What do you get as a viewer with the Raja/ni happening at the beginning, with the text? Any suggestions?
3) Who is Raja/ni looking at, admiring, attracted to?
4) Where would you like to see Raja/ni go? Anything specific that you would like us to try?
5) Any feedback, suggestions, questions, advice, unclear aspects for the rest of the piece?
6) Is there anything potentially PROBLEMATIC in terms of political statements viewers might take from this piece? Particularly anything anti-progressive/conservative?
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FROM SANDRA:
ReplyDelete1) What do you get from the Raja/ni role Do you associate them as male, female, fluid, etc?
In the beginning definitely male
The prince of wales follows rights after rajani giving coins!’
Rajani lifting feet of the ground--- loosing ground?
Balancing
Discomfort in chair
Nakes sense to me how u leave chair and become dancer btwn min 5-6
Fluidity begins with 3:57- squatting on chair
4.17 male again (drunk)
2) ) What do you get as a viewer with the Raja/ni happening at the beginning, with the text? Any suggestions? In the beginning I read the rajani as the viewer, in line with the narrators position, but not the narrator. Its as though the narrator is commenting on the scene with the rajani
3) Who is Raja/ni looking at, admiring, attracted to?
The dancers in the text
looove the falling off the chair and recomposing into raja
4) Where would you like to see Raja/ni go? Anything specific that you would like us to try?
5) Any feedback, suggestions, questions, advice, unclear aspects for the rest of the piece?
Ilike that u perform the viewer (colonial) first and then dancer
6) Is there anything potentially PROBLEMATIC in terms of political statements viewers might take from this piece? Particularly anything anti-progressive/conservative?
I cant think of anything
1) What do you get from the Raja/ni role?
ReplyDeleteThe set up of a viewer to the dancer. Dichotomies of establishing power and then crumbling power (falling apart). Feeling of transformation and change (floating). A figure head to the private viewing space.
Do you associate them as male, female, fluid, etc?
From watching I mostly think of them as male (because of Bharata Natyam signifiers of wide stance etc)
From the name, I might read them more as fluid.
2) What do you get as a viewer with the Raja/ni happening at the beginning, with the text? Any suggestions?
It feels like the text is describing what we see as a royalty and court watching dancers. It specifically contextualizes us into an era of colonialism and I seem to remember it is in the early to mid 1800s. It is humorous to me when the Raja/ni gets bored with the dancer and starts crumbling but the crumbling feels more serious as it continues.
3) Who is Raja/ni looking at, admiring, attracted to?
Raja/ni is looking mostly at a dancer, I assume a female dancer based on my expectations of Indian dance, and sometimes at the audience. The admiration and attraction (and sometimes critical or bored eye) seems aimed at the dancer. However, when raja/ni's power or status appears to be changing (floating or crumbling) etc. they seem to look more at the audience, so that it seems like they are aware that they are being watched and that is important for them to retain some sort of stature in front of us. It feels like we are raja/ni's subjects.
4) Where would you like to see Raja/ni go? Anything specific that you would like us to try?
I could watch more floating
I would love to play more with the moment of the hat falling off.
Crazy idea, but would they ever lean or fall on or sit on the laps of any of the salon audience and then use them to climb back up to their throne?
5) Any feedback, suggestions, questions, advice, unclear aspects for the rest of the piece?
I’m not sure where you ended up looking or sitting for the composed/decomposed section at the temple space? I am interested in your idea of trying it on the tarp (which will add an aural element) but I am also curious to see how different facings communicate your intention there and who it is you are trying to compose yourself for? In relation to this, I am also curious about playing more with putting on the cum cum: how do you put it on and how does it affect you?
6) Is there anything potentially PROBLEMATIC in terms of political statements viewers might take from this piece? Particularly anything anti-progressive/conservative?
Nope. I feel like it is playing with and expanding typical interpretations so it destabilizes the traditional perspectives.
PS. the above comments were based on the last live run through that I saw of the piece which was actually after this video. This is primarily because I can't seem to log on to vimeo to see the video!
ReplyDelete1) What do you get from the Raja/ni role? Do you associate them as male, female, fluid, etc?
ReplyDeleteThis role, particularly in relationship to the colonial text, sets up the salon context much more fully than in previous versions. I find this very helpful.
I primarily read the character as male, or at least masculine, though this gets complicated or more ambiguous after you start to float and crumble. Much of the pleasure of seeing you do the role has to do with seeing a (queer-looking) female body embody masculinity. This pleasure feels different than seeing, for instance, a male BN dancer embody a nayika; it probably wouldn't have the same effect for me if you were in full classical garb. The floating and crumbling take away from the physical groundedness, which I associate with power and masculinity, and the shift seems to be in relationship to the colonization expressed in the voice-over -- which reminds me of how the colonized is usually coded as feminine.
I also read you as the dancer as being somewhat gender-fluid throughout the piece. Part of this has to do with the referencing of wide masculine stances, the collapsing and falling apart that does not adhere to either female grace or male confidence and power, and your haircut and clothing. When you have the red tikka on your forehead and start doing the looping movement with the nataraja, I read you as a male priest. The only part that reads as unambiguously feminine is when you tease the audience with flowers.
2) What do you get as a viewer with the Raja/ni happening at the beginning, with the text? Any suggestions?
I imagine the raja/ni in the salon-court space described by the text, watching a performance.
3) Who is Raja/ni looking at, admiring, attracted to?
A dancer, or perhaps several dancers.
4) Where would you like to see Raja/ni go? Anything specific that you would like us to try?
I like the raja/ni as is. The transition into the dancer, with you bowing to the throne, is very clear. I find myself wondering whether the raja/ni is embedded in the crown (my assumption) or in the chair (which seems to be consonant with your performance). I see echoes of the raja/ni in the dancer's physicality throughout the performance, especially in your final sitting in the audience.
It might be fun for the raja/ni to go sit in the QTPOC salon. And it might be interesting to explicitly make this character a rajani -- to make her read as female -- just to see how that shifts things.
5) Any feedback, suggestions, questions, advice, unclear aspects for the rest of the piece?
6) Is there anything potentially PROBLEMATIC in terms of political statements viewers might take from this piece? Particularly anything anti-progressive/conservative?
No. Some folks might find the use of the Nataraja disrespectful, but I find it an effective political critique. I'm not Hindu though.