brainstorm: some imagined courtesan scenes

While in Delhi together to perform for the IGNITE festival, Sandra and I had some late night addas where we brainstormed ideas for some scenes to add to our show. Here are some of them:  

BEHIND THE SCENES (a women only space): What happens when the courtesans aren't performing? Stage a behind-the-scenes conversation between the courtesans with some fun characters - a courtesan who actually doesn’t like sex, a nymphomaniac, a lesbian couple. Textually, this scene could incorporate women’s songs (there may be material in The Prostitute in 19th Cent. Bengal or the Oldenberg article). The graphic padam with the "aunt" who turns out to be Muvva Gopala from When God is a Customer might work too (see below). As for staging ideas: are we all offstage and you just hear us? Is it on video because we need 4 characters, but not all of us will be able to perform together live? Do we do another iteration of the SKYPE call but dressed up and in character (the lesbian couple could be in the same frame...)?  

LEARNING THE TRADE: What if we have a scene with a senior courtesan teaching a greenhorn (who’s really a lesbian)? The greenhorn can’t do it initially; the senior courtesan gives up; the lesbian courtesan volunteers to try to teach her, and suddenly it becomes very viscerally erotic.  

CYBER COURTESAN PHONE CENTER: One of us would sit at a desk at the computer, doing abhinaya into the webcam. The character would be very made up from torso up (perhaps it appears as if you’re naked?), but from the waist down, very frumpy in sweatpants. We see a live feed of the courtesan’s face doing abhinaya on the back wall. At the same time we see the real live body, and the lower body is doing something very mundane and non-sexual, like turning the pages of a newspaper with one's toes. We could have a series where the rest of us are doing chores, phone calls come in (we ask, "Hey, who’s made up?"), and then each goes to a different computer and our image pops up on the back wall. See Kate Rigg’s “Phone Sex” music as reference.

A Young Woman to a Friend (Ksetrayya)

Those women, they deceived me.

They told me he was a woman,

and now my heart is troubled

by what he did.

First I thought

she was my aunt and uncle's daughter,

so I bow to her, and she blesses me:

"You'll get married soon,

don't be bashful.  I will bring you

the man of your heart."

"Those firm little breasts of yours

will soon

grow round and full," she says.

And she fondles them

and scratches them

with the edge of her nail.

"Come eat with me," she says,

as she holds me close

and feeds me as at a wedding.

Those women, they told me he was a woman!

Then she announces:

"My husband is not in town.

Come home with me."

So I go and sleep in her bed.

After a while she says,

"I'm bored.  Let's play

a kissing game, shall we?

Too bad we're both women."

Then, as she sees me falling asleep,

off my guard,

she tries some

strange things on me.

Those women, they told me he was a woman!

She says, "I can't sleep.

Let's do what men do."

Thinking 'she' was a woman,

I get on top of him.

Then he doesn't let go:

he holds me so tight

he loses himself in me.

Wicked as ever, he declares:

"I am your Muvva Gopala!"

And he touches me expertly

and makes love to me.

Those women, they told me he was a woman!

-Ksettraya (Telugu), from When God is a Customer

Uma's padam, or Rewriting Ksettraya

In August 2010, Shyamala first posted her research with AWAZ, the South Asian Network's support group for survivors of domestic violence.  In her blog posting she detailed her interview with Uma who had spent over 30 years in an abusive marriage.  One poignant episode describes Uma's refusal to tell her husband that she loves him when he comes home, drunk, and demands that she profess her love.  This episode sparked the idea of rewriting a Ksettraya padam whose pallavi (refrain) is "I didn't say a word," capitalizing on the ambiguity of a woman's silence, which can be both passivity and resistance.  Here is a raw first attempt at the rewrite:

A Woman to Her Friend

Friend, I didn’t say a word.

It would be a shame

if others were to hear.

He came with a glisten of mascara

still on his lips.

When I said it hurt me,

he made a scene.

When my friends asked me

what had happened,

I laughed it off,

covered it up.

I didn’t say a word

He wasn’t afraid to come home

with the red lac from her feet

on his forehead.

Still, he had the nerve

to ask for a hug.

I was furious

but, hiding it,

I protested gently.

I said it wasn’t right.

He raised his voice and,

fearing where it might lead,

I gave in.

As in the saying

about the thorn and the banana leaf,

it’s always the leaf that gets torn.

I didn’t say a word

Friend, he came here

with her betel juice

staining his neck

breath sweet with whiskey heaviness

and asked me for a kiss.

Tell me how much you love me,

he said, smiling uncontrollably,

tell me how much.

I didn’t say a word.

Friend, he made love to me

the same as ever,

the thorn carelessly shredding the leaf,

the monsoon rain battering the earth.

And as I lay there unmoving,

the peacocks shrieking wildly

I didn’t say a word

-Ksetrayya, rewritten by Cynthia Ling Lee

Here is the original padam as reference:

A Woman to Her Friend

Friend, I didn’t say a word.
It would be a shame
if others were to hear.

He came with a glisten of mascara
still on his lips.
When I said it hurt me,
he made a scene.

When my friends asked me
what had happened,
I laughed it off,
covered it up.


I didn’t say a word


He wasn’t afraid to come home
with the red lac from her feet
on his forehead.
Still, he had the nerve
to ask for a hug.

I was furious
but, hiding it,
I protested gently.
I said it wasn’t right.
He raised his voice and,
fearing where it might lead,
I gave in.

As in the saying
about the thorn and the banana leaf,
it’s always the leaf that gets torn. 


I didn’t say a word

Friend, he came here
with her betel juice
staining his neck
yet asked me for a kiss.
It seemed improper
to hurt a man
who had come to me.

But when he made love to me
as well as ever,
I felt obliged, and 


I didn’t say a word


-Ksetrayya, from When God is a Customer, eds. and trans. A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Schulman.

FEEDBACK QUESTIONS:

(1) How might you imagine performing or otherwise staging this poem?

(2) How do you see this poem in relation to My Silent Cry, the choreography Shyamala created based on Uma's story?  Would it layer on top?  Immediately precede or follow the dance?  Go somewhere else altogether in the show, yet link to the story?

(3) Any feedback on the writing?

(4) Mythili Prakash once performed Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" in classical Bharatanatyam abhinaya, with the American poem translated into a South Indian language and sung Carnatic style.  I am  curious whether a similar strategy of "reverse" or "hidden" translation might be interesting here.  Thoughts? 

A duet for one: dancing with virtual Sandra

Recently Sandra developed a new solo with video projection that was filmed outdoors in Munich.  The video projection intercuts footage of her dancing with academic theory about exoticism.  Sandra's solo was performed at the IGNITE! contemporary dance festival in Delhi and served as the opening section of "Tell Me, Sister" (see projection solo in progress), which I performed instead of Shyamala.

While in Delhi, Sandra and I discussed that it might be interesting to repeat her projection material throughout the course of the larger show, but with different performers doing the live dance.  So for this study I choreographed myself in relation to her, drawing on her original movement material.  For this version, I envision that rather than having the theory present, it might be nice for the sections of writing to be replaced by a simple white background.

password: "bier tent"

video: Sandra Chatterjee
live dance: Cynthia Ling Lee
direction: Shyamala Moorty

Feedback Questions:

(1) What do you see as being the relationship between myself and Sandra's projection?  How does the relationship evolve?

(2) How do you imagine that this version colors, shifts, and changes Sandra's original version?

(3) How do you think this material relates to other material from our process and to the larger show?

(4) What kind of sound/music do you think would support the piece?

(5) Is this compelling enough material to keep working on?  Suggestions for further development?

Tawaif, Interrupted, or, Theorizing the Courtesan

Since learning to perform "Tell Me, Sister," the story of the child widow who is abused by her in-laws and empowers herself by becoming a courtesan, I have been thinking about the piece's ending.  I would like to avoid romanticizing the figure of the courtesan as some sort of "proto-feminist."  Rather, I would like to recognize that she exercised her agency and power within the confines of a patriarchal structure.  I also feel that it is ultimately impossible as a contemporary woman and classically trained dancer to understand and grasp the historical courtesan in any sort of "pure" way, unmediated by society's myriad perceptions of her.

Thus I've been toying with the idea of undermining the courtesan at the height of her power by having Chakravarty's theory on how the courtesan is regarded in Indian cultural consciousness typed upon my face as I do sitting abhinaya.  This would occur during what was formerly the ending of Tell Me, Sister.  The image was inspired by one of the images from my artbook, Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine :

Shyamala and I tried this in rehearsal, and at first it seemed potentially interesting:

password "shyamalabai"

In addition, Sangita and I recently collaborated on reworking my dance-for-camera study, "skin," which uses the same theoretical text.  After reshooting it, Sangita did a beautiful job editing the footage into mysterious, organic imagery where Sumita Chakravarty's academic theory slips and melts on the not-quite-recognizable landscape of the female body.

I thought it might be interesting to transition from typing the theory on my face to a projection of "skin" that I would somehow interact with live.  However, we ran into some technical problems -- the two projections interrupt each other when the "skin" projection fills the back wall (which is why they are side by side here, rather than fading from one to another).  In addition, the typing on my face spills over to the back wall in a way I find distracting.  Here is rehearsal footage of this experiment:

password: "discursive"

Feedback Questions:
(1) Based on this footage, I'm thinking I may scrap the typing on my face altogether and instead transition straight from the sitting abhinaya into interacting with the projection on the back wall.  Do you think this is a good idea?
(2) Which movements are most effective with the video projection?  (I was just improvising ad hoc here.)
(3) What do you see as being the relationship between myself and the projection?
(4) How long do you stay interested in myself interacting with the projection?  Would you like to see less or more?
(5) Other thoughts/suggestions?

"skin" - revised version

Here is a new and improved version of skin, which Sangita reshot and edited for me.  It had its first screening at gati's IGNITE contemporary dance festival!



skin (2010)
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Cynthia Lee
Director Photography/Editing: Sangita Shresthova
Text: Sumita Chakravarty's National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987
Music Composition: Loren Nerell
Production Support: Carol McDowell


FEEDBACK QUESTIONS:
(1) How does the piece make you feel -- viscerally, emotionally, intellectually?
(2) Any thoughts about how to integrate into the live performance?
(3) Other thoughts?

Tell Me, Sister! Projection November 2010 (Babli)

In preparation for our presentation during IGNITE! Festival in New Delhi, I revisited the idea of exotification. I also drew on one of Anjali's early assignments working with a Varnam
Here is a link to the assignment itself

My intention was basically to create a dialogue between engaging with abhinaya and thoughts around "the exotic" which come from my contemporary reality of encountering an exotifying gaze while presenting classical dance on the (diasporic) stage.

These are a few ideas I played with for a projection. During IGNITE, this was projected onto the back wall from a projector placed in the aisle. A stark black shadow was created by my body moving with the projection. However since I was dressed in white, the projected image- while disrupted by my body- was still visible (distorted) on my white costume.

Password: tell me babli

Tell Me Sister Projection Babli, November 2010 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

Here are the two versions without the text that I worked with:

tell me sister babli intro 2 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

password: tell me babli 2

Tell Me, Sister, Babli intro draft 1 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

password: tell me babli 1

October 2010 Creative Assignment: Adda with the Ancestors, Revisited

This multi-part creative assignment adapts improvisational structures used during the development of Carol McDowell’s score, Adda with the Ancestors, as a springboard to investigate our personal relationship to the figure of the courtesan and survivors of violence.  

Ideally these tasks would be performed in pairs over Skype so that the figure of the “witness” can be involved.  However, you may do the tasks either solo with an imagined witness or in pairs (self-organize if you’d like to pursue this option).  Please post “traces” of your investigations along with feedback questions by Oct 29, 2010.

TASK 1: AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT MEMORIES

Free-write on the three following prompts.  Take a moment to let the memory/image settle into your embodied imagination before putting pen to page.  Write continuously without correcting grammar or otherwise self-censoring for four minutes per prompt.

·      1. What is your most vivid abhinaya memory?  Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance? 

·      2. What is your most sensual/erotic dancing memory? Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?

·      3. What is a dance you imagine a courtesan would have done?  (Be specific about what kind of courtesan.) Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?


4. What is your most visceral physical memory of abuse?  Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do a dance of this memory?  Does this dance have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?

Choose a writing and take it into the space (or towards the webcam).  If working solo, imagine who the ideal witness/spirit guardian/rasika for this dance might be.  Setting the timer for five minutes, close your eyes and remember the dance in your body.  If you are the witness, watch with loving attentiveness and without judgment.  You may choose to videotape your movement if working solo.

If working with a live partner, the witness now physically “plays back” what she remembers of the dance. 

Now, add to your existing writing by writing about your physical memory of the dance.  Do you remember specific movement, phrasing, choreography, structure, detail, vocabulary, text, imagery, or emotions? 

If working with a live partner, write on her version of your dance as well.  If working solo, you may now wish to watch the video, then write on the video version of the dance.

Write a question for your rasika and/or for your dance’s ancestor.

Repeat the process for the remaining writings.  Be sure to switch roles if working with a partner.

TASK 2: ANCESTOR SOLO OR MAKE-YOUR-OWN

After completing TASK #1, you can choose to do (1) an ancestor solo (see directions below) and/or (2) to extend the material in whatever way you wish (whether it be through choreographing a movement study, working further on a writing, creating another improvisation score, pursuing historical research, creating a dance video using your rehearsal footage, etc.)

Score for Ancestor Solo (Trio for One):

Pick one of your writings.

(1)  1. Do a “small dance” of your memory.  (A small dance is a very brief movement citation -- perhaps just in your fingers or face – that is small in size.)

(2) 2.  Take a step back, name your ancestor, and respond to the first dance as the ancestor.

(3)  3. Take a step back, name the protector, and respond as the protector.  

(4)  4. Now you can move between the characters, putting them in physical and verbal conversation.

If working with a partner, she can ask questions throughout.  As a variation, she can also step into one of the roles, but should call the name (“Ancestor,” “Protector,” or “Protagonist”) first.  You may want to videotape as a record.

Repeat for the other two writings.

Shyamala's response to August Assignment

I thought a lot about Uma's story living through 30 years with an abusive husband while I was listening over and over again to the music that Loren created from her recorded voice. I knew I wanted to explore the white fabric and was also thinking a lot about a Window Between World's workshop for domestic violence survivors called Journey Butterflies.

During the process I discovered a way to use the cloth that reminded me of Anj's Aprill 2009 study and of the sculptures of Simeen Ishaque Farhatfeel. I actually feel like I am one of her sculptures come to life: http://www.simeen.net/

After I made it, while watching it on video, I did feel the need to have one other kind of music at the end, so I added in an excerpt of a track by Deuter.

My first audience was the support group, I shared it with them yesterday and was really amazed by all their interpretations and the connections they made to their own experiences.

I look forward to hearing responses from those that have not shared her experience as well. So please comment!

PASSWORD: Uma


Silent Cry from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.



Questions:
1. What do you see and experience?
2. Are there images or movements that you think could be explored more?
3. Is there anything that distracts you from being in the experience?
4. Do the breath and/or laughter sounds I make towards the end distract from or enhance the experience? Perhaps they could be developed a bit rhythmically?
5. Do you want to hear more of Uma's actual story or do you like it more abstract?
6. Any other comments, questions, thoughts?

Cyber Chat Revisited

Here is the revised Cyberchat collaboration!





Featuring the following Post Natyam people: Sandra Chatterjee, Shyamala Moorty, Anjali Tata, Cynthia Ling Lee, Sangita Shresthova (choreographic media arrangement)

August Creative Assignment "Inhaling all the fragrance"

"…When I grow the roses I go and admire and I put my face on top of them and smell and inhaling all the fragrance….life is like that, I thought in the beginning. But it’s not always….I want to smell the rose I want to feel the dew…all those small, small details I enjoy it, but I didn’t have it.” -Uma

Loren is creating a piece of music using audio excerpts of my interview with Uma, one of women from SAN's AWAZ domestic violence survivor support group. He will be sending everyone the music by Sunday or Monday evening. Using Loren’s music and referencing my interview notes, make a dance for the stage (we have so much video material that I am challenging us to think of the live audience again). The piece should be one that is both artistic and humane, and is based on some seed or essence of Uma’s story that interests you. Whatever you make, have an awareness of the other material we have been creating for the show.

DUE: AUG. 30th

Interview of survivor from SAN support group

I interviewed one of the women from SAN’s (South Asian Network) AWAZ support group for survivors of domestic violence. Uma is currently separating from her husband and she and I spent over two hours with her story that spans 30 years of marriage. Below are several excerpts of the interview that struck me as interesting and how I feel they connect into Post Natyam’s current work:

"…One day he called me and say come here I want to talk to you…'tell me how much you love me. Tell me how much you love me, how much, how much, how much you love me?' I kept quiet and quiet. 'Tell me how much you love me.' Inside of my heart saying: 'you’re not worth it, you’re not worth it, you’re not worth it.' I could ask him the same question: How much do you love me? Did you honor that love that I gave it to you.? Did you give me that respect? Did you give me that honor?...Where is the dignity?... I didn’t say that I love him, he beat me up. He kicked me, I fell down on the floor, he kicked me up. Because I didn’t tell him I love him." - Uma

In the quotes above I am struck by Uma’s resilience and belief in her own dignity even in the face of a beating. Similarly, Veena Oldenburg’s fieldwork in her article “Lifestyle as Resistance: The case of the courtesans of Lucknow, India,” documents the story of a young widow is ill-treated by her in-laws but still finds ways to resist:

"I had no recourse to the laws, or to lawyers, only to my wits sharpened by adversity. I first tried to get back at them with sly acts of sabotage. I did the washing up indifferently, leaving a dull film on the metal platters and the pots. For this my mother-in-law thrashed me. I would sneak into the kitchen when my sister-in-law had finish-ed cooking and add a heavy dose of salt to the lentils and vegetables. I would hide my smile when I heard the yells and abuse heaped on her by the menfolk. She caught me one day and thrashed me soundly until I howled with pain."


Another connection I found in the interview was a desire for beauty and sensuality through the imagery of a flower. I am coincidentally exploring a similar idea in the end of a new piece I am working on “Tell me, Sister” based on the same story from the Oldenburg article.

"…When I grow the roses I go and admire and I put my face on top of them and smell and inhaling all the fragrance….life is like that, I thought in the beginning. But it’s not always….I want to smell the rose I want to feel the dew…all those small, small details I enjoy it, but I didn’t have it." -Uma

Here is a work in progress of “Tell me, Sister.” Since I first performed it in Post Natyam Unveiled, Cynthia and I have been working on creating the final section (after the projections). In this last section, the character explores her own flowering from within. The lovely sarengi music in the final section will replaced with a new composition by Loren.

PASSWORD: Tell me


Tell me, Sister (work in progress) from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


Finally, I was surprised in the interview that Uma's fury was more about his infidelity then for his violence:

“If he is worth it, I would put up with anything, torturing, kicking, or even pricking a needle on my fingers. I will put up with it, but he is not worth it. If he has only alcohol habit…I could put up with it, but going with the different women and coming back, isn’t worth it.” -Uma

Here is a Padam (poem that was often sung and danced to) from the Telugu courtesan repertoire that deals with infidelity from a book Post Natyam has used material from in previous creative assignments: “When God Is a Customer” Edited and translated by A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Schulman.

A Woman to Her Friend

Friend, I didn’t say a word.
It would be a shame
if others were to hear.

He came with a glisten of mascara
still on his lips.
When I said it hurt me,
he made a scene.

When my friends asked me
what had happened,
I laughed it off,
covered it up.

I didn’t say a word

He wasn’t afraid to come home
with the red lac from her feet
on his forehead.
Still, he had the nerve
to ask for a hug.

I was furious
but, hiding it,
I protested gently.
I said it wasn’t right.
He raised his voice and,
fearing where it might lead,
I gave in.

As in the saying
about the thorn and the banana leaf,
it’s always the leaf that gets torn.

I didn’t say a word
Friend, he came here
with her betel juice
staining his neck
yet asked m for a kiss.
It seemed improper
to hurt a man
who had come to me.

But when he made love to me
as well as ever,
I felt obliged, and

I didn’t say a word

-Ksetrayya


The Pallavi or repeating refrain “I didn’t say a word,” is reminiscent of one other moment in the interview:

"…That was my silent cry. I was silently crying inside, but nobody knows outside. But now I'm not crying I'm speaking…I want to be me. I’m bold I have strength, I want to keep my head up and live with dignity!"-Uma

Cyber Chat Rough Cut

Here it is. Fresh off the press (or rather the compressor), we present an initial rough cut of the Cyber Chat remake. While we are still fine-tuning crucial details (positioning, cuts, syncing and playback speeds), we thought it apt and mutually beneficial to provide an initial sneek peek to those curious about this latest installation of Post Natyam Collective's virtual collaboration process.

The composition was created through as an iterative sequence, wherein each member created their own cyber chat set to their own sub-track of the audio while watching previous members' interpretations. The piece intends to communicate the visual and virtual possibilities of cyber choreographies.

Note: An earlier version of Cyber Chat, Cyber Spat was presented as part of "Trace," a performance-installation at Sea and Space Explorations Gallery in Los Angeles, CA and as part of "Post Natyam Unveiled," a lecture-demonstration at the Khmer Arts Salon Series in Long Beach, CA.

posted by: Sangita-Bollynatyam

Cynthia's Response to June 2010 Assignment

I was the last person to add into the reworked Cyber Chat, Cyber Spat, and I admit I was a little overwhelmed by all the information contained in the other videos.  In creating my portion, I wanted to integrate some elements from the other three choreographers, to make sense of our conversation narratively, and tie up any loose ends.  





One of my techniques was to integrate props used by the other three: books, coffee cup, and costume.  Also, after chatting with Sangita, I decided that this piece was a conference call in which we were discussing our long-distance project on courtesans: that Sandra was addressing this through theory (the books), while Shyamala was doing so performatively (through costumes).  Since I regretted not being able to read the titles of Sandra's books, I revised my earlier opening, in which I had sleepily poured myself a cup of coffee, and instead opened with myself sleeping on a pile of books (as if I'd been researching all night!).  I intentionally chose books that were salient to our project, including When God is a Customer (an erotic collection of padams), Taboo! (fieldwork on the redlight district in Lahore), Abhinayadarpanam (Sanskrit treatise on abhinaya), Telling Stories to Change the World (this was a nod to our more activist work with SAN).  


I also wanted to respect the shape of my rhythmic composition, which is a chakradar (a thrice-repeating composition), and so I broke my choreography into three sections: (1) my first "small dance" sleepiness (2) my rhythmic show-and-tell with the books and (3) my reentry to engage with a discussion about the costumes.  Within this I tried to time certain gestures and actions (coffee drinking, book moving) so that they would align with the others.

Cynthia's Research Write-up for June 2010

For my research this month, I researched the ghazal form and read a chapter of my friend Emma Kalb’s thesis regarding courtesan films.  For guidance on comments, see the unanswered questions/areas for future exploration at the end of each section, as well as whatever insights occur to you.  

(1) On the Ghazal Form:

I first encountered the ghazal not as a kathak dancer, but as a poetic form translated into English.  As I was refamiliarizing myself with the form, it gave me an idea about an internet based choreographic experiment that we could try.

According to Agha Shahid Ali, the ghazal couples formal tightness with a thematic freedom verging on arbitrariness.  Composed of thematically independent couplets, every line in a ghazal must have the same number of syllables.  The first couplet sets up a rhyme scheme and a refrain that must be followed throughout the rest of the poem, but other than the opening couplet, the refrain occurs only in the second line.  The last couplet often ends with a signature couplet in which the poet mentions his/her name.

(See “The Charms of a Considered Disunity” by Agha Shahid Ali in The Practice of Poetry.  Also see http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5781 for more details and actual examples.)

Since the four of us in Post Natyam have quite different voices, it struck me that perhaps the ghazal could be formally translated into a dance-for-camera choreographic exercise whereby we are given total expressive freedom in terms of content but are locked together by having to strictly follow certain choreographic rules.  The rules might look something like this:

(1 1. One person is selected to create the opening couplet.  This couplet is composed of two 5 second phrases, each ending in the same gesture.

(2 2. All of us then create 3 phrases, each exactly 10 seconds long. 

a.    All the movement phrases should be choreographed for the camera.

b.    Each phrase should be complete in itself (like a gem); there should be no attempt to link them to each other on any emotional or narrative level.

c.     Each phrase should end with the same gesture established by the opening “couplet.” 

d.    One phrase should somehow reference your name, however obliquely.

(3 3. After creating the phrases, we edit together the footage and see what transpired!

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:

In his article, Ali does not talk much about the emotional content of the ghazal (implying any content is okay).  Nevertheless ghazals do tend to revolve around longing, the Beloved, love, and ponderings about the universe – staples of Urdu poetry and thematic anchors that might connect us more clearly to the subject matter of our long-distance project.  My question is how to make that connection without sacrificing the thematic freedom and arbitrariness made possible by the ghazal formally.

(2) Research Notes on  “The Nautch Girl, In Print and On Film: An Ambivalent History, An Ambivalent Nation” Emma Kalb, 2006, Senior Thesis in Asian Studies, Swarthmore College.

Chapter on “The Courtesan Film”:

On Bollywood Films and Social Hegemony:

“These are not open-ended films intended to guide the viewer toward rebellion or a cataclysmic rethinking of social norms. Bollywood offers a purging pleasure, in which events tie up nicely, wounds are healed, and dangerous, chaotic forces are tamed or exterminated.” (Nayar 1997)

“the structure of the film is... designed to accommodate deep fantasies belonging to an extraordinarily varied group of people, from illiterate workers to sophisticated urbanites.” (Mishra 2002)

“Such films works to delineate an “idealised moral universe” that “upholds the ‘official’ definition of femininity within the main plot, and then to provide ‘unofficial’ erotic pleasures… through the song and dance sequences.” (Pinney)

On the Figure of the Tawaif:

“The erotic, seductive, and independent tawaif writes the proscribed narrative of a fissiparous and still contingent nation.” (Poonam Arora)

“many celebrated tawai'ifs were in effect highly educated career women, often accomplished poets and musicians, who valued their financial and personal independence from male authority.” (Lutgendorf)

On Courtesan Films

-unique in their focus on Muslim communities, women protagonists

-reveal a nostalgia “arising from the decline and disappearance of courtesan culture.” (Dwyer and Patel)

-Films such as Umrao Jaan depict the “poetry-smitten world of 19th century Islamicate urban culture, in which all educated people were aspiring Urdu poets, and evenings were spent in mehfils or poetic gatherings.”

Womanhood and Morality: Domesticating the Courtesan?

-The films reveal a tension “between notions of ideal womanhood and historical as well as contemporary facts of how (at least some) women live.” (69)

-stories of “unrealizable desire” “transgressive love”

-direct quotations from films:

Pakeezah: “any whore is a dead body.”

Umrao Jaan: “a public woman who can never truly claim a man”

-Courtesans are usually portrayed as longing for respectability, wishing to be a wife and a proper woman:

-“the genre of the “courtesan film” strains to domesticate the whore and fit her into a wifely role (Virdi, 132)

-“The films could express something of the power and independence that come with being a tawaif, but in fact they render her the opposite, powerless and caged by what is written as natural for a woman to yearn for: respectability, the life of a wife or a daughter.” 

-courtesan as “a lotus in the muck”

-“the courtesan films delineate a morality at an impasse. The courtesan may be sympathized with, but she can never truly have a happy ending.”

- “The films strain to accomplish a balancing act, giving rein to transgressive love and other normally unacceptable behaviors even as they recuperate the transgressors in one way or another back into the nation, finding a resolution that does not challenge the moral bases of society.”

-“It may refuse to portray the courtesan as anything but as close to a pure Hindu wife as a Muslim prostitute living in a bordello can be, but there is a necessary ambivalence to that image.”

Works Cited:

Dwyer, Rachel and Divia Patel. Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Lutgendorf, Philip. philip’s fil-ums: notes on Indian popular cinema.             [http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Eincinema/index.html].

Mishra, Vijay. Bollywood Cinema: Temple of Desire. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Nayar, Sheila. “The values of fantasy: Indian popular cinema through Western scripts.” Journal of Popular Culture, Summer 1997, p. 73-91.

Pinney, Christopher. “Public, Popular, and Other Cultures” in Rachel Dwyer and Christopher Pinney, eds. Pleasure and the Nation: The History, Politics, and Consumption of Public Culture in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001

Virdi, Jyotika. The Cinematic ImagiNation: Indian Popular Films as Social History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003.

INSIGHTS AND QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE EXPLORATION:

The contradictory tension between an ideal notion of womanhood and the lived reality of women (both historical and contemporary) seems like a possible thematic throughline in our work.  If so, I would then ask: How have these idealized notions of womanhood (particularly a Hindu nationalist patriarchal version) impacted each of us personally?  How has our dance been implicated in that? How, if at all, do you feel like breaking that mold?  Is Bollywood and its representations of women dancers implicated in this and how?