The Natyasastra and the body in performance: essays on Indian theories of dance and drama
- Submitting institution
-
University of Lincoln
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 6218
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- McFarland
- ISBN
- 9780786471782
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Natyasastra and the Body in Performance offers new insights into the nature and characteristics of Indian performance studies, a term used in the book for the first time to introduce it as a sub-discipline in theatre and performance studies. The anthology, curated, and introduced by Nair, reflects on the ways in which the performing body is critically understood, conceptualised, and theorised in Indian theatre, an investigation which is underrepresented in Western discourse. It presents for the first time a comprehensive understanding of the epistemological, aesthetic, scientific, religious, ethnological, and practical dimensions of Indian theatre.
The research arose from a series of questions which guided the organisation of thematic sections within the volume:
- What is Indian performance studies?
- How does the Natyasastra, an ancient Indian text on theatre arts, inform and explain the structural principles and functional modalities of performance as a spatiotemporal event?
- How do we understand the performance discourse of the Natyasastra through a wide range of its critical paradigms and theoretical concepts?
- How can such terms be translated into contemporary scholarship?
- Is the Natyasastra simply a doctrinal composition of the past, or does its discourse have contemporary relevance?
Alongside analysis of the Natyasastra’s classical Indian discourse on performance, the volume critiques and challenges such thinkers as Mauss, Foucault and Bourdieu, and their writings on the body, technique, the archaeology of knowledge, and the logic of practice. The triangulation of contemporary thought, twentieth century performance theory, and classical Indian discourse generates a new investigative framework for Indian performance. The research reveals dynamics of complementarity between tradition and modernity in Indian theatre.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
