Dancing without Bodies: Pedagogy and
Performance in Digital Spaces
PRASTHĀVANĀ1: ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines how digital technologies are transforming the practicing and
teaching of traditional dance. In particular, this study focuses on how Odissi, an Indian classical
dance, is being transformed by its dissemination in collaborative and discursive online spaces. It
also discusses how Odissi is being reincarnated in virtual performative and pedagogical spaces,
including Second Life (SL) and online dance teaching websites. The core value system of
traditional Odissi involves sacred associations between the dance space, the dancing body and an
immediate presence of the master. New digital technologies have had a profound effect on the
way these values are represented in the teaching and practice of traditional dance as well as how
we understand performative cultural memory. It is understandable that new technologies have
created a divide in the dance community. To some, technology is an important tool for
innovation. To others, it has the potential to spoil the authenticity of the art.
This dissertation attempts to represent both sides of this issue. It argues that the traditions were
established so that the dance could survive the impacts of coloniality and time, and that core
concepts of the dance have been inculcated by habitus, which determines the value system that
underlies the artistic practices of the dancers. While technologizing the dance is unavoidable, it
may be disrupting Odissi’s core value system. This controversy is revealed in my interviews and
surveys of people across the globe who are profoundly associated with this dance. As an
extension of this study, I will reveal the core value system of composition pedagogy. Looking at
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Gist of the play is articulated by the narrator in the beginning of Sanskrit drama.
Odissi dance will help me understand the relationship between traditional and online teaching,
and the impact of digitization on this practice.
SUTRADHARA ĀHA: PREFACE
In classical Sanskrit dramatics, the Sutradhara is the first person who gets on the stage to
introduce the theme and the characters of a play. In Sanskrit, Sutra means “thread”, dhara means
“one who holds” and aha means “says”. Sutradhara makes an appearance at the beginning of a
play and occasional appearances throughout the play, aiming to thread together the parts
coherently, make the connections and control the structure of the story. Here, I will attempt to
assume the part of the Sutradhara to lay the foundation of the structure of this dissertation and
briefly introduce the theme.
This dissertation brings together the meaning-making process of performative practices in
the field of Indian classical dance and Rhetoric/Composition. This situates this project in the
discursive spaces between digital and cultural rhetoric. I have chosen to use the arrangement
structure of a typical ninety-minute-long Odissi dance repertoire to shape my arguments. These
five main pieces of Odissi are Mangalacharan, Batu, Pallavi, Abhinaya and Moksha. Each of
them can be approximately ten to twenty minutes long, and dancers spend years learning Odissi
in this order.
Mangalacharan is the traditional invocatory piece of Indian classical Odissi dance, and it
is performed at the beginning of a rendition. It begins with bhoomi pranam (obeisance to the
earth). Dancers ask for forgiveness from Mother Earth on which they will stamp their feet while
performing. This is followed by Isthadeva Vandana. Here the dancer offers obeisance to a deity
for an auspicious beginning. It concludes with the trikhandi pranam (three-fold obeisance) in
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which the dancer offers salutations to God, the Guru and the audience. My first chapter is an
invocation of the personal experiences that occur in artistic and academic fields, a topic on which
my dissertation argument will be founded. The chapter will also invoke theoretical conversations
in the field in order to assert and ascertain the position and scope of this research.
Batu is the second piece that a dancer can learn or choose to perform. Practicing Batu
makes a dancer physically fit to embody the typical postures of Odissi. It has a highly structured,
traditional choreography that conditions the dancer’s body to perform the two main postures of
Odissi: the chowka and the tribhangi (as demonstrated in Figure 0.1). Chowka means “square.”
In this posture, the body represents a square. Tribhangi means “three bends.” In this posture, the
body bends in three places: the neck, the torso and the knee. At the Batu stage of the dissertation,
I will (a) evince the context of this research and (b) set up the historical and mythical concepts,
thereby conditioning the reader to interact with this culturally specific study.
In the theory of classical Indian
Figure 0.1: Chowka and Tribhangi (Photo credits:
David Grist, Pramod Thupaki)
dramaturgy, performance on stage can be of three
types: Nritta, Natya and Nritya. Of these, Nritta and Nritya are relevant to dance, whereas Natya
is pure dramatic acting that does not involve dance. Nritya, the expressional dance, is a
combination of drama and dance. Nritta is technical or pure dance and does not have any story
telling element. Instead, the dancer is expected to maintain a pleasant and smiling disposition
throughout the dance.
Pallavi is a pure dance, or nritta, and it is also the third stage of my research. A Pallavi,
which is a Sanskrit word for “blossoming,” starts at a slow speed and is accompanied by slow
movements. In the course of the dance, both the music and the movements interpreting the music
become complex. This piece of the dance demonstrates the scope of collaboration between the
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musician and the dancer, challenging one another to coordinate rhythm and movement. Music
and movement work together to create a meaningful aesthetic narrative. In the third chapter I will
analyze my method and data. I will also present and explore the voices from those in the field.
This analysis opens up the space for confluences, complexities, collaborations and the tracing of
multiple patterns in the conversations.
Abhinaya is the representation of the Nritya, or the expressional element of Odissi. The
fourth chapter brings out the dramatic element of my research by locating the subversiveness and
tensions in contested spaces. I will attempt to de-colonize my methodological framework within
the course of this research by using the oral tradition of the Guru-Shishya2 method to collect
date. I have deliberately added the Greek dramatic elements of the Prologue, the Epilogue, and
the choric interlude (represented by the survey/interview data). This demonstrates the
dissertation’s juxtaposition of western and non-western critical perspectives. This idea will be
further elaborated during my discussions on the methodological and theoretical stances.
A traditional dance routine ends with the performance of Moksha. It is also one of the last
pieces to be taught to a dance student. This is not because it is hardest to learn, but because it is a
difficult concept for a learner to realize. This dance represents a spiritual culmination for the
dancer who soars into the realm of pure aesthetic delight. This is the ultimate aspiration of the
dancer who performs to be unified with the benign Power that is often called God. Moksha
implies liberation. In Hindu philosophy, it is the liberation of the eternal soul from the body. The
soul then soars to assimilate with that Power. I have used the metaphor of liberation to envision
the concept of a virtual classroom as a liberatory space. This last stage of my research will
explore the affordances of the liberated avatar-ized body in a hypermediated pedagogical space.
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In Sanskrit language, Guru means “master” and Shishya means “student”. Guru-Shishya refers
to the sacred bond between the master and student in the process of learning.
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This dissertation contains several Sanskrit and Oriya words which are defined throughout
the text. The glossary also provides a brief definition of some of these expressions that can be
used to clarify their meaning.
KUSHILAV SUCHI3: GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Abhinaya: This is a part of the Odissi repertoire which is expressional. Movements of the body,
gestures and emotions depict a story. In Indian classical dance, these stories are mostly
based on Hindu mythologies. However, dancers also choreograph on non-religious
themes.
Angika: In Sanskrit language, this translates to “belonging to the body.” According to
Natyashastra, or the treatise of Indian dramatics, Angika refers to the meaning-making
gestures that the dancers perform, using their bodies in order to tell a story. Dancers use
their eyes, hands, legs, head, chest, feet, etc. to tell a story.
Avatar: In Sanskrit, the meaning of this word corresponds to the words “to descent.” In the
mythology, the deity Vishnu took various forms, or avatars, and descended on the earth at
various points of time. The shapes which Vishnu took were that of the fish, the turtle, the
boar, the half-man and half-lion, the dwarf, the bearer of an axe, a virtuous king, a
warrior bearing a plough and the Enlightened Man (the Buddha). The last avatar will be
Kalki and according to this myth, he will come on a horse.
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List of characters in classical Sanskrit drama (Natyashastra). This is a list of Sanskrit, Hindi and
Oriya words that are going to be used in the dissertation. Although all the concepts and words
will be explained in the dissertation at some point, readers can use this list for quick reference.
Since these concepts are participants in the “drama” that the dissertation presents, I decided to
use this metaphor.
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Bandha: This is an acrobatic form of dance practiced in Eastern India by the gotipuas. Guru
Maguni Das, a gotipua Guru, revived this style of dance. Several Gotipuas perform this
group dance by forming different structures with their bodies. Ancient temple walls of
Orissa bear sculptures thatdenote bodies forming pyramidal shapes. This dance style
derives from the concept found in these sculptures.
Bhava: These are emotions aroused in the dancer when he/she performs an expressional dance.
Geeta Govinda: A 12th Century poet from Orissa (India), Jayadeva, wrote these verses on the
love play of the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna. The Maharis of temples used to
perform dance while singing these verses from this Sanskrit text.
Gotipua: In Odissi, male dancers perform a version of dance called “Gotipua” dance. “Goti”
means one, and “pua” means boy in Oriya language. In this tradition, the boys dance
dressed as girls.
Guru: Guru is the Master. He/she is an important figure in the pedagogic culture of the Indian
subcontinent. Traditionally, the Guru shares a sacred relationship with the student.
Guru-Shishya Tradition: This is the ancient master-student tradition.
Hindu (also Hinduism): It is the religion followed by a majority of people in the Indian
subcontinent.
Jagannath: Odissi dancers primarily worship Jagannath during a dance performance. This Hindu
deity is represented by a stump of wood with two more wood pieces (representing hands)
jutting out from the two sides. The round eyes are the most characteristic features of this
deity. Maharis danced in the temple of Jagannath in the coastal town of Puri in eastern
India.
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Jayadeva: A 12th Century poet from Orissa (India), Jayadeva, wrote Geeta Govinda, These are
lyrical verses on the love play of the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna. The Maharis of
temples used to perform dance while singing these verses from this Sanskrit text.
Krishna: This is the Hindu deity. He has blue-hued skin, holds a flute and often accompanies his
beloved Radha.
Mahari: Maharis, or female temple dancers, originally practiced Odissi dance as an offering to
God. Maharis were married to the deity of the temple where they served. The
etymological origin of the word “Mahari” is debatable. Practitioners of the dance
believed it to have come from “mahat nari”. This means “a great woman”. Shashimani
Devi is the last living Mahari of Orissa.
Mardala: This is another name for the musical instrument Pakhawaj. These are drums with two
opposite ends,and they are the primary musical instruments used in Odissi dance.
Mardalas keep the rhythm during the performance.
Mudra: Meaningful hand gestures are Mudras. Dancers use these gestures to tell a story.
Sometimes these are used only for aesthetic purposes during the dance and do not depict
any meaning. Ancient religious rituals used Mudras to invoke different powers of nature.
Mudras are used in Yoga to invoke positive vibes in the body.
Natyashastra: At around 400 B.C., Bharatmuni wrote Natyashastra. Indian classical theatre and
classical dances adhere to the theories of movement, expression and performance
described in this text.
Odissi: Odissi is a dance belonging to the eastern Indian state of Orissa. It is an ancient dance
that declined in the British colonial era but was revived in the postcolonial era to become
one of the most widely practiced Indian classical dances.
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Orissa: This is a state in the eastern part of India.
Oriya: This refers to the language and customs of the people living in Orissa, an eastern state of
India.
Pakhwaj: These are drums with two opposite ends, and they are the primary musical instruments
used in Odissi dance. Mardalas keep the rhythm during the performance.
Radha: Radha is the companion of the Hindu deity Krishna. Geeta Govinda portrays her as the
heroine of the verses.
Rasa: An artist inspires rasa in audience that witnesses her emotional state of being. Rasa is the
emotion that the audience shares with the artist in the course of a performance.
Sanskrit: Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. Most Indian languages originate in this
language.
Shishya: This is the Sanskrit word for disciple.
Shiva: He is the Hindu God of Destruction. According to the Natyashastra, Shiva is the
originator of Dance. He is a part of the divine trinity of the Creator, the Preserver and the
Destroyer.
Vishnu: Vishnu is the Hindu deity of Preservation. According to the Hindu mythology, he adopts
shapes (or avatars) to descent upon the earth at various points in time. He is a part of the
divine trinity of the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer.
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Chapter 1: MANGALĀCHARAN - INRODUCTION: PREVIEW AND SCOPE
1.1 Ancient Traditions, Memories and Values
This dissertation examines how digital technologies are transforming the practicing and
teaching of traditional dance. In particular, this study focuses on how Odissi, an Indian classical
dance from eastern coastal India, is being transformed by its dissemination in the blogosphere
and its reincarnation in virtual performative and pedagogical spaces like Second Life (SL) and
online dance teaching websites. Traditionally, Odissi has been taught by Gurus (masters); it is a
demanding art that takes years of training and focuses on precise and meaningful movements, in
which the body, presence, and aesthetics are central to its performance and learning. The esoteric
tradition of Odissi has survived for two thousand years through the Guru-Shishya parampara or
master-student tradition. Digitized performance of cultural dances, where the body is represented
as a posthuman avatar, forges new relationships between this sacred art, its pedagogy, and its
performance. This dissertation explores the role of technology in the pedagogy and performance
of traditional dance. In the preface, I gave an explanation of how I structured the entire
dissertation according to a typical traditional Odissi repertoire. I will dedicate the first chapter to
defining some of the concepts that will be important in the accessibility of this dissertation to a
multi-cultural audience. In order to establish how these concepts are relevant, I will also present
an overview of the entire dissertation. Each concept introduced in this chapter will be discussed
with further details in the next four chapters.
Concept 1: History of the dance
Odissi originated in temples of Orissa, a coastal state in eastern India, as a temple dance.
It is one of the nine recognized classical dances of India. The others are Kathak, Manipuri,
Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Mohiniattam, Kuchipudi, Gauriya and Sattriya. Odissi dance has been
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influenced by two distinctive styles of dance from which it originated. One is the spiritual dance
style of the female temple dancers, or Maharis, and the other is the more acrobatic and geometric
style of the male dancers, or Gotipuas4. I will go further into the origin and significance of both
these styles in chapter 2.
Temple dancers performed the dance as a temple ritual and also as a public performance.
Young boy-dancers performed this temple dance in public, and this will be further explained
later in this chapter. The typical poses and stances of the dance are depicted in the temple
sculptures of Orissa. According to Gangadhar Pradhan (a veteran master of the art), movements
in nature inspire and nuance the movement of dance. In a conversation with Pradhan regarding
Figure 1.2: Temple sculpture &
Odissi dance (photo courtesy: Neha
Kachroo, Pramod Thupaki)
the meaningful expressions of Odissi movement, he
demonstrated arasa or the portrayal of “indolence”. Figure
1.2 shows the stance of arasa, while the movement of arasa is languid and reflective of the
mood of indolence. These temple sculptures bear the
Figure 1.1: Map of India showing
Origin of Odissi
memory of this traditional dance.
In Indian classical dance, the male and female bodies have specific styles of performance.
The feminine style of dance is called lasya, and the masculine style of dance is called tandva.
Lasya in Odissi is lilting and graceful while tandava is bold. In the gotipua style of dance, Odissi
lost some of the feminine grace that characterized the performance of a female dancer. However,
the gotipua tradition adhered strictly to the intrinsic master-disciple tradition.This can still be
seen in akhdas or schools in the village of Raghurajpur in the eastern part of India. In addition to
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In Odissi, the performance of a version of this dance by the male dancers is called “Gotipua”
dance. “Goti” means one, and “pua” means boy in Oriya language. It is a boy who dances
dressed as a girl. The movements of this style of dance are different from the female- Odissi or
the temple dance styles. The historical functions of this tradition will be explained further in
chapter 2.
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this brief background of the dance, chapter 2 will present a detailed description of the historical
and mythical origins of the dance.
Concept 2: Traditions
‘Tradition’ can be defined in several ways. In terms of Odissi dance, tradition involves
practices that are believed to have been a part of the temple ritual. These practices are aligned
with the spiritual nature of the dance and are orally transmitted. The art of Odissi has an
underlying value system based on these traditions. Ethnographer Ruth Finnegan defines
tradition as “any established way of doing things whether or not any antiquity; the process of
handing down practices, ideas or values” (7). In her research on oral artistic histories, Finnegan
complicates the concept of tradition further. To her, traditions are “ideas of a) unwritten or oral
transmission (but what exactly this implies is, likewise, not always agreed upon); b) something
handed down and old (but how old and in what sense varies); and c) valued—or occasionally
disvalued—beliefs and practices (but whose values count and why seems to vary)" (1991, 106).
We sometimes consider memories transmitted orally as "old,” “original,” and therefore valued
by many who are involved in the practice of this art. According to Finnegan, tradition brings
with it the concept of "our" and "us". According to her, Western researchers never fully
understand what traditions mean. They outline inaccurate "(n)otions about the nature and
applicability of tradition" (110) to define and identify the eastern cultures. Western imperial
powers thus facilitated projects to use these "our" and "us" concepts of tradition for
anthropological categorization within colonized countries. The association of traditional is
"primitive"(106) and "old" (110). Traditional is understood as "pure", "authentic" and original.
Finnegan's definition of tradition is helpful in understanding what tradition means in the
context of Odissi. Researchers and practitioners of a culture sometimes deduce the original,
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traditional, uncontaminated version of the art might be (25). Because it is old, the classical dance
is associated with being pure and authentic. There is no denying that the memory of this dance is
culturally constructed. But my dissertation resists the Western dismissal of the validity of nonverbal traditional arts. Every generation has re-interpreted the orally transmitted memory of the
dance. Influences of colonial cultures have also transformed the dance. The dance however, has
stayed true to the core value system underlying the practice. These values will be discussed in
this dissertation. The present generation of dancers attempts to pass down the memory of the
dance in a way such that the purity and authenticity is maintained. Any form of innovation that
might hurt its authenticity is discouraged. This is also revealed in my interviews and surveys.
Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, a veteran Odissi master and choreographer said, "A new thing is
happening nowadays.
People are mixing Odissi
Figure 1.3: Graphic juxtaposition of performance of Odissi in Second
Life and in Real Space. (SL Model: Jenie Jennings. Source: YouTube
screen shot, Real dancer Photo credit: David Grist)
with other kinds of dance
and calling it 'creative' dance. Innovation is good. But sometimes, dancers are not careful.” I
asked Pradhan about the changes that Odissi dance has undergone in the past two decades. He
responded, "I always tell students, 'if you have to do creative dance, go ahead. But do not call
that Odissi.’" Pradhan, a choreographer himself, resists choreographic attempts that might
potentially extend the boundaries of tradition.
Concept 3: Learning Odissi
The traditional teaching of Odissi involves the Guru (this concept will be developed more
in chapter 1) demonstrating the dance and the disciple imitating and repeating it several times.
Eventually, the moves are ingrained in the bodies of the students. Like most classical arts of
India, studying this art requires constant feedback from the Guru in order to achieve perfect
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movement of the limbs, coordination of movement, and facial expression. Teaching, learning and
practicing Odissi in a traditional setting dwells on the direct interaction of the dancer with the
teacher and the dancer with his/her own body. I am an Odissi dancer with over twenty-five years
of experience as a student, teacher and performer. I learnt Odissi the traditional way5 since the
age of four from Guru Aloka Kanungo in Calcutta. However, I have used technological tools in
my learning, teaching and performance over the past decade. I have also taught college
composition in fully online and hybrid (partially virtual and partially traditional) classroom
spaces. In addition, I have experimented with representing myself through digitized bodies in
Second Life dance spaces (see Figure 1.3) and as a Consultant in the Second Life Writing Center
at Michigan State University. All of this contributed to my understanding of digitized pedagogy
and teaching with technology. As a dancer and an academic, I am uniquely positioned in the crux
of this tension between tradition and technology. This allows me to raise crucial questions
regarding the practice of digital dance and how it is changing the pattern of traditional
pedagogies and practices of dance. I have bolstered my own experiences as an Odissi
student/teacher/performer by extensive reading in the field, field observations, interviews,
surveys and interactions with veteran
Figure 1.4: Odissi teaching video on Youtube (Courtesy:
Gurus (masters), contemporary proponents Masako Ono)
and users of digital technologies.
New digital technologies allow performances to be recorded, replayed, edited, and
remixed; virtual worlds allow dancers to turn into avatars and transform their physical shapes
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My Guru would sit in front of the class and sing the bols (or the counts) chant on the time cycle
and sometimes play on the Mardala or the drums. She would demonstrate one piece a number of
times and ask us to repeat the same. A small piece would be taught in every session, and we
would repeat the piece closely more than fifty times. Eventually, we were expected to be able to
perform the entire piece automatically without having to remember the pieces one after the other
(practice session in progress: http://bit.ly/oGwTE5).
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and perform gravity defying feats; and networked technologies allow for the instant transmission
and retransmission of movements. The influence of these on teaching, on practices of traditional
dance, and on how we understand performative cultural memory creates interesting
conversations within the community of artists. Online spaces virtualize the body, thus
complicating the potential of the body to hold information and transmit it to the next generation.
It is understandable that the new technologies have created a divide in the dance community. On
the one hand, Gurus and some traditional practitioners of the art find that the new technologies
have the potential to hurt both the transmission and performance of traditional dance; on the
other hand, the new generation embraces the technology, and see it as an important way to
preserve, promote, and secure the survival of the art form. From my conversations and surveys, I
now understand that digital technology is used extensively in dance, and the artistic community
is aware of the possible ramifications of technologization on the authenticity of the dance. In the
survey, I asked straightforward questions such as, “Does it sound alright to you that some
dancers are teaching by producing dance videos and posting ‘learn Odissi’ videos online?”
(Figure 1.4 demonstrates Odissi being taught on YouTube by a dancer). Responders expressed
mixed reactions and occasional suspicion in this matter. Most artists remarked that is it important
to ensure that teachers and students use technological tools as supplements to the traditional way
of teaching and performing, not as a substitute for the Guru. Many responders to my study
expressed concern about the result of digitization on the authenticity of this ancient tradition. In
the next section of this chapter, I will delve further into the issue of digitization of bodies and the
different ways in which dance is being taught using digital tools.
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1.2 Stages of the Study
In this study, I address this vital question: how does the problem of understanding
performance in cyberspace help to reveal the landscape of inquiry in rhetorical studies about the
relationship between digital rhetorical practices and embodiment? I argue that the divide between
technologized and traditional practices in dance is a productive space that can be used to
understand how digital and networked technologies are transforming embodied cultural memory.
By this, I am referring to the collective understanding of the community of Indian classical
dancers regarding this ancient performative practice. I explore the construction of the digitized
dancing self, performing, collaborating, teaching, learning and forging new inter-body
relationships that substitute the traditional Guru-Shishya or master-disciple relationship.
This relationship is integral to the pedagogy of Indian classical dance. Representation and
transformation of the body in the digital space is a crucial factor in the understanding of the
practice and teaching of the dance. The body is central to this exploration. This project opens up
space for critical conversations on digitization of the body. I will argue that digitization of this
ancient traditional art is a counter-discursive practice.
This study has five parts. In chapter 2, I will define how dancers across generations
perform and preserve the cultural memory of the dance. I will explain the historical and mythical
origins of Odissi. I will trace the inscriptions on the bodies that hold the sacred memory of the
dance. Since many of my readers may not be familiar with Odissi and its ancient traditions, I also
give a detailed explanation of how practitioners of Odissi traditionally teach the dance.
In chapter 3 I will present an analysis of my interviews and surveys from the practitioners
of Odissi dance. I willdiscover the tools and technologies that teachers and learners use in a
dance performance. I will also explore how performers use digital and network technologies to
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choreograph and collaborate. After this analysis, I will move on to superimpose the following
research questions on these moments of tradition-technology encounters: Is it possible to locate a
deviant discourse that challenges the dominant (traditional) norms of embodied cultural
memory?; how are concepts of authenticity, sexuality, sacredness and aestheticism played out in
this new digitized performative practice that involves technology?; and is there a tension
between the people who use/encourage the use of technologies in pedagogy of this traditional art
and those who might express concern on the use of technology in teaching a sacred art? In
chapter 4, I will outline how both traditional and contemporary performers react to questions
about the purity of the dance form during the process of digitized performance. I will also
provide a deeper explanation of the different facets of digitization of the dance. This will inform
the problem of digitization as a potential subversion to this ancient artistic practice.
The last phase of this study will attempt to apply the concepts related to the bodytechnology encounter to the fields of rhetoric and composition, and cultural and digital rhetoric.
As a field, we have an underdeveloped understanding of performance as rhetoric. We need to
understand how performance operates from an international context. There are many studies in
the sociolinguistic/folklore literature on this topic, but we are still struggling with the question of
how to imagine the relationships between embodiment and digital rhetorical practice. Chapter 5
addresses the field of rhetorical composition and describes an alternative rhetoric based on
eastern tradition, thereby broadening its scope. Digitization of ancient classical dances is
transforming traditions in a way that is similarto how computer-mediation and hybridization are
transforming composition classrooms. Threads from the above chapters will come together with
a theory of performance writing in technology-rich and virtual classrooms. In teaching writing in
an online composition course, the teacher adopts an avatar. This avatar interacts through
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assignments, feedback and teaching tools. Mostly these are asynchronous in online classes.
Adoption of the online representation of one’s body in online teaching spaces is intriguing to me
as a performer of traditional dance, a performer of virtual dance and a teacher of composition. As
a consultant in the Writing Center, I adopted an avatar that is different from the traditional
dancer avatar that I usually adopt in SL. I interacted with others a number of times in the Second
Life Writing Center Island. Chapter 5 will illustrate these multiple online identities that I was
portraying. In both cases of online teaching and SL consultancy, adaptation of the virtual body
with the environment, and negotiating absences and presences of the body creates a complex
teacher-disciple or Guru-Shishya relationship. This can be fertile grounds for research on online
pedagogies and contribute in the understanding of the dialogic process of composition rhetoric.
Armed with the analytical tools and critical tools in chapters three and four, I will shift my
research focus to online composition classrooms. These also evolved from traditional instructive
spaces to online spaces where virtualized bodies perform, interact and collaborate. Here I am
referring to the bodies of the students and instructors that engage in moments like online peer
reviewing, communicating assignment descriptions and virtual conferencing. I will examine how
the traditional pedagogical practices evolve in online composition classes. In the next two
sections, I will give an overview of my methodology and my theoretical framework. This context
will be instrumental in the decolonizing agenda that this study attempts to bring to the field.
1.3 Mapping Complexities in the Rhetoric of Digital Bodies
Concepts that inform theories
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In this section, I will give an overview of the theories employed in chapter 4 to
understand the virtualization of the body and its ramification on this ancient performative
practice. I will also explore how the underlying value system of the Guru (master), the sacred
body and the association with sacredness are seminal to the ways in which people react to
digitization. Laying down the theoretical framework is important at this point in order to
understand the questions I used to approach the problem and my methodological stance. In order
to understand the value system as a theoretical foundation for understanding Indian classical
dance as a form of performative rhetoric, it is important to understand the body and the evolution
of the body in the Indian subcontinental context.
Practice of this art and its social manifestations are rooted in the process, also known as
traditions. It is wrong to define tradition as hegemonic articulations of a community; the
embodied cultural memory of Odissi forms the grand narrative that applies a coercive regulation
on how to practice the art. After studying centuries of the shared experience of tradition, I
understand classical dance to be a manifestation of cultural ideologies. Classical traditions and
cultural memories are creations of the collective unconscious and practitioners can be made
uncomfortable and wary by the potentially counter-hegemonic attempts of digitization. The
traditional artistic practices of eastern culturesare strongly rooted in the hierarchical pattern of
the master-disciple relationship. Indian classical art of performance conforms to the established
grand narrative of Indian aesthetic theories and its predominance in the contemporary practices.
However, to me, this definition of tradition is inaccurate and detrimental to the possibilities of
exploration and innovation. My theory chapter will clarify the ways in which practitioners of this
dance perceive tradition. The data generated in the methods section will richly inform the
understanding of tradition in the context of this cultural practice. Three things will be important
19
in the theoretical construction of chapter 3: (a) understanding the core value system of the dance
that is shaping its ethos, (b) examining how the values help define tradition in order to explain
the transformation of the ancient art, and (c) investigating the sacredness of bodies and space in
the context of the traditional values. This scheme will be central to the efforts of construe
digitization of the Odissi dancer’s body. This section will explain the body of the dancer from
the traditional, postcolonial and posthuman perspective.
By digitization of Odissi dance, I am referring to the use of digital technologies in the
practice and performance of dance in India and abroad, especially in the diasporic dance
communities. In this project, I will focus on the intricacies of mediation of the body, the memory
of the dance and the pedagogy of the dance. These three aspects are essentially associated with
the practice of this dance. Virtuality is shaping the relationship between the bodies of the
performer, audience and teacher. The meanings conveyed by the movements are loaded with
culturally specific connotations. When one learns this art, she/he immediately becomes the
bearer of an ancient cultural memory that she/he can pass down to the next generation of
dancers, orally and practically. These transmissions are becoming more and more dependant on
technology at every stage of learning, performing and teaching this art.
Traditional Body
In Odissi, the body internalizes the knowledge/memory that the Guru transmits to it and
then expresses the meaning through movements that adhere to the grammar of this dance. The
rhetoric of classical dance is laden with these sacred meanings. Bodies bear these sacred
meanings in this artistic practice.
The learning technologies of Odissi have served as keepers of memory over the centuries,
20
and not necessarily as a tool for students to experiment with in the production of the art. I am an
Odissi dancer. I am also a composition teacher who assigns technology-rich, multimodal
assignments to students. The ends of digital pedagogies are not necessarily in tune with the
objective of learning the art of Odissi.
Temple sculptures bear the memory of this ancient tradition (illustrated in Figure 2.2).
Later, in the twentieth century, they began to be etched in virtual spaces. The memory transmits
itself from the physical body (original keeper of memory of this oral artistic tradition) to the
sculptures that represent the body. Books bear memories and male dancers embody memories.
Here I am referencing the several stages of mediation of the memory of the dance, and especially
to the gotipuas tradition involving male dancers. These were instrumental in the survival of the
art form for several centuries. In the following chapters (especially section 2.2), I will discuss all
of these moments across time when the memory of this artistic ritual gets detached from the body
of the temple dancers and attached to other means that preserve/perform the memory. These
bearers of memory also served as supplementary tools for teaching. For instance, Gurus use
temple sculptures to understand and teach postures of the dance. However, these tools are not
integral to the literacy of dance. The sculptures were not directly instrumental to the teaching of
this dance. Oral transmission of knowledge remains the primary pedagogical tool. Students learn
by observation of the Guru’s dance and repetition of the same. This dissertation will go on to
illustrate the way in which the body has been valued in this pedagogy traditionally, and how the
body of the dancer evolves in the process of digitization of dance. I will go on to argue that
mediating the dance in digitized space might be subversive to some of the value systems
surrounding the sacredness of the body, the Guru/master and the space where the dancer presents
the art.
21
Digitized performance and dancing in digital spaces are non-traditional practices that
open up problems and possibilities for the propagation and preservation of the art. When I say
dance in a digital environment, I am referring to the performance of dance-like movements of the
digitally represented body. An avatar represents the body digitally, and a keyboard/mouse in
virtual gaming environments like Second Life controls the avatar. Body Morphing and CGI
(Computer Generated Imaging) can digitally represent human motions. My dissertation will
show several examples of technologized dance performances. SL has facilities for performance
of classical dances of the west, like Ballet and Japanese theatrical arts. Teachers use Dance
videos, DVDs and YouTube, to teach Odissi. Through these examples, I will examine the
juxtaposition of classical performance traditions across cultures and technology. A critical
analysis of the effect of technology on traditional arts mediated through technologies will aim to
indicate the following: the process, evolution and extent of evolution of dance under the
influence of technology, and the concern of the practitioners in the field of Indian classical
dance.
Postcolonial Bodies:
My study demands a balanced and multi-perspectival study of the digitized body. In their
study of bodies in the context of colonial and post-colonial South-east Asia, James Mills and
Satadru Sen point out how the body is central to critical discourse in south-Asian societies,
particularly in the context of mythologies and as modern economical and political discourse.
Functions of the body, its cleanliness, purity, untouchability, and artistic representation are
complex and important concepts in the understanding of Indian culture (Mills, Sen 4). Art
historian and archeologist Vidya Dehejia studies the depiction of the Hindu spiritual values of
22
sacredness and profanity in the ancient statues. These two books were important to my
understanding of the south-Asian body and the cultural dimension of the technology-body
relationship. They help me explore (a) what happens when technologies morph the body, (b) how
the body responds to the cultural impacts of these technologies, and (c) why it is important to
discuss the history of this virtualized body. These questions shape my understanding and my
methodology when put specifically in context of Indian classical dance.
Post-human Bodies:
Digital tools are replacing the body in Odissi dance practice. To several cyborg theorists,
the replacement of the body, or a part of the body, with digital tools can greatly impact its
cultural functions (Gray 2001, Baudrilard 1994, Haraway 1991, Pepperel 1995, Hayles 1999,
Fukuyama 2003). The dancer functions as a cyborg when digital tools replace their roles on
stage, fully or partially, and when they perform in virtual spaces. Chris Gray defines cyborg as “a
self-regulating organism that combines the natural and artificial together in one system.” To him,
even if we do not modify the body, we live in a cyborg society (2). A body with any kind of
technological modification means entering the cyborg. The digitized body of the Odissi dancer is
a cyborged representation of the cultural identity, and the artistic community is turning into a
cyborg society. Cyborgs can function in several ways, like being, normalizing, reconfiguring,
and enhancing (Gray 3). Posthumanist scholar Donna Haraway defines cyborg from a sociofeministic point of view in her “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) and visualizes cyborgism as a
liberatory or marginalized existence from dominant practices. The traditional methods of
learning and teaching dance are a dominant practice in the artistic community, whereas digitized
participation in these cyborg practices are marginal and subversive. Steven Dixon’s
23
comprehensive historical study of digital performance in Digital Performance and Chris Gray’s
concept of the digitized body in Cyborg Citizen are important in framing my theory on the
performing body and technology. Dixon defines digital performance as “works where computer
technologies play a key role rather than a subsidiary one in content, techniques, aesthetics, or
delivery forms” (Dixon 3). Dancing avatars that perform and teach dance through technology can
be viewed as Gray’s post-human creatures that have replaced real bodies. This function of the
cyborged dancing body can enhance the function of dance and provide scope for long-distance
collaborations and teaching. To Gray, Christian suspicion and rejection of cyborgism shows the
potential of the body and technology duel. Gray presents a case of tradition versus technology.
The traditional Christian notion of the body and its purity do not approve of the technologizing
of the body and its transformation into a cyborg. It, however, does make us realize that we live in
a cyborg society, and the traditional practices are adapting in this technology-rich culture. Yet,
the reception of cyborged Odissi dance is unacceptable to several members of the community.
These members express concern about the purity of the dance when integrated with a culturally
distant technology that can severely modify its form and underlying value-system.
Dancers usually undergo years of rigorous training under the master in order to imbibe
the art most perfectly in their movements and expressions. For the practitioners of the art,
maintaining purity and authenticity is extremely important for the survival of this tradition.
Digital performance and performance with digitization of the body are alternative or
supplementary to traditional teaching and practice. In many ways, they disrupt the traditional
values that are foundational to the dance. In this way, Odissi dance that is heavily dependant on
technology in its practice and teaching can be subversive to the cultural ethos of the community.
24
The virtual body forges new identities with the performer and the art. This might be
subversive to the identity of the spiritual body of a temple dancer whose dance is an integral part
of a traditional ritual. Her dance did not attempt to appropriate any separate identity. Exploring
the multimodal possibilities of dance might be subversive to the tradition in which the dance
originated. Sheryl Turkle problematizes the identity of the body in cyber space by writing about
the ways in which the self explores the performative potentials of the body by morphing it “both
within and beyond its confines”; a player in a virtual performative space constructs and
multiplies the self as parallels and substitutes of relationships in real life (Turkle 191). By this,
Turkle means that virtual spaces offer users the possibility to construct new identities, new
bodies and live virtual lives that are parallel to their real lives and bodies. These bodies perform
functions like creating virtual objects, forging relationships with other avatars and collaborating
in artistic projects. My research explores the construction of the digitized dancing self that
engages in performance, collaboration, learning and teaching. In this way, the post-human body
forges new inter-body relationships that substitute for the traditional Guru-Shishya or masterdisciple relationship, which is integral to the pedagogy of Indian classical dance.
The pedagogy of Odissi is unlike the pedagogy of digital literacies, where “learners focus
on the rules and tools used for designing meaning” (Getto, Cushman and Ghosh). In a study of
the socio-anthropological affordances of technological media, Marshall McLuhan theorizes that
the influence of technology is radical and exerts itself on our interactions with the processes of
life. We focus on the technological tools more than the product procured at the end of this
process. Digitized learning requires students to experiment with the media that assist in the
meaning-making process. Its role as a bearer of meanings is central in the process of learning. In
the process of learning dance with digital technologies, dance practitioners need to be aware of
25
the historicity of the physical gestures and the technicalities of the tools used in digitizing the
dance. That means that learning Odissi dance with a software program or video or in Second Life
requires not only the learning of the nuances of the dance, but also the capability of handling the
tools. The ethos of digital learning systems lies in the value of multimodality. By this, I mean the
ability to rearrange the information acquired by the student into alternate means of expression
beyond the alphabetic. Students become deeply involved in the tools of knowledge production
and the process of learning an art. In the context of digitizing Odissi dance pedagogy, too much
involvement in the process of learning (i.e., learning the use of software that can digitally modify
a teacher’s body) might detract from a practitioner’s complete involvement with the effort’s
ultimate aim: mediating and rhetorically externalizing spirituality. Dancing Odissi in a digitized
space might result in a situation in which the dancer is involved too deeply in the process of
creating the digitized dance; in the process, the dancer might be spiritually detached from the
actual product, the performance of the dance. In chapter 5, I will demonstrate this with an
experiment of digitization of Odissi dance that I undertook in collaboration with Rahul Acharya,
a dancer from India. Rahul and I adapted the dance in order to digitize it, but in the process felt a
loss of spiritual connection with the dance and the audience. In this dissertation, I will highlight
this potential problem of digitizing the body of the dancer in a technology-rich dance
environment.
Subversive Bodies:
How can the performing body be subversive? Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s interpretation of
drama as a social rhetoric of resistance illustrates the potential subversiveness of a performance.
Mexican performance artist and writer Gómez-Peña’s performance disrupts the narrative of a
26
dominant culture through the construction of extreme identities on the “foundational layers of
mainstream bizarre” (Peõna xxii). As part of this agenda, he makes use of “a superficial
fascination the global media has with ‘extreme behavior’” (Peõna xxii). The performances
staged by him contain extremely provocative and often disturbing high-definition images of
hardcore violence and explicit sexuality. He demonstrates a “fascination with revolution-as-style
with stylized hybridity and superficial transculture” (249). Gómez-Peña uses the tool of artistic
performance surrounding the themes of race, borders and cultural identities. His choreographies
challenge the traditional notions of space, audience and drama. The artistic body that I am
exploring in this study is located in the virtual, the margins of the traditional dance. Here, the
digitized body challenges the classical traditions. The performing body in Gómez-Peña’s artistic
works explicates the potential of a body’s counter-discursiveness, which is also a function of the
virtualized bodies of ancient classical dance. Gomez-Peña’s practice of subverting traditional
theatrical performance in the representation of the body has a specific political agenda. Digitized
Indian classical dance practices however, do not have a political agenda as such. It has a sociocultural agenda of imbibing innovation in its repertoire. In a manifesto on digital dancing, De
Spain explores the performative potential of this duet in dance. As a scholar and performer of
dance, De Spain recognizes the discomfort and resistance from “mainstream” performers, but
nevertheless, a rampant influence of technology on dance, to him, is inevitable and he welcomes
the change. To de Spain, digital dance is a marginalized “victim art.” Digitization of art is a
highly debated issue amongst artists, scholars and critics of art (5). To De Spain, the traditional
practice of dance is hegemonic and, to some extent, oppressive. Tradition sets rules on how to
perform a dance. Dance that explores spaces, modes, themes and so on is a protest against the
oppressiveness of traditions. De Spain discusses traditional and digitized practices in artistic
27
performance from a Western perspective. He asks the crucial question, “must dances be danced
by creatures, or will we accept and attempt to interpret a computer-based dance of shapes and
colors?” (6). According to De Spain, separation of dance and the body of the dancer is inevitable,
considering the ubiquitousness of technology in a post-human age (16). I will refer to De Spain
again in chapter 4 inthe context of the digitized dance that is practiced in Odissi, the artistic
bodies that perform it and ramifications of the spiritual dance in a technologized environment.
To both Gomez-Peña and De Spain, the expression of dance functions as a resistance. I am
questioning if digitization of the classical arts are functioning as a resistance against the classical
traditions of Odissi, and vice versa. I will also turn to my survey and interview data to argue that
tradition is hegemonic and oppressive, but it is certainly resistive to innovation in Odissi dance.
Learning in the Guru-Shishya method involves completely surrendering to the Guru and
absorbing the knowledge of the Guru into one’s self. The Shishya, or disciple, embodies the
knowledge offered by the Guru. Digitization of the dance and dance music is becoming a part
this cultural practice as thousands of diasporic Indians6 resort to learning the dance long-distance
through newly available DVDs, software, and video sharing. Originally, practitioners of the art
did not document ancient Odissi dance. Gurus transmitted the knowledge about the origins of the
dance to disciples, thus preserving the sacred art in living memory. I understood from my
interviews that Gurus opine that remediation of the oral knowledge into written text, CDs, and
DVDs cannot replace the valued Guru-Shishya relationship. At the same time, practitioners use
video sharing as an attempt to popularize the art. To some artists, digitizing dance not only
preserves a cultural memory, but also gives it better visibility in the international cultural arena.
6
For the last two decades, Diasporic Indians and non-Indians have become increasingly
interested in learning Odissi dance. The dance has ceased to be restricted only to eastern India
and has become one of the most popular classical Indian dances across the world.
28
There is no possibility of resisting digitization of dance. The students of dance from the
digital era will use these tools in the learning of this dance. The current generation’s audience
constantly interacts with digital technologies in several forms of entertainment. It is likely that
they will be more attracted to a performance involving stage technologies than a plain dance
performance. In other words, performing a simple dance on a stage might no longer be sufficient
to gain interest in the audience. They widely use stage technologies in creating background
images, musical effects and so on. In a production on the Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata,’ Devraj
Patnaik7 made creative use of stage lighting and animation (Figure 1.5). Odissi dance seldom
uses such large-scale forms of digital technologies on stage. The description of this production
states that “Devraj Patnaik’s creation differs from every other traditional East Indian Dance ever
staged. From the intensity and passion of
the choreography, to the complexity of the
stage set, and the unique integration of
Figure 1.5: Stage production of Devraj Patnaik's dance
company. The dancers on stage react to the image of a
fire-spitting demon in the stage production of the ancient
Sanskrit epic Mahabharata (Photo credit: Chitralekha
Odissi Dance Creations)
special-effects lighting technology that is designed to convey the timeless spiritual significance
behind the story” (taken from Patnaik’s website). In this production, the stage had a screen in the
background where mythical characters like the rakshasa, or demon, appeared and performed in
coordination with the dancers on stage. The recorded footage is projected on the screen in sync
with the stories that are enacted on stage. Digital images serve as backdrops of a dance sequence.
However, not many dances are choreographed with dancers in a projection interacting with the
dancers on a stage. This is a rare instance of interaction between real and digitized bodies. To
some, these efforts are innovative and intelligent. To some, they are unnecessary. In my study,
7
Devraj Patnaik is a Canada-based Odissi dancer, teacher and choreographer. He and his sister
Ellora teach Odissi and present original Odissi choreographies that involve innovative use of
music, movements and stage-technologies.
29
one interview respondent argues that the dancers’ bodies are meaning-making tools and these
bodies should be enough to convey the stories.
My interviews revealed resistance regarding the use of technology in learning Odissi, too.
In the era of the Internet, learning anything about Odissi is no longer limited to the knowledge
imparted by the Guru. Students prefer to look up answers online and refer to the Guru only if
they do not find a clear answer that satisfies them. Their resources are no longer limited to the
knowledge of the master. The orally transmitted knowledge of the Guru ceases to be the ultimate
truth since students have a more efficient way to confirm their information. The method of
learning can be traditional. However, becoming acquainted with and using information
technologies can affect the student’s interpretation of the knowledge transmitted by the Guru.
The relationship between the Guru and student is no longer one of ultimate trust like it used to be
when the Guru was the only source of information. I had an interesting experience in my own
dance class a few years ago, which made me re-think my teaching strategies when it came to
communicating Odissi dance to my seven to seventeen-year old students.
NAVA(9) RASA
Table 1.1: Nava Rasas or Expressions
BHAAVA
MEANING
Expressions
Internalized emotion
Shringar(Erotic)
Rati
Delight
Hasya (Humorous)
Hasa
Laughter
Karuna (Pathetic)
Shoka
Sorrow
Raudra (Terrible)
Krodh
Anger
Veera (Heroic)
Utsaha
Heroism
30
Bhayanaka (Fearful)
Bhaya
Fear
Bibhatsa (Odious)
Jugupsa
Disgust
Adbhuta (Wonderous)
Vismaya
Wonder
Shanta (Peaceful)
Calm
Peace
This was a class on Rasas, or facial expressions of dance (see Table 1.1). An artist
generates intense emotion within himself/herself during the act of performing dance or theatre.
This emotion is Bhaava. He/she engages in story-telling through meaningful gestural movement
and dramatic expressions. These are a combination of the nine basic emotions in varying
degrees. These Navrasas, or the nine emotions, are Karuna Rasa or Sadness, the Raudra Rasa or
Anger, the Hasya Rasa or Happiness, the Shringar Rasa or Love, the Adbhuta Rasa or Shock, the
Bhayanaka Rasa or Horrifying, the Vibhatsa Rasa or Gruesome, the Veer Rasa or Courage and
the Shanta Rasa or Calm and peaceful. An artist inspires rasa in audience that witnesses his /her
emotional state of being. Rasa is the emotion that the audience shares with the artist in the course
of the performance. For instance, when the heroine waits for her lover, she feels Rati bhaava in
her. Her dance movements will therefore express Shringar Rasa. Sometimes, in an opera, the
intense emotion of the singer touches the audience and generates rasa in the audience, thereby
moving him/her to tears. Without the presence of the audience, rasa will not gain fulfillment; it
will remain a bhaava, or the emotional state of the artist's mind that fails to touch the audience. I
learned the Rasas and Bhaavas by imitating my Guru. In order to learn the expressions, it is
important to understand the bhava. This communication is essential for the fulfillment of the
abhinaya. My young Indian student (a second-generation Indian American and a child of the
digital age) promptly put IM-like Emoticons that she believed corresponded to the particular
31
bhaava. Her way of memorizing the Rasa did not involve any embodiment. Rasas and
Emoticons function in very similar ways. Both Emoticons and Rasas represent the bhaava of the
artist or person trying to convey the message. Emoticons and Rasas are both aesthetic
manifestations of emotion. Both are essentially "mimetic", or silent. However, the difference lies
in the involvement of the body in these expressions. The audience derives the rasa directly from
the dancer’s body (or looking at the nuances of the dancer’s body), but the emoticon is separate
from the body that it represents. In Second Life, dance learning codes8 are detached from the
body and in emoticons, emotions are detached from the body; however, these digital tools still
produces dance sequences. Detachment of meaning from the body is integral to digital pedagogy.
By definition, emoticons are motifs that apparently substitute for the body by displaying an
emotion. This body-emotion separation is an interesting moment of cultural juxtaposition. By
using emoticons to learn rasa, the learner integrates the ancient dance with the techno-rhetorical.
The association of the emoticon with the artistic expression comes from a digital literacy system
distant from the system of the ancient dance. This creates a cultural conflict. Apprehensiveness
towards digitization of the dance is a result of
Figure 1.6: Indian dances in Second Life
such a cultural conflict between an ancient art and (Source: Second Life Marketplace)
a new age technology. It is not possible to ignore or deny this superimposition of the digital
literacy system on classical dance. I will discuss this conflict between virtualization of the body
and the evolution of the ancient rhetoric of the performative body in chapter 4.
In this context, I will include passages on my experience of virtualizing my body in an
online space that facilitated the practice of dance. Here, I presented my personal interactions
8
By Second Life dance codes, I am referring to the program’s scripts of dance. SL citizens can
buy scripts with Linden dollars (SL currency). These scripts enable avatars to perform certain
dance steps. SL dancers can also share scripts. This is helpful in engaging in a duet dance with
another avatar.
32
with Second Life (SL). SL introduced me to an alternative technique of artistic performance of
the “body.” “Second Life attracted me as an alternative and supplementary act to real-life
dancing because of the amazing possibilities it offers a traditional dancer like me. After coming
to the USA, my twenty-five years of learning and teaching dance and being a physically close to
the artistic community in India was severed. Second Life offers a space where SL citizens can
learn, share and practice the dance collaboratively. The spaces created for such social practices
are often hyper-sexualized; however, SL citizens can practice traditional classical dances in
several islands in SL. SL residents practice several other forms of dance, including African
dance, European Ballet and traditional Japanese dance. Recently, Indian classical dance poses
were created by the Carnegie Mellon Graphics Lab. Figure 1.6 shows the advertisement of these
poses in the Second Life Market place There are a few ways in which dance can be learned,
taught and performed in SL. One of them involves buying the scripts for the dance with Linden
dollars (SL currency) and animating one’s avatar with those scripts. Another way of performing
is by sharing scripts with a partner for a collaborative dance. For a traditional, formal dance
setting, it is also possible to create dance moves with software, which requires some level of
expertise. Buying scripts and learning how to animate the avatar with them does not essentially
require the presence of the person who has written the script, designed the poses or
choreographed the sequence. The Second Life creator of the script transmits the knowledge of
the digitized movement to the body of the avatar. The relationship between the scriptwriter and
the SL citizen (whose avatar embodies the dance script) is mercenary. The transfer of knowledge
in this dance is not spiritual. The SL avatar can digitally embody a perfect pose of traditional
Indian classical dance, and the perfection of its form and expressions has been improving over
time. Avatars have become more life-like (Figure 1.7) and capable of a wider range of facial
33
emotions. However, the ‘required’ and ‘important’ presence of the Guru is not a condition that is
central to the practice or learning of the dance.” (Getto, Cushman and Ghosh forthcoming).
Digitized literacy practices that are superimposed on the performative culture of Indian
classical dance modify the relationship between the body and the knowledge of the art. The
following excerpt is from the same article on digital tools. It demonstrates my understanding of
the ramifications of the digitization of the dance on the cultural ethos of this community of
practitioners: “Digital mediation actually displaces a necessary facet of the social roles of
mediation—it takes out of the equation the important variables of the learning relationship, the
audience-dancer relationships, and ethical exigencies of performing the moves with reverence.
Learners who use digital media productions like these might learn the instrumentality of the
moves, but these may remain merely ‘mechanical’ performances, stripped of the spirituality and
lacking an attainment of divine perfection only possible through the Guru/Shishya and audience
and dancer relationships. An influx of such digital mediations has led to destabilization of the
custom, confusion and wrath from the veteran practitioners of the art, who, though they welcome
change, think that the central authoritative figure
Figure 1.7: SL avatar Shree Frizzle dancing in 2010
(left); SL avatar dancing in 2008 (right). The dress,
features and postures of the avatars have vastly
improved over the years
of the Guru is essential for the ultimate survival
of this cultural art form, for its continued
performance with proper reverence. The international appeal of learning classical Indian dance
that draws heavily upon digital compositions decontextualizes the dance from the conventions of
practice important to these communities. In fact, students of classical Indian dance at this
international stage have had difficulty learning with their communities and producing digital
compositions that honor the high value placed upon the guru/shishya relationship and the divine
nature of this dance” (Getto, Cushman and Ghosh forthcoming).
34
This is the traditional postcolonial, post-humanized view that practices that have
evolved in the digitized space are subversive. In the following chapters, I intend to reveal the
reactions of several dance teachers, dance critics, choreographers and students regarding
digitization of Odissi. My research took me to the interiors of a coastal village of eastern India
where Odissi supposedly originated. I also interacted with people involved in Odissi in several
other countries. This helped me refine the focus of this study and unfold the fundamental values
of the dance. I argue that notions of the value system shape the notions of tradition and the body
of the dancer. In the next section, I will delineate the several stages of this study. The sequencing
of the chapters will reflect these stages.
Composing Bodies:
Research on traditional dance pedagogy and practice and its evolution in digital space can
be a way of understanding composition practices in traditional classrooms and its evolution in an
online/hybrid classroom. Chapter 5 will extend the understanding of the body of the dancer in an
effort to understand digital pedagogy. As a teacher of composition in partially online and fully
online classes, I have had to negotiate with the concepts of “space” and “body” in technologyrich and virtual classroom spaces.
Dynamic interactions in cyber space have evolved the way we compose text and
understand the practice and pedagogy of composition. Post-humanists like Donna Haraway and
Katherine Hayles provide important perspectives in the understanding of the evolving
relationship betweem the physical being and the machine. Haraway examines the interface
between humans and machines where “text, machine, body, and metaphor” fuse (Haraway 212).
Hayles envisions the post-human body as the body essentially fused with the machine. The
35
teacher in the virtual space has to represent his or her body digitally by constructing an avatar.
The body that dances as an avatar or teaches writing as an avatar forms a symbiotic relationship
with the digital tools in this process of communicating with the audience or students. The body
and the machine function together in a way that leads to the formation of a post-human
representation of the artist or the teacher.
In chapter 4, I will employ this theory to further the exploration of the post-human
pedagogical body. I will do that by showing specific examples of negotiations with the body, the
Guru and the essential spirituality. Whether technologization is harming or helping this dance is
an important question for me as a researcher and dancer, and I asked this questions to my survey
and interview respondents as well. Their feelings towards technologization are mixed, and I will
present those in detail in chapter 3. Teaching writing in online and hybrid spaces, and teaching
dance in virtualized spaces can give rise to similar questions on the influence of instructing with
digital tools. In a discussion about digitized pedagogies of composition, James Porter writes that
the question “Is technology harming or improving how we teach writing or how we write?” is
unhelpful. Digitization will happen in a composition class. It is more important to understand
what technology is doing to the performance of writing and ask, “How will we use technology?
How will we design technology? How will we engage technology” (Porter 14)? I find myself
asking similar questions about dance pedagogy. It is helpful to investigate how digitization is
evolving performance of this traditional art form. How can we use technological tools effectively
in dance performance and teaching without spoiling the values that are important to the
practitioners of the dance?
To me, digitization of traditional practices can be liberatory. However, over-digitization
of traditional dance can result in the erasure of certain intrinsic traditional elements of the
36
teaching and performance of classical Indian dance. The over-digitization of dance compromises
the sacredness of the guru-shishya relationship and diminishes the value of the dancer’s corporal
body. Future studies will explore the questions of power with emergent digital technologies and
the extent to which we might consider them liberating from the ritualistic or compromising of the
sacredness of tradition. In the current study, I intend to present the voices of people profoundly
associated with this dance and explore how they respond to the technologization of the dance. In
the next section, I will present the concepts on which I will base the methods chapter.
1.4 Exploring Complexities of Performing and Teaching without Bodies
Basis of Methodology
The theoretical framework in the previous chapter helps me analyze my data in order to
position my arguments around the existing definitions of performance in virtual spaces,
virtualization of the body and counter-discursiveness of the digitized. My project knits together
these existing theories of cultural memory to specifically look at the counter-discursiveness of
the dancing body in digital space, asking questions such as these: (a) How do practice and
pedagogy of cultural dance practices evolve when hypermediated in virtual spaces? (b) What are
the tools and methods adopted in this process of the digitization of bodies and enactments? (c)
Why is it important to investigate and understand the influence of the integration of technology
in dance? This section will give an overview of how these three questions helped me frame my
interview questions and my approach towards the collection of data. In chapter 3, I will present a
more detailed explanation of my agenda of decolonizing my methodology and present excerpts
from the relevant data.
37
This study involves procuring knowledge about a traditional practice from mainly
folkloric resources. Ruth Finnegan offers a comprehensive guide to conducting studies on
performative traditions, especially oral verbal arts in the context of oral narratives in Africa
(Finnegan 1992). Her description of how to conduct practical fieldwork helps in locating the
scope of the problem, developing strategic questions, and keeping records of and analyzing
verbal data. Though the book focuses on oral folklore research, the methodological choices
offered are relevant to cultural and anthropological works in an online environment. In her
methodological handbook for the discipline of anthropology, Finnegan emphasizes the orality of
a tradition as a signifier of the social and cognitive characteristics of the people who the
researcher will observe. In my study of virtual and traditional performance, exploring oral
traditions became an important way to gather perspectives on the importance of Odissi. Also, I
have chosen adopt Finnegan’s definition of tradition, described in section 1.1. With this, she
succeeds in the demystification of what “tradition” is in an oral culture. India has had writing for
thousands of years—it’s not just an oral culture such as the one that I am looking at. Finnegan’s
argument against the Western disregard for the discursive value of oral traditions supports the
argument of digitization from a western perspective, a perspective I develop further in chapter 3.
I chose to observe spaces where virtual artistic practices were taking place. I interviewed,
surveyed and email-corresponded with artists practicing, learning and teaching dance virtually.
My interactions with people are currently taking place in several specific places: (a) virtual
gaming spaces (such as Second Life) where virtual bodies perform dance, (b) real traditional
spaces (such as autochthon of the classical Indian dance) and (c) the spaces in between (where
people are using technology for storing/teaching/performing the memory of the traditional art).
These three spaces represent the negotiations of the performers’ or teachers’ bodies during the
38
act of teaching. The body is absent in the virtual spaces, present in face-to-face (traditional)
teaching setting and virtualized (visually present but physically absent) in the third category.
My first and most important step towards learning about the online rituals included
observing dance performance, rehearsals and discussions in role playing games. As an SL avatar,
I have wandered about in the fringes of the dance clubs of Second life and have eagerly observed
and absorbed the performance of various forms of dance in online videos.
I have engaged myself in moving as an avatar in the dance halls of Second Life,
observing people and keeping track of their interactivity and community building projects. My
avatar spent time interacting with other SL dancers, sharing scripts and participating in
synchronous choreographies. Studying and following blogs was also an important resource for
understanding the SL dance, because blogs are spaces where SL residents share information and
updates on dance scripts. I initially spent about seven hours every week in various SL islands
with dance halls and clubs. Searching for ethnic dance islands revealed several blogs which lead
me to islands where African dance, Indian classical dance, Japanese traditional dance, Chinese
sleeve dance and other dances were performed by SL residents. Visiting the island gave me an
idea of the ambience, the level of formality and the frequency of the formal performances. Blog
posts helped me understand how many people were actively taking part in the dances. The
number of active dancers in SL has varied over the three years of my research. Some of the
dance clubs had an average of fifty people dancing at a time, some of whom I suspect might be
bots (non-human, pre-scripted avatars created by the island owners to populate the dance floors).
Most ethnic dance islands are deserted most of the time, other than the times for performance or
rehearsal, which can be found in the blogs. I tried to interact with some of the performers directly
to learn about their experiences, and I succeeded in getting responses from four SL dancers, one
39
of whom is an owner of a reputed ballet dance community in SL. My interactions with them
were mainly through private chats on SL, which I have been able to record.
Interactions with the teachers of Odissi in the eastern Indian coastal village of
Raghurajpur provided me with important information and sacred knowledge about traditional
pedagogies. Surveys and email correspondences with teachers and students of the dance across
the world helped me understand the transitioning of Odissi dance from tradition spaces to
technologized spaces.
I gathered data through observations, surveys, interviews, and blogs written by dance
performers. The data includes the following: (a) transcripts of conversations with virtual dancers,
(b) transcripts from interviews with practitioners and students of dance, (c) email conversations
with dancers, (d) survey results showing how and why people related to Indian classical dance
performance use technology, (e) Blog postings and email interactions related to SL classical
ballet dancing.
I sent out surveys in the Yahoo group of Odissi dancers and got encouraging responses
from my colleagues and seniors in the field regarding my academic attempt. Most of the major
dancers of Odissi are members of this group. The questions solicited responses from people
across the field of Indian classical dance that perform, critique, choreograph and teach (see
Appendices). Thirty people took the survey. Initially this disappointed me since the yahoo group
has over 660 members. I also sent out the survey link through Facebook, which generated more
responses. However, I got more enthusiastic responses by emailing the artistes and connoisseurs
directly with questions or calling them and having a semi-formal chat. Survey-takers were
mostly non-Indians or artistes based out-side India, and I followed up the surveys with more
email interaction. The survey data and interview data led me to an understanding that the attitude
40
of the participants towards technological mediation of the art will be related to their age and
location. The dataset does not represent a large number of dancers who are involved in SL or
Indian classical dance. Other than my interviews with artists in Raghurajpur and Kolkata, my
methods were heavily dependent on technological tools. Most people I interacted with were
using technology as part of their artistic pursuit or to interact with other dancers. This is why my
data does not completely reflect the views of people who oppose technologizing the dance.
However, I believe it presents the various ways in which Odissi teachers use digital technology
in dance and the attitudes of these people towards the evolution of the art as they are consciously
technologizing it.
I conducted unstructured interviews for my query on traditional dance pedagogy and
preservation. Artists and Gurus were asked to respond to questions regarding their reaction
towards new media and performance. In my e-mail and face-to-face correspondences, I inquired
about their awareness regarding possibilities of dance in digital spaces, if they are involved in
them in any way and if they have opinions of how technology is affecting the art. The questions
attempted to solicit information or opinions regarding some overarching themes that I am
exploring in the study. I showed my interviewees videos of classical ballet dance performance in
SL and dance DVDs that replace the physical presence of the Guru; These videos included labanotated performance records and CGI/body morphed performance videos. My discussions with
the Gurus revolve around the current trend of digitized performance and use of technology in
dance. These discussions are carried out as series of emails with several dancers who use
technology in dance in certain ways or have interesting perspectives regarding technology in
dance.
41
Exploring hundreds of blogs on virtual dance performance provided me with a valuable
resource regarding responses to Second Life dance. For data on performance in Second Life,
discussions and debates about the dance experience from SL participants and audiences was a
rich resource for information. Analyzing blog posts gave this research an additional perspective
on the body’s negotiation with its physical absence in a virtual dancing environment.
My research holds value for the orally transmitted knowledge; every generation
‘contemporarizes’ this knowledge and transmits it, thus making it eternally relevant. Odissi art
has been interpreted differently in different generations, all of which has led to the development
of a cultural tradition. Orally transmitted tradition is like a palimpsest on which every generation
writes the same story a little differently, having understood and interpreted the story that was
handed down to them by the previous generation. The palimpsestic nature of oral tradition makes
it valued, sacred, relevant and contemporary for several centuries. Western ethnographers
dismiss Orality as a valuable resource. As an indigenous researcher of a non-Western tradition,
understanding orality as a powerful research tool is important for me. For this, Finnegan is
important in my attempt to frame a non-Western method in this study. Finnegan proposed an
ethnographical scheme for locating, collecting and analyzing oral discourses, which focuses on
non-Western artistic traditions. Her model is important to this work, and it informs the findings I
discuss in chapter 3 on the nature of tradition and the role of the researcher as a practitioner of a
traditional art. This framework is derived from Finnegan’s definition of orality and tradition in
the context of an “earlier” culture (24) that makes sense in my study of Indian classical dancers.
Finnegan argues that is important for a researcher to document and textualize orally mediated
traditional memories. She recognizes the “authenticity” and “originality” of these memories,
which, to me, is crucial for the understanding of the nature of the practice. To me, historical
42
accuracy of these stories as constructed by the imperial colonial powers is less important in this
context than the traditional memory that shapes the value system of the present generation of
artists. The ancient art of Odissi had ceased to be practiced as a temple ritual for several
centuries. A group of dancers trained in the mahari and gotipua traditions revived the dance in
the 50’s, after the end of the British rule.
Using Finnegan’s analysis as a model, I developed a set of categories for analyzing my
data transcripts. To study the value systems and attitudes of the participants towards digital
technology in dance performance, I coded the individual case data collected from the interviews,
emails and surveys under three categories: How, What and Why. I highlighted data that indicated
(a) how the participants perform virtually and (b) what specific tools of performance pedagogy
and practice he/she uses. I also highlighted the sections of the conversation that supported or did
not support my hypothesis of the underlying value system of the dance. This was indicated by
references to authenticity, purity, sacredness of the memory, practice of the dance and the body
of the dancer. Using discourse analyses of the interview transcripts and blogs, I located attitudes
towards technology and tradition of the veteran and new artists of dance. I will base chapter 3 on
these concepts and revisit them in chapter 5.
My qualitative analysis of this data led me to a theory of digital performance and art.
Interacting with people across the field of Indian classical dance performance allowed me to
generate hypotheses for my project and then perform the data collection that was intended to
support or contest those hypotheses. This approach has helped me identify categories within the
inter-relatable datasets and then locate in them the core concepts that describe these
relationships.
43
This project will explore the affordances of performance in some specific virtual spaces.
It is intended to be a precursor of a larger project on exploring digitized bodies/texts/spaces and
performative rhetorical theory from a non-Western perspective, which I intend to carry on after
my doctoral studies. The goals of the project include exploring a broader understanding of
human performance of art in virtual space, disembodiment of art and digitalization of a cultural
memory. It also aims to explore the notion of performance as rhetoric from an eastern artistic
point of view. This project hopes to be build on the argument in “Towards a Rhetoric of
Everyday Life” (ed. John Duff ), which extends the borders of rhetoric as a tool of dignitaries
and orators to include the non-traditional performances of persuasion by immigrants, women,
and children in the way that their identities are constructed and shaped. Rhetoric can be
understood beyond its function as a tool of resistance. It can be a performance of a spiritual
practice and also persuasive to the audience with its interplay of the sexual and the sacred. All of
these concepts will be explored in the next chapter where I will also explore the concepts of the
Guru, the body and spirituality, which are profoundly valued in this dance. Digitization can
potentially affect these three core values, and so it is important to understand how these have
evolved over several hundred years.
Chapter 2 – BATU- MYTH OF THE DANCING SCULPTURES
2.1 Re-writing Stories of the Post-human Body
Digitization has a profound impact on the way in which the artists of the Internet era
teach and perform Odissi. In the previous chapter, I laid down an overview of the theoretical and
methodological design of this research. In this chapter, I will explain the ethos of this art and the
history that shaped those ethical values. I also claim that a profound understanding of the
44
concepts and values of a culture is required for a scholarly understanding of its performed
rhetorics. By this, I am referring to the practices layered with meanings and values. I am also
referring to the emic responses to inquiries into those practices.
The Western hegemonic perception of Odissi dance and Indian culture has been a part of
its history. Indian performative art is a rhetoric that shaped the spiritual, social and political
fabric of ancient Indian society. Western academia seldom recognizes non-verbal rhetorical
tradition. Scholars like George Kennedy often inaccurately represent it. In Comparative
Rhetoric, Kennedy attempts to apply the Western rhetorical concepts to non-Western traditions.
This is a significant book on ancient Eastern rhetoric, and so its stance worries me. A New
History of Classical Rhetoric presents a sample of prominent works of literature as examples of
ancient Indian rhetoric. Kennedy bases his definition of rhetoric on the Aristotelian concepts of
“oratory” and “ethos.” He fails to consider how rhetoric as a meaning-making process can
function in ways and means beyond the Greco-Roman definitions. Kennedy’s selection of
rhetoric samples from ancient Indian subcontinent is paltry and inaccurate. Ancient Hindu epics
do not define the rhetoric spectrum of this culture. Kennedy’s work is an example of the Western
dismissal of performance as an integral part of subcontinental rhetoric. Stereotypification of
ancient Indian, and Eastern, rhetorical values and comparing this art of persuasion with Western
rhetorical traditions might not be the ideal way to understand them.
Performance is integral to the communicative process of Eastern rhetoric. J.L. Austin
defines the interrelationship of oratory and performance. According to Austin’s Speech Act
Theory, speech is performative, and understanding speech involves multimodal semiotic
systems. Language “does things” and human interpretation of language is not complete without
the performative aspect of language. This concept can help in the understanding of Eastern
45
rhetoric in terms of its oratory and performative-ness. Vedas are the most ancient example of
rhetorical practices of the Indian subcontinent. Indologist Michio Yano writes, “the Vedas were
not written compositions but they were 'what is heard' (śruti) by the inspired sages and they were
transmitted exclusively by oral method in the first millennium after its formation. Even after the
written method of recording was introduced from the west sometime around the fourth century
B.C. oral method was preferred to written methods” (1). The Vedas consist of four books. Of
these, the first book contains several religious chants, the second book contains the scheme of
intonation for reading the first book, and the third book contains performative rituals involving
the body and the space. Performance of these books also involves several gestures with the
fingers. Yogic practices also use these gestures. Performance embodies speech in this culture,
and embodied speech is integral to the understanding of the rhetorical tradition of India.
This means that artistic activities, especially dance, are intrinsic to the art of persuasion in
Indian society. Dance as a rhetorical devise has been integral to spirituality, which in-turn has
shaped the social and political patterns in Indian history. Understanding the historical/mythical
context is crucial for the understanding of the rhetorical affordances of Indian dance. In this
study, I seek the appropriate the definition of rhetoric as a meaning-making process of the body
and provide an alternative, non-Western theoretical perspective to understand performed
rhetorics of the body. This is the rhetoric of storytelling, orally transmitted histories and myths.
These histories and myths construct the value systems of the culture. Identifying the value
systems will be crucial in understanding the framework that is indigenous to my cultural
upbringing and non-Western understanding. Coming from an ethnic heritage, I consider orality
an important part of the trans-generational passage of wisdom. I wish to tell my stories of the
past as I heard them from my Mother, Grandmother and Guru.
46
Online space virtualizes the body, thus complicating the potential of the body to hold
information and transmit it to the next generation. The generation that creates their own onscreen avatars is bound to be confused about the original meaning of the word “avatar”. The
original meaning of the word avatar in the Hindu theology is “descent.” The meaning of the
word, however, loses its original meaning when it indicates the virtualized body. According to
the Hindu mythological belief system, the trinity of Gods, Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the
Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer), govern all existence. Vishnu takes nine different animate
forms at different points of times in the past in order to save the creation. The form taken by
Vishnu is his “avatar,” which is a Sanskrit word that means “descent.” Vishnu took these nine
forms to descend on earth: the fish, the turtle, the boar, the half-man and half-lion, the dwarf, the
bearer of an axe, a virtuous king, a warrior bearing a plough and the Enlightened Man (the
Buddha)9. The tenth and final avatar is that of a horse-rider. According to the myth, the tenth
avatar has yet to happen. Avatar, in the Hindu belief system, refers to the forms adopted by Lord
Vishnu, as he descended on the earth. In a non-Indian sense, Avatar also refers to the shapes and
forms adopted by people to represent themselves as virtual creatures. Avatar in the gaming world
is far different from its etymological origin. The examples above attempt to demonstrate how the
definitions and conceptions of history, orality, rhetoric and identity are culturally specific.
Transposing a concept across cultures can severely modify the essential and integral meaning of
what the concept stands for. It is difficult to interpret cultural concepts without deep
acquaintance with that culture. For this reason, in the next few sections of this chapter, I will
9
Incidentally the ten avatars of Vishnu are believed to symbolize the evolution of life on earth. It
started with aquatic life (fish), and passed the stages of amphibian life (tortoise), life on earth
(boar), developing man (dwarf), man of the Iron Age (axe-bearer), virtuous king, agriculturist
and lastly, the enlightened man. The tenth incarnation is yet to come as the man on the horse
(comparable to the biblical references in the Book of Revelation).
47
attempt to present brief explanations of the innate spirituality associated with space, pedagogy
and the body. These will be important in conditioning the readers to understand the arguments on
the methodology and theory that follow in the next two chapters.
2.2 Origin of Odissi dance
Dance is an instrument of the unique cultural identity and ethos of a group. In India,
dance is also an integral part of folk lives, and we have dances for every occasion. The birth of a
child, sowing of seeds, harvest, marriage, mating, finding a mate, death, evoking the rain,
missing one’s lover, curing of an illness and numerous other occasions in different parts of India
are celebrated with their unique dance ceremonies. This is also evident in Indian cinemas; the
storyline is punctuated by song-and-dance sequences in almost every “Bollywood” movie10,
whether it an action, thriller, horror,drama, comedy or musical. Karakam, practiced in South
India, is one of the most ancient surviving folk dances. The dancer dances with a pot on his head
in acrobatic movements in front of the Goddess to ward of epidemic. Other dances such as the
Bhangra, or the Northeastern war dances, are both integral to culture and simply a part of the
ritual of everyday life. These folk dances are spontaneous expressions of love, joy, reverence,
sadness and so on. Folk dances are oral traditions transmitted across generations, and
performances are not set to any grammar or structure. Though varied in styles and forms, dance
is the cultural identity of India and plays an important role in the social fabric.
Over time, another kind of dance developed. Women began to perform spiritual dances in
the temples in the south and east of India. Like several other practices of the temples, these
practitioners of the dances set to them specific grammars. At around 400 B.C., Bharatmuni wrote
10
Bollywood refers to the Indian film Industry. It is derived from the words Hollywood and the
city of Bombay where the movies are made.
48
Natyashastra, apparently under the guidance of the mythical dancers and Hindu deity, Lord
Shiva (Vatsyayan 1996). The idea of writing under the guidance of mythical Gods and demigods might means that Bharatmuni was invoking them as he wrote this text. Natyashastra
textualized the oral knowledge of dance. The classical dances are those dances that adhere to the
theories of movement, expression and performance, as prescribed by Bharatmuni. According to
the Sangeet Natak Academy (Academy of Performing Arts of the Government of India) the
Indian classical dances include Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali and Mohiniattam from the
southern peninsular part of India, Odissi from the eastern coast, Manipuri from the Himalayan
northeast and Kathak from the Gangetic planes of North India. Gouriya and Shattriya are two
other forms of dance from the east, which are currently in contestation with the cultural
community of the nation in order to be included in the list of classical dances. These classical
dances are esoteric art forms and require intensive training for perfection.
Odissi was born in the temples of Orissa, a coastal state in eastern India. Odissi derives
its name from this state. It is arguably the oldest of the classical dances. Stone carvings on the
cave-walls of Udaygiri and Khandagiri reveal some practices of the dance by women as early as
200 BCE. Odissi survived through these depictions of innumerable poses of dancing women.
These dance poses are alongside several other spiritual, erotic and martial performative practices.
The inscriptions on the natural caverns of Udaygiri (Figure 2.1) depict the form of women
playing the flute, drums and cymbals (Patnaik 7). The postures depicted here, the bended knees
and slightly tilted heads, bear resemblance with Odissi.
49
The temple dancers or “Deva Dasis” were the slaves of God. These female dancers are
“maharis”11. Maharis originally practiced the dance as an offering to God. Maharis were married
to the deity of the temple where they served and often hailed from respectable, even royal,
families. Often, poor families sold off their daughters to serve the temples in return of a wish
fulfilled. The Puranas have references to the age-old traditions of this practice, including
performances by dancing girls in various ritualistic ceremonies. Puranas are Hindu texts dealing
with mythologies of the Hindu deities, demi-Gods and human kings. In his book on the history of
Odissi, Dhiren Patnaik quotes the temple inscriptions that give semi-erotic physical descriptions
of the girls that are dedicated to the deity of the temple. These are verses from the 10th century
temple of Brahmeshwari. Kolavati Devi, mother of the Udyot Keshari of the Keshari dynasty is
the author of this prose:
“By her were dedicated to God Shiva some beautiful women,
whose limbs were adorned with ornaments set in gems and thus
appearing as the everlasting but playful lightenings, and why were
restless with the weight of loins and breasts, and whose eyes were fickle
and extended up to the ears and
Figure 2.1: Dancing Figures of Udaygiri, 200 BCE
(Photo credit: Chloé Romero)
who looked lovely like the pupils of the
eyes of men” (30).
Figure 2.2: Jagannath Temple of Puri
(Photo credit: DamienPhototrend.fr)
These wives of the temple deity had the sole right (other than the priests) to enter the
inner rooms of the temples. Along with the temple, the maharis, too, received financial support
from the Hindu rulers of Orissa, and Oriya historians suggest that the King and the high priests
11
The etymological origin of the word Mahari is debatable. It is commonly believed to have
come from mahat nari meaning, “great woman”. Shashimani Devi is the last living Mahari of
Orissa.
50
could have sexual relationships with the maharis. The temples of Orissa typically have three
buildings. The outermost structure is the Nat Mandir (hall of performance), where the maharis
danced. The Bhog Mandir (hall of offerings) in the middle is slightly taller than this. Here,
temple priests offer cooked rice and fruits to the deity. The tallest structure of the temple, or the
Garbha Mandir (meaning the “womb of the temple”), contained an idol of the deity. In the
picture of the Jagannath Temple of Puri in Orissa (Figure 2.2), we can see the three structures
and the Garuradwar, or the Gate beyond which non-Hindus could not enter. Of the esoteric
rituals of the temples, the mahari dance was very important in the daily activities. Maharis
performed “abhinayas” or expressional dances depicting stories from the Purana and the
Sanskrit verses of 12th century Oriya poet, Jayadeva. Maharis trained within the art of dancing
and Aharya (or decorating their bodies with flowers, ornaments and sandalwood paste). At the
time of the dance, the maharis could not look at any audience members that might be present.
They had to abide by the Natyashastra and express bhavas (emotions) that were purely spiritual.
Their dance required them to narrate mythological stories.
The dancing maharis remain etched on the walls of hundreds of temples in Orissa like
Konark (Figure 2.3), Puri Jagannath, Rajarani, Khajuraho and Bhubaneshwar. The poses often
depict ritualistic offerings of flowers and playing of musical instruments. There are poses of the
dancer engaged in Aharya or decorating herself by looking at a mirror. These temples also
illustrate ritualistic sexual poses depicted in
Figure 2.3: Wall of Konark Sun Temple
the Kamasutra, figures engaged in martial arts, several totemic animals and some deities. The
body of maharis and the depiction of them on the temple facade is an interesting juxtaposition of
sexuality and spirituality. The sculptures represent an idealized woman’s body, perfectly poised,
with a voluptuous figure and exaggeratedly exposed breasts and thighs.
51
The presence of the hypersexualized female figures on the temple walls represents an
intriguing juxtaposition of sexuality and spirituality in Hindu practices. Art Historian Dehejia
tries to explain the blurring of the sacred and the profane in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temple
sculpture by linking physical beauty with morality of character in the eastern psyche. She refers
to the Buddhist text Lakkhana-suttanta (meaning “text on perfections” in Pali language) where
the perfection of the body indicates a measure for the greatness of the soul, and the perfection of
the body is the result of moral action or kamma (65). In another theory, she interprets from the
1077 AD Orissan text Shilpa-prakash (Light on Art), that the auspicious presence of the
woman’s body performs a protective function. I remember my Guru explaining how “erotic
sculptures took the attention of the colonizers away from the secret spiritual symbols hidden in
between these. It also kept them from destruction. The colonizers took pleasure in watching these
sculptures, and therefore did not destroy these temples like they did not other temples.” In their
account of the colonized and postcolonial body in the context of South-Asia, Mills and Sen opine
that the depictions of nudity and sexual engagement employ cryptic indications that might not be
comprehendible without the appropriate socio-cultural reference (Mills, Sen 5). Some of the
functions indicated by Art Historian Devangana Desai include “magical defense, the
concealment of a yantra, giving delight to people... embodying yogic concepts” (5). To Desai,
the female sexuality represents a power that protects the temple while also giving visual pleasure
to the onlookers. Sexuality was a part of the religious and cultural ritual. Sex and the body that
performed it were both sacred in a way that might be difficult for Figure 2.4: Gotipua dancer
(Photo courtesy: Stuart-
someone from a different culture to understand and appreciate. In Madeley)
addition, this was a major reason for the decline of the temple dancing ritual of Orissa.
52
The Muslim and British colonization was a major setback for the maharis. The culturally
unaware colonizers misunderstood the maharis as prostitutes or entertainers like the court
dancers of Northern India. The patrons of Orissan temple dances, the Hindu kings, lost their
power, and their support dwindled. This was an extension of a general artistic decline of the
Indian states during this time. In terms of fine arts, there was a sharp “shift in consumer tastes by
both the new British patronage and existing Indian upper-class patrons” (Mills, Sen 123). This
influenced people’s taste for dance as well; the function of dance as an entertainment dominated
its function as an internalized expression of worship and its attempt to establish a connection
with the spiritual self. The practice of ritualistic temple dancing had to be discontinued for the
safety of the maharis. But in order to keep the tradition alive, the practitioners of the temple
dance in Orissan temples began to teach the dance to young boys, many of whom where sons of
the maharis. These boys were called gotipuas (“goti” means one, and “pua” means boy).
Bandha12 is the acrobatic dance of the gotipuas. Apart from Odissi dance, gotipuas also learnt
martial arts and served as protectors of the temple premises in case of any invasion. During the
performance, these young boy-dancers performed dressed as girls. Figure 2.4 shows a gotipua
performing the pose that depicts the Hindu God of preservation, Vishnu, riding a bird, Garuda.
Maharis performed the dance only within the temple walls; gotipuas danced for the
entertainment of the public. Maharis’ dance was lyrical and spiritual. Gotipua dancers retained
some of the spirituality and lyricism. However, the dance transformed when the male bodies
adopted it. It became acrobatic and stronger, and it lost the lilting feminine charm that was
characteristic to the spiritual temple dance.
12
This is an acrobatic performance by a group of Gotipuas. The examples of such acrobatic
formations are depicted in the ancient temple walls, thereby suggesting that it is one of the
original rituals of the temples performed both by men and women.
53
Present day gotipua dance remains an acrobatic folk dance. The remediation of the
sensuous Odissi dance into the male body problematized the sexuality inscribed in the dance.
According to Peggy Phelan, a western visual perception of the body performing gotipua is the
erotic substitute of the female form. “Surface femininity reminds the spectator of the absence of
the female (the lack) rather than her presence” (156). She goes on to refer to the Freudian
concept of fetishes, where the “movement (of the male dancer) works not to bring the female
into the spectacle of exchange between spectator and performer but to leave her emphatically
outside. Dance scholar Avanthi Meduri critiques Phelan’s argument and accuses Phelan of
violating the integrity and sacredness of the dance (158). The bodies that performed the dance
were associated with the temple in the spiritual sense, and hence sacred. For scholars like Meduri
and several Indians associated with the dance, the value system underlying this sense of
spirituality in gotipua dance lets viewers see beyond the body as a gendered, sexual corporeal
form.
After decades of near-extinction, in the mid-twentieth century, a group of locally bred
theatre practitioners, dancers trained as gotipuas and by maharis, and percussionists initiated the
revival and reconstruction of Odissi. India’s cultural intelligentsia recognized it and granted
Odissi the status of a classical dance. Most of the male practitioners of the dance at that time
were former gotipuas themselves. Like temple sculptures, gotipuas embodied a cultural memory
as a way of keeping the memory of the dance alive. The gotipua tradition is an important stage of
remediation of this art’s memory from a female to a male body, and it brought about major
alterations to the form of the dance. It lost much of the feminine grace characteristic of Odissi.
However, it adhered strictly to the master-disciple tradition, which remained intrinsic to this
54
practice across the centuries (Hejmadi 63). In the next section, we will discuss the concept of this
tradition in more detail.
2.3 Role and position of the Guru
The Guru hands down the knowledge of the art from generation to generation. “Guru”
comes from the Sanskrit root [gŗ], which means, “to praise or invoke.” In the word Guru, gu
signifies “darkness”, and ru signifies “the one who destroys”. Guru does not necessarily instill
new knowledge; Guru destroys darkness and provides the student with light to unfold truth,
knowledge and wisdom. In this belief system, Guru is the human form of abstract divinity that
helps in illuminating one’s knowledge. An ideal Guru needs to have several qualities
him/herself. He must be adept in the art that he is teaching and he must be spiritually
enlightened. Odissi dance has survived through the generations of the Guru-Shishya parampara
or master-student tradition. Learning in the Guru-Shishya method involves complete
surrendering to the Guru and absorbing the knowledge of the Guru in one’s self.
Guru plays the crucial role because the Guru is responsible for the preservation of the
purity of an art. Every art form evolves over time as practitioners innovate. However, in this
artistic community, neglecting the geometrical purity associated with the art is the same as
disrespecting the art. Expressions and gestures are spontaneous expressions of a dancer’s
emotional state. However, the postures in classical Odissi are measures, defined and strict. There
are several schools of Odissi dance based on the styles of the Gurus13. The Odissi community
considers it important to stick to the style of dance with one Guru in order to maintain the purity
of that style.
13
There are three main schools of Odissi, based on the styles of the three founding fathers of
modern Odissi. They were Guru Pankajcharan Das, Guru Debaprasad Das and Guru Kelucharan
Mohapatra.
55
The traditional teaching of Odissi involves the Guru demonstrating the dance and the
disciple imitating it and repeating it several times until he/she has memorized it completely. Like
most classical arts of India, studying this art requires constant feedback from the Guru in order to
achieve perfect movement of the limbs and coordination of movement and facial expression.
Teaching, learning and practicing Odissi in traditional settings dwells on the constant interaction
of the dancer with the teacher and the dancer with his/her own body.
The knowledge of the grammar of Odissi, like all other classical dances, was transmitted
orally and practically from the Guru to the disciple. The form of the dance underwent vast
transformation from the temple dance practices to the gotipua-style practice to its current state.
Over all this time, oral transmission of knowledge has been the main method of teaching and
learning. Thus, the immediate presence of the Guru has remained crucial. Mediation of the
sacred knowledge into written texts probably came much later. The third century Indian
performance scholar Nandikeswar wrote Abhinaya Darpana a book on the grammar of dance.
Odissi practitioners still use the grammatical and theoretical concepts from this book in the
teaching and practice of Odissi dance.
Adhering to a grammar is important to preserve the pristine nature of a classical dance.
Gurus orally transmit the Sanskrit verses of Abhinaya Darpana and Natyashastra. When I was
learning Odissi grammar, my Guru demonstrated the verses while chanting, and students
imitated her. I do not have all of the verses of Natyashatra in my memory, but possess a copy of
the book with notes taken during lessons with my Guru. I trust the Guru’s interpretation of the
texts, the mythologies portrayed in dance and the stories on the origin of Odissi, because her
Guru, who in turn learnt it from his Guru, handed these down to her. I did not ever feel the
necessity to cross-examine the information imparted on me since the Sanskrit verses
56
encapsulated the memories surrounding the dance in a way that was convincing and worthy of
trust.
Gotipuas learned the dance in residential schools called akhdas. The village of
Raghurajpur (birthplace of the gotipua dance) has prominent akhdas, which are still engaged in
training gotipuas. There are residential schools for teaching classical dances as well. The most
prominent schools of Odissi are Nrityagram near Bangalore, Srjan in Bhubaneshwar and Konark
Natya Mandap in Konark, near Puri. The students lead a life of austerity and extreme devotion to
the art, a lifestyle or brahmacharya14. The students do their own work, and help the Guru and
his/her family members in the household chores. Nrityagram, or dance village, near Bangalore
(in southern India) is one such institution that includes this condition in the description of their
training program: “The program also requires involvement in gardening, cleaning and working in
the kitchen” (Nrityagram website). The relationship between the master and the disciple is
traditionally not mercenary. While receiving knowledge and training, the student shows humility
and gratitude towards the Guru.
These verses evince the position of high respect that Gurus command in this tradition –
“Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. Guru Sakshat Parabrahma, Tasmei shri
Gurave namah.”15 These verses in Sanskrit give the Guru the position of the Divine Trinity of
Hindu spirituality. They are the Creator, the Sustainer and the Destroyer/ Regenerator. The
14
In Hindu philosophy, the hundred-year span of an ideal human life is divided into four parts,
each containing twenty-five years. The first part is brahmacharya, when person is expected to
stay with the Guru and gain the knowledge of arts and scriptures. The second part is garhasta,
when he will engage in maintaining his family. Third part is ... when he gradually attempts to
severe emotional ties with the people in his/her family, allowing them to lead their own lives.
The fourth part is Sanyas, when he renounces the worldly pleasures and goes off in the
wilderness to meditate in hermitude.
15
It is likely that sage Shankaracharya composed these verses in the 9th century. I learned it
through oral transmission from my mother and Guru.
57
verses then say that the Guru is the Divine Creator himself. It ends with a namaskaram or
homage to the Guru. In Indian culture, as in several far eastern cultural spiritual practices of
martial arts, the position of the Guru or master is immediately after one’s God. The academic
classrooms in Indian subcontinent value this notion of the Guru or the teacher. The dancer has a
sacred relationship with the teacher. The dancer also has a sacred relationship with his/her body.
The next section will take a multicultural perspective of the body as a meaning-making vehicle.
2.4 “Sacred” Body of the Odissi dancer
The body is a tangible, material thing on which histories and presences can be inscribed.
The body embodies the abstractions of tradition. The consequences of technologization can be
“seen” on the body. It is helpful to theorize traditional rhetoric and technological culture in terms
of the body. In order to do that, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the body of the
traditional dancer. Layers of colonial history make the performance of this body extremely
significant. The body is a bearer of meanings. Like demonstrated in section 2.2, the body enacts
the sexual and the sacred at the same time. For a clearer understanding of the dichotomy of the
performative function of the body, I will refer to hidden agendas in African-American soul dance
and Brazilian Capoeira dance.
The body is considered sacred because it is the tool that the dancer uses to communicate
with the spiritual self. In a traditional repertoire, the dancer begins a recital with bhoomi pranam,
asking forgiveness from bhoomi or Earth on which the dancer will perform. Isthadeva Vandana
follows this. In this, the dancer offers obeisance to a deity for an auspicious beginning. It
concludes with a trikhandi pranam in which the dancer offers salutations to God, the Guru and
the audience. The dancer pays homage to the guardians of the ten directions of the Ranga
Mancha. They are the demi-gods Kuber (Wealth), Indra (Lightning/War/Heaven), Agni (Fire),
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Yama (Death), Rakshasa (Demon), Varun (Water), Vayu (Wind), Ishan (Dawn), Ananta (Space),
and also Brahma (the Creator). The interaction of the body with the world beyond is crucial in
this process of making meanings through movements. This is seminal to the rhetoric of
performance from the perspective of the eastern spiritual psyche.
The body is a vehicle for meanings. When the body moves through space or when it is
motionless, it creates/expresses meanings. For an artist who engages in the process of making
meaning and persuading the audience to interpret the meaning, it is essential to understand the
relationship between the body and the space. French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty’s
philosophical notion of the relationship of the body and the external space provides a deeper
understanding of this problem; it allows us to better understand how meanings are expressed and
mediated by the body. Merleau-Ponty writes, “I am conscious of the world through the medium
of my body” (94-95). His perception of the body is a lived, aware, material reality that orients
one to the environment around oneself. “Personal existence is intermittent and when this tide
turns and recedes, decision can henceforth endow my life with only an artificially induced
significance. The fusion of soul and body in the act, the sublimation of biological into personal
existence, and of the natural into the cultural world is made both possible and precarious by the
temporal structure of our experience” (99). There is a blurring of the subject-object for MerleauPonty, and he acknowledges the function of the thoughts and sensations that work in the
background of perception. French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu builds on this concept and
develops the notion of the habitus. To him, an individual sense of reality is created through a
process of socially and culturally constituted ways of perceiving, evaluating and behaving (87).
To him, the body, the response of the moving body towards the world and externalization of
emotions are social and cultural responses. The artistic practices that vary across cultures reflect
59
these responses. Concepts of sacredness of space and body are dispositions that are orally
transmitted knowledge, and therefore, they are dependent on historical and culture memory. I
will allude to Bourdieu later in this dissertation to develop an understanding of how these
dispositions shape cultural responses to external influences, such as digitization of the dance. In
this reference, it can help us to understand how habitus is seminal to the understanding of the
performing body.
In Odissi, the body of the dancer is the temple. The dancers wear a “chuda,” or a white
cone, on the head to indicate the conical structure on top of the Orissan temples. Dancers have a
dual purpose when they perform a dance: (a) to communicate meanings with expressive gestures
and (b) to internalize the meaning in order to achieve a state of spiritual purity. A similar duality
is described in dance historian Lepecki’s collection on African-American rhetoric of
performative practice. Thomas F. DeFrantz, professor of Music and Theatre in Massachusetts
Institute of Technology wrote a powerful chapter in this collection on the body of AfricanAmerican dancers as the bearer of the history. This article, entitled “The Black Beat Made
Visible: Hip Hop Dance and Body Power” reveals the essence of spirituality of AfricanAmerican dance and the dual transcripts of “public” and “private” meaning of black social
dance. The outwardly entertaining transcript and secretly derisive rhetoric are articulated by
black cultural theorists (Lepecki 64). The expressiveness of entertainment has the ulterior motive
of protest. To DeFrantz, this is “private as it “read and understood” only through the active
experience of this dance. DeFrantz refers to historian Robert Hinton, who opines that the history
of slavery created this dual motive in this performative expression. This duality is a
conglomeration of the two streams of African-American dance. One was an interiorized or intracommunal act of secular or sacred expressions. The second stream was solely for the purpose of
60
entertainment (65). To DeFrantz, during the performance, dance expresses meanings and
thereby, the body becomes the “body of meanings.” The corporeal body ceases to exist as an
entity different from the rhetorical body that expresses the layers of meanings. “If spirituality is
accessed by good dancing, religiosity may, then, be the unspoken subject and source of the
dancer’s action, its root” (Lepecki 73). The motion and the meaning of the expression
abstractify the material body of an Odissi dancer. In a spiritual dance like Odissi or Black Soul
dance, the meaning expressed by the body moves transcends the activity of dance itself. The
purpose of the dance, or the aspiration of the dancer, is to reach that state of perfect purity.
According to folklorist Roger D. Abrahams in the same book, the forceful rhythms of the
African-American dance are a persuasive expression of resistance. He writes, “Black power in
social dance is a sacred holding, a trust of rhythmic legibility and cultural responsibility... In this
model, the forces that drive the dance are intangible. Dancer attains power in the dance by
aligning with the submerged rhythmic and linguistic potentials of the beat. Working in the
service of a communal conversation with others, the dancer creates dialogue by making the beat
visible and shaping its accents into coherent phraseology. Ironically, the body creates the
movement, but the body as a physical entity disappears in the midst of its own statements” (72).
The body, as a bearer of the rhetoric of aggression, loses its tangibility and transform into the
bearer of dispositions inculcated by the habitus and the culturally transmitted memories. The
connection of the spiritual and the social is not weak or casual. It is a manifestation of spiritual
strength. The rhetoric of anger and intimidation displays this spiritual strength, thereby creating a
“bifurcation” with the audience (73). In this way, the dancer acknowledges the objectification of
his/her black body.
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The Brazilian Capoeira dance is acrobatic, forceful and often aggressive in nature.
Capoeira dance is an African-Brazilian War-like dance that characterizes rhythmic acrobatic
movements. Hip-hop dance adopted many of its moves from this dance style. This is also an
aggressive expression of the body that is practiced by the slaves of Brazil. In the pretence of
dance, idividuals performed this dance to train the bodies in martial arts. This was also as an
expression of resistance. Like African soul dance and Indian classical dance, Capoeira displays a
dichotomy in the motive of its performance. This reminds me of the role of the gotipua16 dance
during the colonial age. Gotipua dance was an expression of resistance against colonial forces.
The art of Odissi was falling victim of colonization of the Indian subcontinent. The gotipua
dance presented itself as an entertainment. Nevertheless, the gotipuas practiced martial arts as
part of the dance ritual. The gotipua dance created a group of young men who were physically fit
and able to defend the temple against any attack.
This also is true for the body of the Odissi dancer that carries orally transmitted
meanings, memories and symbols. During the performance, the body is sacred and not simply a
corporeal entity;t it is a bearer and agent of spiritual significations. The body is in constant
negotiation/persuasion of meanings and symbols with the audience who interprets it, and thereby
reaches a state of bliss through the experience with the art.
The dual identities of the performing body are present in the context of Indian Classical
dance as well. This dance serves a dual purpose by being a mode of entertainment as well as a
mode of worship. The practice of temple dancers (maharis) had a spiritual function. The maharis
danced only for the deity and inside the temple, and gotipuas performed outside for
entertainment. The motivation for the former was transcendental. The latter had defensive (of the
16
Section 2.2 explains the origin and role of the Gotipua dancers. The glossary may be also be
referred to for a quick explanation.
62
temple premises) and financial motivation. The administrative body of the temple governed the
role and functions of the bodies involved in the ritualistic performances. The maharis performed
the devotional dances and led a ritualistically pure life. However, rules permitted sexual contact
with the high priests and the patron kings. The tension between the sexual and the sacred is
visible in the nature of the performance of modern Odissi. The dance is coquettishly feminine,
yet spiritual. This brings us to the question of how Indian classical dance conceptualizes the
corporeal body. The next section attempts to present descriptions of the body as I learnt them
from my Guru, and Natyashastra (section 2.3) depicts the meaning-making faculty of the body.
2.5 Angika: Visible Rhetoric of the Body
Angika is the Sankrit equivalent of “bodily” which refers to the meaning-making gestures
demonstrated by the body. This section aims at reiterating the importance of both the spiritual
body of meanings and the physical body in Indian classical dance. The conventions and
descriptions of the performing body are an important part of this performance tradition. It is
important to illustrate the rhetorical potential of the performing body clearly and accurately.
Therefore, I will go over some of the sections in Natyashastra that focus on the function,
representation and desired movement of the body. I provide a brief description of the dancers:
Nayaka Lakshana and Nayika Lakshna in Natyashastra. The nayika-lakhkhan (signs of a femaleprotagonist) and nayak-lakhkhan (signs of a male protagonist) determine whether a person can or
cannot perform in a temple. The corporeal body and rhetorical body function as one entity in
Odissi. Natyashastra defines the body and the meanings that the body depicts.
In Abhinaya Darpana, a 10th century Sanskrit theoretical text on the aesthetics of
performance, Nandikeshwar described that the ideal Nayika, or heroine, should have the
following physical characteristics: youthful, slender, beautiful, large-eyed, large bosomed, self63
confident, witty, pleasing, adept in keeping and following rhythm, elaborately dressed and with a
happy disposition. This is in accordance with Natyashastra recommendations of Nayika
Lakshana in (chapter XXVII.97-98). The text lays down ten blemishes that will make a woman
unfit to be a dancer: white specks on the pupils, scanty hair, thick lips, sagging breasts, too fat,
too thin, too tall, too short, hunch-backed and hoarse or voiceless.
According to this book, the Hindu deity Shiva is the mythical creator of dance. The book
provides physical descriptions of Shiva. These descriptions have both spiritual and rhetorical
significance. These verses describe the body of Shiva: He holds the drum (the sound of which
awakens creation) in his right hand and fire (which represents destruction of the old order) in his
left hand. Shiva engages in the dance of Tandava, which is forceful and masculine. His
counterpart is Parvati. She is feminine and graceful, and engages in the feminine dance of lasya.
These counteracting forces of masculine and feminine set forth a balance in the creation. The
bodies of the Shiva and Parvati engaged in the dance of Lasya-Tanda, thereby setting forth the
entire creation. The verses go: Angikam bhuvanam yasya, which means, Shiva’s body is the
representation of the Universe. The Natyashastra recommends: “Khantaanyat Lambay"at
Geetam, Hastana Artha Pradakshayat, Chakshubhyam Darshayat Bhavom, Padabhyam Tala
Acherait” (quoted from memory). This means, “keep uttering the song, let your hands reveal the
meanings expressed during the dance, use your eyes to communicate expressively, while your
feet maintain the rhythm.” Dance represents the balance of masculine and feminine, sacred and
sexual, spirituality and physicality, and externalization and internalization. This balance creates
the universe, which indicates that the balance of these dualities create meanings that we can
perceive and experience.
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The movement of the hands is integral to in the meaning-making process of dance: “Yato
Hasta Stato Drushti, Yato Drushti Stato Manaha, Yato Manaha Stato Bhavom, Yato Bhavom
Stato Rasaha” (quoted from memory). This means, “where the hand goes, there the eyes should
follow; where the eyes are, the mind should follow; where the mind goes, there the expression
should be revealed; where the expression are inspired, there the Rasa17 will be experienced by
the onlooker.”
The essence of Indian classical dance is the meaningful application of gestures to
communicate expressions. These expressions are abhinaya. In dance, gestural rhetoric for
storytelling can be of four types:

Angika Abhinaya: movements of the body convey the meaning. Natyashastra
provides a list of body parts that storytellers use.

Vachika Abhinaya: Words (songs, dialogues, chants) create meaning.

Aharya Abhinaya: The attire is an important part of storytelling, as it signifies the
mood of the plot or the representation of the character. This abhinaya heightens the aesthetic
appeal of the dance

Satvika Abhinaya: This is the purest form of communication in the meaningmaking process. The body reacts through involuntary stimuli. For e.g., Instances of Satvika
Abhinaya occur when the dancer portrays sadness and tears appear during the performance, or
when the dancer portrays that he/she is scared and gets spontaneous goose-bumps or starts to
shiver. This kind of response during a performance requires a high level of understanding of the
art.
Indian classical dance is steeped in spirituality. However, this does not mean that the
physical movement is any less important. The Natyashastra outlines the techniques of moving
the various body parts. These are Anga Lakshana (signs depicted by the body):








17
Eye Movements or drishti bheda
Neck movements or greeva bheda
Hand gestures or hasta mudras
Head movements or shiro bheda
Body postures specific to the kind of dance or mandi
Foot Positions or paada bheda
Walking Styles or gati bheda
Dance patterns or karanas
The concept of Rasa was explained in section 1.2.
65
In the rhetoric of Indian classical arts, the eyes can look in eight ways: Sama, where the
eyes are still; Alokita, where eyes are rolled in a circular way; Sachi where the eyes move in a
sidelong glance; Pralokita where the eyes move from side to side; Nimilita, where eyelids are
half closed while looking down; Ullokita, where the eyes look upwards; Anuvritta, where the
eyes look up and down rapidly; and Avalokita, where the eyes look down. Likewise, these are
four kinds of neck movements or griva bheda, and nine kinds of head movements or shiro
bheda. Each of these movements has specific functions and conveys specific meanings.
Additionally, there are several single hand and double hand gestures, each signifying several
different objects or expressions. There are 108 karanas or combined movements of the hands
and feet to show a piece of the dance, establishing its uniqueness as a classical dance.
The styles of movement of the feet are important in portraying the uniqueness of a dance
or its drama. The legs can perform four categories of motion, (a) stay in a static postures, (b)
leap, (c) spin and (d) move from one place to another. Each of the categories of movements and
stasis has several subdivisions or “kinds” under them. Again, there are several kinds of leaps,
movements and spins.
These are the basic elements of the dance involving grammatical structures. An
interesting rhetorical function of Natyashastra is the delineation of gender specifications in a
dance performance. The heroine or nayika (female characters that dancers represent), of a story
being told through dance falls into one of the eight divisions called Ashtanayika bhavas, based
on her emotional status and reactions as portrayed in the story.






Abhisarika – She steals out of her home to meet her lover.
Kalahantarika – She repents for quarrelling with her lover
Khandita – She is angry with her lover.
Proshitapathika – She is missing her lover who is away.
Swadheenapathika – She is confident of herself and for her lover’s loyalty.
Vasakasajjika – She is preparing for the arrival of her beloved.
66

Virahotkantita – She is separated from her lover and yearning to be with
him.

Vipralabda – She is disappointed that her lover has come to her as
promised.
Just like the heroines, heroes (male characters that dancers represent) are of four types.
The main divisions are

Dheerodatta: He is majestic, forgiving, tranquil and unwavering.

Dheeroddhata: He is short-tempered and arrogant.

Dheeralalita: He is light-hearted, carefree and appreciative of arts

Dheerashanta: He is quite calm or solemn
Interactions and relationships with their lovers determine the categorization of the
heroines, whereas characteristic traits determine the categorization of the heroes. The grammar
of Natyashastra follows the conventions of how a body should act in a specific rhetorical
situation in order to convey a meaning. Using light or sound effects on stage is not a part of a
traditional repertoire. Gestures can convey several meanings. For example, the hand gesture
kartarimukha (See Figure 2.5) can denote the number two; the eye, a dishonest person; the
mountain peak, lightening; separation from one’s beloved, elephant, cow, bull and coiled hair.
This gesture can be combined with other gestures to signify several other concepts and objects.
The grammatical structure of the dance is a way of imposing meaning onto the movements.
There are thousands of meaningful gestures noted in the
Abhinaya Darpana and the Natyashastra. Gurus interpret
Figure 2.5: Hand gesture
Kartarimukha
them
and transmit them to the next generation.
At the end of this chapter, the stage is set: we involved the histories transmitted over
generations of Odissi dancers. The spiritual and mythological nature of dance and its historicity
is important in understanding its rhetorical nature. However, the dancing hall of the temples no
longer limit the scope of this dance. Globalization of the art has brought about several extracultural influences, of which digitization is crucial. This chapter gives a brief glimpse of the
histories inscribed on the body of an Indian classical dancer and the rhetorical functions of the
67
body. The discussions attempt to condition the readers to understand some of the relevant
cultural concepts of Indian classical and spiritual traditions. This will be important in
understanding the arguments made in the rest of the dissertation. In the next chapter, we will
examine the ways in which the body negotiates with virtualization and departure from tradition,
and we will trace this phenomenon of virtualization of Odissi dance.
Chapter 3 – PALLAVI - COMPLICATING REAL AND VIRTUAL IN ODISSI
3.1 Decolonizing Methodology, Traditions Reclaimed
In chapter 2, I presented the historical/mythological background of Odissi to help readers
understand the value systems that might have influenced the reactions of people to the questions
of the technologization of a two-thousand-year-old art. Stories and oral histories of this art are
crucial in the formation of the values that lead to several fascinating responses from artists. In the
section 3.3, I will present the coding scheme and a detailed methodological framework. Here, I
will present the focal questions that helped me categorize the data to inform the different aspects
of the research. In 3.4, I will superimpose relevant extracts on these categories. However, before
getting in to the data it is important to present the decolonial method that I have adopted in this
study. I believe that India’s colonial past might explain the strict adherence to tradition in several
aspects of life, including spirituality and dance. It is crucial to take into account the effects of
colonialism on arts. In this chapter, I will trace back into India’s colonial history of violence to
argue for autoethnography as a decolonizing method of research.
The Aryans, the Greeks, the Afgans, the Persians and the British invaded the
subcontinent of India at several points of time. According to the Aryan invasion theory, the fairskinned Aryans entered India through the northwest approximately two thousand years ago.
68
They transposed themselves on, and later assimilated themselves within, the dark-skinned
indigenous population. Likewise, subsequent invaders of the Indian subcontinent left their
footprints on the subcontinental culture. Hints of such assimilations are visible in the
architecture, art, cuisine, politics and language of this country. Protectiveness of tradition
displayed by dance practitioners might be rooted in India’s colonial history. This could explain
some of the passionate responses and apprehensions about preserving the authenticity of Odissi.
Since the colonial influence might have a major role on the shaping of the Odissi value system, it
is important to scrutinize the colonial influences on the Indian subcontinent and specifically
focus on its impact on Odissi dance. This scrutiny will also support my argument about the
inadequacy of some of the Western ethno-centric methods of research.
Many scholars of color are actively engaged in developing non-Western research
methods and applying those methods to the study of their cultures. It is an attempt to avoid
stereotypification and distortion in understanding of cultures. To me, there can be no “one” way
to methodically understand a culture, owning to their unique histories. Tuhniwai-Smith’s work is
important for me in addressing the question of why it is important to adopt a decolonizing
methodology in this study. In Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
she writes, “Indigenous people across the world have other stories to tell which not only question
the assumed nature of those ideas and the practices they generative, but also serve to tell an
alternative story the history Western research thought he eye of the colonized” (Tuhiwai-Smith
2). Likewise, my research will attempt tell a story that is an alternative to the Western
perspective of cultural performance. This goal informs my method of decoding and
understanding my research data, as well as my theoretical framework. Islamic and British
influences have been crucial in the cultural formation of India. For this reason, research of an
69
ancient pre-colonial cultural practice requires decolonized methodology. Not understanding a
culture in its own context can result in severe misrepresentation. As an indigenous researcher of
this art, I consider it my responsibility to avoid that. A very important
misrepresentation/misunderstanding of the art of Odissi might have lead to its decline during the
British era.
A major part of the dance tradition of India is comprised of the records of court dances,
or nauch, that took place in the courts for the purpose of entertainment. Courtroom dancing was
practiced since the Mughal era (sixteenth century). British missionaries might not have
completely understood the East and south Indian pre-colonial tradition of temple dancing.
Maharis received money from the donations given to the temple by wealthy patrons and rulers.
Maharis were undeniably providing sexual services to the patrons, but sex was not the primary
function of the mahari tradition. They were integral to the ritual of worship in the temple. The
deva dasi tradition of south India was parallel to the mahari tradition of east India. Deva dasi in
Sanskrit means “servant of God.” Bharatanatyam, another classical dance of India, came from
the Deva dasi system of temple dancing. In a study on the Deva dasi system Janet O’Shea writes
that the colonial documents never completely understood or represented the demarcation of a
common prostitute and a temple dancer (4, 7, 189). O’Shea’s study is in the context of
Bharatanatyam dance history and the struggle of legitimacy of this South Indian spiritual dance
tradition.
Coloniality silenced the narrative of ulterior spirituality of the temple dance practices and
resulted in the discontinuation of an artistic tradition. Temple dancers did not perform in the
temples as part of the ritual for nearly two centuries. Discontinuation of this dance exemplifies
the results of misinterpretation and misrepresentation of a cultural performance. This artistic
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tradition was irreparably influenced by the colonial power’s attempt to classify the practice
without acknowledging the dissimilar nuances between these different cultural practices. My.
research of performative rhetorics in the context of an extra-cultural influence requires an
adequate understanding of the value systems as well as representations of the voices from the
field.
Western ethno-centric research methodology has instated a value for research conducted
by an indigenous researcher as being “legitimate” and “real”. My research does not intend to
negate or embrace this perspective. However, this project intends to locate the moments of
tension within the field of this artistic practice and present a “real” perspective of that tension
(Tuhiwai-Smith). My research method offers an alternative to the Western paradigm of ethnocentric research, and comes from my personal agenda of representing the artists as an artist by
reporting lived experiences and opinions as valid Odissi knowledge and value. This will help me
develop a “culturally safe” (184) research framework. As a researcher and dancer, I have been
mentored by senior artists and Gurus throughout the process of learning. My methodology
presents a corrective approach to Western ethnocentric research methods, while providing unique
insight into the lived and embodied complexities of practicing Odissi in traditional ways. I will
explain this further in the next section.
3.2 Authoethnography and other Decolonial Methods
In the beginning of my project, I occupied an awkward position in this research since I
am an Odissi practitioner myself. In her book on researching oral traditions, Finnegan talks about
this dilemma of a researcher who is too close to the field of study. It is difficult to see “findings
from a comparative and detached viewpoint and of being aware” and to deny the “privileged or
interested nature of one’s own experience” (Finnegan 55). Being an Odissi practitioner and
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teacher puts me in the awkward central position in this research. I chose to look around rather
than look at, and that position had its benefits and problems. To me, this is the autoethnographic
method of conducting research. As an Odissi performer, composition instructor and practitioner
of digitized dance, I do not deny my position in the very epicenter of this problem. Sitting in the
middle lets me immerse myself completely in the scenes where conversations are taking place.
My initial attempts to distance myself from the subject of my research were both difficult and
artificial. Finnegan’s perspective of a researcher that studies his/her own community helps me
argue that being a part of this community since the age of four does not automatically mean that I
am “representative” (55) or neutral. Again, I was not representing the techno-centric academic
questioning them if they had any problem with the attempt to use technology in dance. Since
Finnegan’s perspective is central to my methodological stance, I will make more specific
references to her at different points of time.
In her work on autoethnography, Tami Spry argues for the liberatory potential of
autoethnographic performance as a method of inquiry. She writes, “Autoethnography is further
informed by research on oral and personal narratives in performance and communication studies,
situating the sociopolitically inscribed body as a central site of meaning making" (710). My
study has both autobiographical and ethnographical moments. My multiple identities and roles
alternate during the study as I engage in this self-reflexive, critical discourse. Spry says
"Autoethnographic performance makes us acutely conscious of how we 'Iwitness'18 our own
reality constructions" (706). This method denies Grand Theorization and the legitimacy of Westcentric ethnographic tools of studying a culture. According to this research, “autoethnographic
18
The word “Iwitness” plays on the word eyewitness, or the account of someone who has direct
experience. The replacement of “I” for the “eye” re-instates subjectivity of the researcher in the
autoethnographic method of research.
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writing resists Grand Theorizing and the facade of objective research that decontextualizes
subjects and searches for singular truth” (Spry 710). The feministic and decolonial approach of
this method makes it ideal for my vision of this research. The methods chosen by me do not
pursue a definitive answer regarding the effects of traditional performance in a technologized
world. This is an empirical study of a techno-critical perspective of traditional pedagogies and
practices. There were four major phases to my project during the data collection process:
a. Phase one: Interact with SL dance performers/autoethnography: I procured field notes
of the conversations as data.
b. Phase two: Interview with Odissi Gurus: I recorded notes and several video footages
from the interviews, which I had to translate from Oriya.
c. Phase three: Surveys of performers and critics of Indian classical dances, mostly
related to Odissi: I procured extracts from discussions in the “Odissi Dance” group on Facebook
and the Yahoo Odissi dance group as forms of data.
d. Phase four: Follow-up correspondences with survey responders: I procured scripts
from emails and conversations in “chat” spaces as data.
As the subheading of this section suggests, I chose a position in the center stage of this
drama. This gave me control over the study, and it gave me the ability to highlight the scope of
certain issues within the context of digitization and dance. Autoethnographic and structured
inquiry are extremely effective tools when working from this vantage point. Spry’s articulation
of the affordances of this kind of research will illustrate why I decided to take this approach.
Spry explains that “It is interesting and not surprising that I find the authorial voice in the
autoethnographic texts far more engaging due to its emotional texturing of theory and its reliance
upon poetic structure to suggest a live participative embodied researcher... The autoethnographic
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text emerges from the researcher’s bodily standpoint as she is continually recognizing and
interpreting the residue traces of culture inscribed upon her hide from interacting with others in
contexts” (711). My physical presence and participation in the spaces provided new knowledge
for me. I was a participant in this research without my conscious effort to be so. I was in the
position of the disciple when I interviewed Gurus. In order to access the dance spaces of the SL
dancer and talk to other dancers, I had to become a member of the SL dance community. I was in
the avatar of a hyper-real composition teacher when I was researching online composition
pedagogies. These experiences shaped my understanding of my data and the context of that data.
Remaining culturally self-conscious, I traveled across SL islands and participated in duet and
solo performances (Figure 3.1). I took part in a a few dances, but mostly I decided to remain in
the fringes, watching dances and interacting informally with dancers if they were willing to talk.
I spent about two hours over three or four months dancing in SL. It was important for me to
observe the conversations of the people engaged in dances, solo or collaborative, and shadow
these activities in order to understand (a) the technique of SL dancing and (b) the level of
engagement of these dancers. Interviews, mostly informal unstructured inquiry over chat, helped me gather first-hand accounts
Figure 3.1: My first avatar
Shree Frizzle engaged in
dance in Second Life.
of activities like dancing, buying dances and designing dancers. The SL interviews, as you can
see, happened in two phases, and the hiatus in between the two leads to very different results.
Second Life is still constantly changing for optimized virtual experiences. Commenting on her
virtual dancing experience, Clare Byrne blogs:
It's a powerful process, it's really the only process; it's what I want to break down and
participate in more. So far, it helps me understand better that movement and
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performance, in all the ways it has always existed, is essential. I'm trying to get to
some very old ways through some newer technological tools. (November 2007)
However, Inarra Sarinen, a veteran SL dancer and owner of the SL Ballet Dance
company wrote in her blog, “From my personal experience, I don't feel that I had a similar
emotional response to watching Second Life ballet performance as I do when watching a live
performance” (Second Life ballet blog). Sarinen, who is legendary in the field of SL dancing,
expressed an amount of dissatisfaction in SL dance practice. Her contribution is of remarkable
importance to formal SL dancing. As owner of a dance island in SL, she provides a space for the
collaborations to take place. She also maintains a blog for dancers across the world to connect,
collaborate and learn about the programs that are happening in the island. Investigation of
Sarinen’s activities gave me an understanding of the creative
activities in SL dance. The conversations in the blog helped me
Figure 3.2: My second
avatar, also Shree Frizzle
engaged in dance in Second
Life.
understand the relationship that SL participants have with their avatars. I am keen to present my
critical understanding of this relationship of dance and the body in this dissertation.
I developed several question in the course of this research in Second Life. I wondered
about the illocutionary acts (Habermas 1976, Austin 1975) that follow partnerships formed
during an SL recital by participants. Every activity, collaborative decision, and interaction
between these dancing avatars is an example of an illocutionary act. Austin defines illocutionary
acts in How to do things with Words and Habermas develops this concept later. Illocutionary acts
are intentional, and their meaning-making potential is dependent on the interpretation of the
audience. In the SL dance performances, the assertions that were textually generated (chats) or
digitally implanted (codes) on the avatar were virtually performed. Avatars would give cues of
the dances to one another through cryptic gestures involving movement of the avatar’s body.
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Dance partners would interpret these cues and responded to them. In this way, these cyborgcommunities (section 1.4) of Second Life dancers were the location of subversion to traditional
dance spaces. In SL, the human agent and the hybrid avatar are tangled and networked in the act
of dance. To me, the avatars are the actants (Latour 2005) in the narrative of the performance.
Latour perceives that non-human agency has been dominant, or at least seminal in human-nonhuman collaboration. Human agency in the case of virtual performance redefines the way SL
dancers interact with their avatars. By bringing in the cultural aspects into digital rhetoric, I see
potential in broadening the scope of rhetorical theories. For this project, I chose to use only those
parts of my field notes that related to the body of the dancer, the learning process of the dance
and the nature of the collaborative process.
After a few months of my SL participation, I noticed that the number of avatars of real
people dwindled, and I got bored trying to dance with robots. Also, my avatar got a viral script
that left her fixed on a bench forever. Sadly,
Figure 3.3: My Second Life Avatar Shree Frizzle
sporting two looks: one, as an Indian classical dancer
and another, as a Writing Center consultant
that was the end of SL for me for the next
year. During this time, I engaged in research in the traditional dance spaces of Raghurajpur,
Orissa, to interview three veteran Odissi gurus. This will be the central theme in the next section
of this chapter. I eventually came back to SL as a Writing Center consultant. Of course, I adopted
the same name I previously had, and made my avatar look the way I had looked in my last life as
an SL avatar (Figure 3.3). I was consulting at the SL Writing Center of Michigan State
University. Here I spent a great deal of time exploring dance spaces. Two years since I had left
SL, much had changed. The SL dance scene was now bigger and more culturally diverse: there
are Japanese traditional dances and Indian classical dances amongst other culturally specific
artistic options in SL. This was a very pleasant surprise; this new and improved version of SL
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had fewer “freebies” than the older one. Scripts for traditional dances are expensive compared to
Western dance moves since they cater to a very specialized audience. One advertisement read:
“Static Poses developed from a motion capture of an authentic Indian dance performed thru
Carnegie Mellon Graphics lab with an actual dancer.”
Autoethnography in SL engaged me in a dialogic performance with the representation of
myself, forcing me to interrogate my other on the political and social context (Spry 41) of the
performance choices. As I embodied and performed the text (as a participant in the SL narrative),
I found myself questioning my decision to extend the borders of my cultural understanding of
artistic performance. “Dialogical performance is a way of understanding the intersections of self,
other, and context passionately and reflexively. It offers a critical methodology that emphasizes
knowledge in the body, offering the researcher an enfleshed epistemology and ontology” (41).
To me, the virtual bodies were epistemic sources. Conversations in the chat box with SL
performers were often informal and haphazard (several people got bored of my questions and left
midway through), but these conversations generated data for me to understand the nature of the
interaction amongst the SL-inhabitants, the moments of collaboration initiated through language
and the nature of such collaborations (sexual, artistic, friendly, intimidating and so on). One
avatar stopped me short during a conversation, offered to have sex with my avatar, and swore
that it was more fun than my research. These moments of interaction between myself, others and
the context (virtual ambiance and cultural performances) constantly generated new research
ideas for me. All of these moments were crucial in my exploration of SL artistic performance
and my interpretation of findings that were veiled by these facades of irrelevance.
These moments were autoethnographic and not purely ethnographical, like I mentioned
earlier. I also took some useful and practical tips about conducting SL research from Bardzell
77
and Odom. They conducted virtual research by way of interviewing Second Life inhabitants of a
community that enacted the novels of Gor to procure a profound understanding of the
experiences of identity creation, interactivity and activities of the avatars. Following a six-month
long research study on the lives of the avatars, which involved "following" (3) them, the authors
were able to trace sensual, emotional, compositional and spatial-temporal threads (3) in their
activity. They closely observed the nature of inter-avatar interactivity, determined by avatars’
physical proximity and use of the artifacts of that world, which include both privately-owned and
publicly-owned spaces and objects. The ethnographic research of Bardzell and Odom facilitated
a nuanced understanding of avatars’ subtle physical gestures and the interpretation of those
gestures. My method, however, was more direct. Because the number of “real” people-avatars
was dwindling, I felt a sense of urgency to talk to many people engaged in dance in order to gain
a complete understanding of why people choose to dance in Second Life. After a while I
discontinued my Second Life research and concentrated on interacting with dance practitioners
and critics across the world.
The goal of my inquiry was twofold. I wanted to generate data for this dissertation. In
addition, I wanted to evaluate my own pedagogy of Odissi dance. My methods of teaching dance
are not traditional (the way I had learnt dance). I did use technology, and for some reason, I
initially felt guilty for doing so. I was playing my part in the creation of the next generation of
Odissi dancers, each of whom had to imbibe the values around the dance while they memorized
the movements. I wanted to understand if my pedagogy had departed in unacceptable ways from
the traditional teaching method of this art.
Before setting off to meet the Odissi Gurus in Raghurajpur, I prepared a set of questions.
I planned a structured, inquiry-based interview rather than an ethnography, which will help me
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Figure 3.4: Bandha Guru Maguni Das
represent the points of view of some highly regarded veteran Gurus of Odissi. I could not get in
touch with many of these Gurus over email because they did not use one. This made it necessary
for me to travel to India in order to meet them. The participants of my interviews came from
different levels of seniority in the field. Late Guru Maguni Das (Figure 3.4) is one of the seniormost Gurus of a style of gotipua performance known as Bandha19. He was my first interview
respondent. I also interacted with artists and critics of the younger generation who are active in
digital social networks. I began the interviews by introducing the respondents briefly to my
research and the kinds of queries I had. As the interviews progressed, they turned out to be very
different from what I had expected. In three of the five occasions, the sessions were carried out
in a Guru-Shishya style (refer to chapter 2). Responders often chose not to answer just my
specific question, but provide very detailed background information, demonstration and
illustration, often encouraging my direct participation.
When I was conducting the interviews with the veteran Gurus, my role as an interviewer
seemed to fade into being a student of the interviewees. Finnegan lists a number of possible
cultural relationships between the researcher and a participant in a situation where the researcher
is too familiar with the field. The researcher has to choose a “perceived or intended role in
context of performance and text collection: an expert, a learner, a fan, a technician, an outside
visitor, a competent practitioner in particular audience roles, a chorus member – or whatever.
These may vary” (75) often within the course of the interview. In this case, I hold the roles of a
competent learner and practitioner interested in tapping into the social process known as memory
(115). This interesting experience reinstated my understanding of the core value system of Indian
19
This is an acrobatic performance by a group of Gotipuas. The examples of such acrobatic
formations are depicted in the ancient temple walls, thereby suggesting that it is one of the
original rituals of the temples performed both by men and women.
79
classical arts. Interviews were pedagogical moments, and at the same time, they gave me the
opportunity to introduce an inquiry-based methodology of the Guru-Shishya interface. My
interactions with the senior Gurus were not Socratic or argumentative like I have experienced
within a typical graduate class. From my position of a Shishya, I will not even consider arguing
with a Guru, even if I might not agree with her/him. In this design, it might be apparent that the
participant (Guru) takes control of the session. Creating that kind of an ambience for inquiry
creates a bond between the researcher and the participant that leads to the formation of a very
generative intellectual space. As a Shishya, I am keen to learn. As a researcher, I steer the
conversations towards the topics on which I need to collect data. Through this process, the
interviewee transmits the knowledge that he has received from his Guru and interpreted from
experience.
Odissi pedagogy might seem teacher-centered by contemporary scholars. The Guru (on
the “giving” end) is transmitting the knowledge to the disciple (on the “receiving” end). The
students seemingly hold a position of passive recipients of the knowledge. However, this is not
completely true. Owing to the culture in which the dance is learned, the agency of the student is
not visible at the learning stage. Instead, students exercise agency on the form of dance when
they perform the dance. While keeping true to the basic grammar of the dance, the dancers are
free to innovate. The teacher-centered space, to me, is not necessarily didactic or one-sided. It is
against my cultural convention, as I understand it, to doubt or question the authority of my Guru.
However, when it comes to applying the knowledge in my own choreography, I can make the
crucial decisions regarding the relevance, accuracy and appropriateness of the knowledge I
received from my Guru. For this dissertation, in the Guru-Shishya style of research inquiry, I
tactically controlled the topics of discussion. I will represent only the parts that are relevant and
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important to my argument in this dissertation. This is a student-centered way of learning, where,
as a researcher-student, I can exercise control over my content both in dance and in writing. This
is similar to an online composition classroom where the teacher controls the content, but the
students also control the reception and application of the content. I will articulate more on the
ways in which my study is informed by my perception of teaching in an online environment. In
this section I will delve deeper into the details of the Guru-Shishya style of research
methodology that I adopted for my interviews.
In order to interpret these rhetorical interactions with the Guru during the interview
process, I fell back on Ruth Finnegan’s method that directly addresses research method in verbal
art and oral traditions. To Finnegan, “Oral Tradition” includes any un-written meaning-making
moments “sometimes physical monuments, religious statues or church frescoes, sometimes only
tradition(s) enunciated or transmitted through words” (7). Here I am using oral traditions in
terms of how I interpreted some non-texualized practices. These non-verbal communications
provided important perspectives in this research. They also demonstrated how verbally
transmitted memories construct myths. As Finnegan wrote, it also includes the references made
during the interview to sculptures, proverbs, stories, oratory, myths, songs, traditional paintings
and other artistic expressions. Several references were important indicators of the interviewees’
responses towards technologization. I will represent these in my study at appropriate contexts.
In an attempt such as this to tap into the knowledge within a community, it is important to
be aware and equipped to handle ambiguities (8). Finnegan provides a checklist to locate
ambiguities. During my inquiries I kept in mind some major questions based on this checklist. I
wanted to ascertain from the conversations with the Gurus, (a) the age of the ‘oral tradition’, (b)
who controlled the shared-knowledge, (c) explicit or implicit practices that shaped the tradition,
81
and (d) historical moments that actively constructed the traditional knowledge. These questions
attempted to validate the information that the interviews generated. I verified my data based on
the considerations presented below.
I used the following tools to analyze traditional performance in digital space:

Observation of digitized bodies engaged in performance and choreography.

Locating discursive moments of individuals represented as virtualized bodies and
collaborative moments in virtual space.

Examining digitized bodies that are engaged in classical art and tracing the value
systems forming around these bodies.
I attempted to represent dancers from a wide spectrum geographical and cultural contexts
in my research. To cultural rhetorician and indigenous theorist Malea Powell, research needs to
be a work of collaboration. In this research, I knew that I could not dismiss voices that came
from the community. “Successful” texts are collaborative constructions of the community That
function for the community and not for the self; and through continued textual production, the
community (and the knowledge of its members) survives and gives thanks for its survival.
(Powell 44). These voices that I am representing will bear the memory for my generation
because my voice will preserve the story for the next generation to hear, memorize and reinterpret.
Throughout this chapter, I draw upon data gathered through these sources – (a) transcripts
of conversations with virtual dancers, (b) transcripts from interviews with practitioners and
students of dance, (c) email conversations with practitioners of the dance, (d) survey results
showing how and why people related to Indian classical dance performance use technology, (e)
blog postings related to SL traditional/ethnic/classical dances and samples of interactions in the
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digital social networks of Odissi. The participants of this study were Odissi specialists whose
predilection towards this dance manifests itself in their roles as performers, researchers,
critiques, or students of the art. Assimilating responses from thirty-five people does not provide a
holistic view of the entire Odissi community. However, some very articulate responses from
several prominent people of the field provide productive qualitative data for this research. These
also help extend the borders of my understanding of the art and the practices of Odissi. These
responses also came from several places across the globe, from both Indians and non-Indians,
and thereby provide a fair range of perspectives.
After completing the interviews or surveys, I talked to some of the interviewees to clarify
certain points since I wanted to represent them well. I also needed to make sure that I had
translated their words accurately. I also interacted and Skyped with several of my survey
respondents to gain a deeper understanding of their perspectives, and again, to make sure that I
was able to satisfactorily represent their perspective in this dissertation. In “The Rhetorician as
an Agent of Social Change,” Cushman’s process of involving the participants in the generation
of knowledge provided useful strategies: “Rather than trying to write myself out of the
unavoidable hierarchy of discourse in any ethnography, I strove to compose a piece that
community residents authorized through their dialog and reciprocity” (Cushman 21-23). This
collaborative approach to research is helpful in reducing detachment between researchers and
participants, thereby decolonizing the research process. It also helped me as a researcher to
interpret and describe the data and locate moments in the research process where the data made
valuable contributions to my project. This attempt to collaborate with my participants was
successful to some extent. Two of my most important interviewees, veteran Gurus Maguni Das
and Gangadhar Pradhan passed away during the course of this research. I missed the opportunity
83
to read out a translation of this writing to them and seek their feedback. However, in several
other instances, I had the privilege of creating a way where for public intellectual to share the
burden of representation through a mutually beneficial interactive process. By employing these
methodologies in my research, my attempt is to generate responsible, reciprocal, and balanced
scholarship within the artistic and the academic communities.
As described throughout this section, I gathered chat messages from interacting with SL
dancers for seven hours every week during my first phase of SL research and for two hours over
three or four months of interacting with dancers in SL. My most important data came from my
50-hours of participant observations in real and online communities of Odissi dance performers.
These observations provided the valuable perspectives of Odissi practitioners on the digitization
of the dance and its influence on the survival/purity/authenticity of traditional dance
performance. The next section details the process of interpreting and coding this data.
3.3 Coding Scheme and Framework of Analysis
My structured survey questions (see Appendix B) are designed to inform the central
focus of this study, which is to understand the extent of digitization of Odissi dance. To study the
attitudes of the participants towards digital technology in dance performance and get a sense
their actual practices, I coded the individual case data collected from the interviews, emails and
surveys under three categories. I briefly listed this coding scheme in chapter one. Here, I want to
provide a more detailed description of my method to underscore the unique vantage point my
positionality provides as I strive to understand how tradition impacts Odissi dancers’ practices
and innovations. The data were color coded according to these three questions:
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a. “How are digital tools used?” Here I strived to see how the participants are applying
digital technologies in the way they are practicing, collaborating and teaching. I also aimed to
see if dancers were using digital media at all in the practice of their art.
b. “What specific tools are used?” In the second stage, my questions probed deeper into
the specific tools and technologies that participants used in the pedagogy and preservation of this
cultural memory. The survey probed deeper into their work habits that involved digital tools,
asking them if they used the tools themselves, if they employed someone else to use the tools,
and how frequently they used the tools. The survey consisted of a checklist of possibilities, e.g.
using websites, videos and online, collaborating over Skype and so on.
c. “Why practitioners consider digital tools problematic in dance?” Understanding the
value systems developing/persevering/evolving around digital pedagogies is important in this
study. Questions about why individuals made certain decisions regarding the use of
technological tools gave me a way to assess that value system. The question of value is intrinsic
to the discourses in the field of Indian dance regarding body and sacredness, and potential
subversions that this study aims to excavate. The most important indicator came from the brief
articulations that participants provided at the end of the survey on the effects of technology as
they see it. This query also asked participants to indicate if digital tools were integral to their
teaching and learning, or if the participants were using some tools to supplement traditional
teaching, practicing and learning. In other words, I wanted to understand how much the
participants depended on digital technologies in their dance performance, learning and teaching.
In the rest of this section, I will describe the method I am using to understand “what” tools were
used by learners, teachers, and “how” these tools function in the dance practice. In the next
section, I will tackle the “why” question.
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The remainder of this section will present a summary of the survey results based on the
categories mentioned above. Responses from interviewees indicate their decisions regarding
tools of learning, teaching and practicing. In his survey, Gangadhar Pradhan explained the roles
of statues and patachitra art20 in the learning of the dance. Gurus refined postures and poses by
seeing their depiction on the temple walls. he also indicated that statues and patachitra (Oriya
painting tradition) can be useful in inspiring and polishing formations with the human body;
ancient temple dances have inspired the statues. He did not mind recording dances on DVDs, so
that students remember the steps; however, he recommends this only for students who have
undergone intense training with a Guru for several years.
Most participants that responded to the online survey use CDs for teaching and
memorizing. New York-based Indian classical dancer and scholar Uttara Coorlawala wrote as
response to my inquiry, “Youtube transforms my dance history classes; it enables us to see the
history happening as access to the uploaded videos becomes a part of another kind of history of
looking at dance and actively making its history for ourselves.”
At least two of the survey respondents used online synchronous tools like Skype to learn,
collaborate, compose and get feedback from the teacher. A Malaysia-based group has developed
a website called pad.ma, which stands for “Public Access Digital Media Archive.” Videos of
performances are annotated in collaboration with the artistes, and these videos are freely
downloadable. The mission statement of the website explains, “The design of the archive makes
possible various types of "viewing", and contextualization: from an overview of themes and
timelines to much closer readings of transcribed dialogue and geographical locations, to layers of
"writing" on top of the image material.” Ranjana Dave, an Odissi dancer and an active member
20
Patachitra are intricate paintings on pure silk or palm leaves depicting scenes from Hindu
mythologies. These are done using natural dyes.
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of this initiative, regularly records shows and interviews with the artists to transcribe these
videos before putting them online. She complains about “this whole 'do not record'-and-insteadbuy-our-videos-at-an-exorbitant-price policy” and feels that art should be accessed freely.
Performers use lighting and multimedia stage technologies creatively in classical dance
recitals. In my research, CDs that use pre-recorded audio tracks are the most mentioned digital
technology by the participants. It is more economical and practical than having live music.
However, one dancer mentioned the downside of using a CD: “I have always been worried about
playing my music for a performance ...What if my cd gets stuck dreams!! But after coming to
London I have played my music from laptops connected to the audio system directly and haven’t
had any problems as yet.”
The surveys also indicated that dancers use audio and video recording tools very
extensively. “We use DVD players for rehearsals and we record our new compositions and video
record it during choreography so that we can improvise if need be,” said one respondent.
Another respondent is currently working on a documentary on the uniqueness of a style of Odissi
dance that she practices. She uses several digital tools for the production. To her, digital
technology has helped to preserve her dance style, as she is able to portray the characteristics that
distinguish her style from the other schools of Odissi dance.
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The most important technological
tools that the respondents mentioned using
are social networking media. These include
Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo groups.
However, the people I invited to take the
survey were mostly in the Yahoo group or
“friends” with me on Facebook. Regardless,
the growing presence of artists in these networks indicates that artists are using digital tools to
make connections worldwide and as a canvass for their activities and accomplishments. In order
to get into that question of values, I conducted a preliminary data analysis. I tabulated the data
gathered according to Figure 3.5. This gave me a tool to illustrate my questions about the body in
the
technologies used in dance
Figure 3:5 Framework for Analyzing Data
preservation, pedagogy and
performance. In order to arrange and analyze the data, I loosely based this scheme on a
framework that my collaborators and I used in a study on mediation of cultural memory for an
academic publication (Cushman, Ghosh forthcoming). The examples of digitization of Cherokee
stomp dance and Odissi dance “reveal... greater the mediation of the performance, the greater the
disembodiment of the performance. As the practice becomes more disembodied through
mediation, the resistance to its digital mediation increases as its value as an accurate, fair, and
valid representation of the cultural memory decreases” (7). In case of the current research, I will
examine disembodiment of the cultural knowledge and the resultant modification of the cultural
memory. My survey of major technologies used in dance revealed that these tools helped in
preservation, pedagogy and practice. At each stage, technology modified memory. By modified,
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I am referring to the alteration in the dance style. Therefore, pure traditional form of the dance is
least modified and most embodied form of the dance. During teaching, the Guru might allow the
student to nuanceand refine the dance according to the shape and gender of the dancer. Pedagogy
is embodied, but more modified than preservation. Practice is the most modified. When the
knowledge of the dance has been learned, the student reinterprets the dance. The practice of the
student is the most modified and more removed from the preserved pure authentic version of the
dance. The learned knowledge alters most at this stage.
Traditional teaching in the immediate physical presence of Guru and the Shishya is the
most embodied pedagogic system of transmitting the knowledge of Odissi. Performing dance in
front of a real audience is the most embodied.
The least modified and most embodied form of the dance is the original stage when
maharis performed the dance in the temple premises. These were spontaneous performances and
had the immediate presence of the body. Amongst all other kinds of performance, Mahari dance
is closest to “original” temple dance, since other forms evolve from it. Therefore, it is least
modified. Technologies such as motion sensors, Labanotations and textualization of the dance
used in an effort to preserve the memory of the dance. Motion sensors transmit the movement of
a moving body into digital signals. Dancers use the Labanotations21 method to depict the steps
and Natyashatra describes the nuances of a performance in minute details. These tools are
central to the preservation of the disembodied memory of the dance. Teaching dance modifies it
to some extent; however, teaching with a webcam results in the disembodiment of the dance,
though there is synchronous presence of the bodies of the teacher and the learner. Also, the
dancing body does not interact with the music accompaniment at all when the dancer performs
21
This is the system of noting down steps of the dance. This textualizing movement was
developed by the Hungarian dancer and scholar Rudolf Laban.
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with recorded music instead of live music. The practice of dancing as avatars in Second Life and
presentating the dancing body by Computer Generation Imaging technologies include the most
disembodiment and modification of the dance.
Armed with this tool and coding scheme, I approached the data gathered through the
surveys, SL chatting, emails and interviews. This was an initial indicator of the relationship
between the dance and the technologies of dance used over several centuries. In future research, I
hope to use this data to revisit the issue of the modification and embodiment of dance and
technology. For the current research, I began to arrange the data under the different categories. I
have just described the questions regarding the “What” and “How” of technology use in Odissi
dance. However, the most important question for my analysis is “Why,” e since it informs my
question of values in this research. These questions, in turn, helped me interpret the reason and
pattern behind the responses of Odissi practitioners to digitization. I will discuss these ideas
more fully in the next section.
3.4 Analyzing Oral Histories, Identifying Values
In my research query, I broke down my question on “Why” practitioners used technology
in traditional dance into a secondary decoding system. In this section, I will only attempt to
categories the data. This section will not engage in analysis of the data, nor will it address the
question of what we understand from them. However, at the end of the chapter, the patterns in
the data concerned with the digital pedagogic tools will be located and represented in a table. I
believe this scheme will segue into a cultural interpretation, an indication of the value system and
an understanding the attitudes in regard to the issue of dance and technology. To study the
transformation of the value systems in the process of technologization, I coded the data from
interviews, emails, surveys and blog analyses under three categories (Appendix C):
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a. Instances when the participants are associating the practice of Odissi with
sacredness
b. Instances when participants are expressing negative, positive or other
concerns regarding virtual pedagogy in tradition dance
c. Instances when responses indicate conflict between digital technology and
traditional in terms of the core values of the dance.
This scheme will be important in the next chapter (theory chapter) where I delve deeper
into the complicacies and controversies surrounding this topic. The data revealed that the most
dancers lay great stress on the immediate and corporeal presence of body (of the teacher, of the
student and of the audience).
Association with Sacredness
In this sub-section, I will summarize the results from my interviews with Gurus
conducted in Orissa and the responses to my survey administered online. Sacredness of the dance
is an essential value that respondents acknowledge their awareness of in several ways. Guru
Gangadhar Pradhan, an eminent Odissi Guru, related the story of the origin of the dance to me
and reiterated the spiritual aspects of the dance that are sculpted on the walls of the Konarak,
Rajarani, Mukteshwar and Lingaraj temples. The importance that he placed on the questions
about the Guru and the purity of classical dance leads one to associate sacredness with this idea
of the dance. I understood from the conversation with him that he associated sacredness with the
art. Most people in the artistic community consider the sacredness of the dance as valuable to its
practice. However, the scale of sacredness and its associations might have been changing over
the years. For instance, traditionally, the presence of the musical instruments was vital and
sacred and the dancer would begin the performance with acknowledgement of the instruments by
offering obeisance to them. Now that mostly pre-recorded music is used in performance, the
tradition of touching the instrument and then touching one’s forehead in an act of offering
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respect has discontinued. To veteran Bandha guru Maguni Das, “Music in Sanskrit is
“Sangeet”… “Sang” means union. Sangeet is the union between dancer’s body, music, sound. It
is important for the people to get together and perform.” He stresses the importance of the
physical presence of the Guru, the musician and the musicians playing on the mardala (drums),
veena (string instrument), flute and violin.
Ratikanta Mohapatra, an Odissi teacher and choreographer, expressed support for
creativity and innovation as a departure from the strictly traditional, as long as the innovations
are culturally relevant. He considers blending hip-hop dance and Odissi, or dancing Hip-Hip in
Odissi costumes as obscene, offending and sacrilegious towards this sacred art. It makes sense to
him to experiment with more subtle and “relevant” collaborations across cultures and media. For
instance, he normally uses to Oriya (traditional) music or Sanskrit verses to accompany Odissi
dance. Mohapatra supports using Carnatic (South Indian classical) music since it is culturally
relevant. He does not support using stage technologies that might distract the attention from the
dancers. However, keeping a background of Oriya patachitra (tradition artwork) is appropriate if
it is thematically relevant.
In Odissi, the concept of Guru is sacred. However, Mohapatra opines that, in order to
communicate to a non-Indian dancer, teachers need to translate this concept in a way non-Indians
will understand. They will perhaps not understand the concept of “Guru” as God, in the way it is
traditionally understood. People from other cultures will understand that “Guru” is someone with
whom a student interacts with the highest degree of formality and respect. Every culture
understands etiquette and courtesy, which is relevant for the concept of Guru. In other words, the
concept of sacredness will be understandable and relatable to an audience that is culturally
distant only if the communication is relatable.
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Rohini Dandavate, a US-based dance teacher, opined: “The onus is on the dancers and
the Gurus to maintain the pristine form in practice and performance of the dance style.” Again,
the usage of the word “pristine” and the importance emphasized with it indicates the value
associated with the authenticity of the dance.
Concerns displayed regarding teaching tradition dance virtually
When the survey asked teachers and learners about virtualizing dance teaching, they
responded variously. None of the respondents undermined the importance of the Guru under any
circumstance. Gandhadhar Pradhan said technologizing is unavoidable, but dancers should use
technology “in the right way.” The inner values of the dance should be unspoiled when dancers
use digital technologies in dance. He takes a practical approach to the requirement and
unavoidability of digital practices. “There is no choice sometimes. Pressure of education has
increased. Students are busy; they need to learn fast in a short period. CDs will be required. The
teacher needs to demonstrate the dance in the video very clearly and explain clearly the
meanings of the dance. For instance, alapadma symbolizes the lotus and hamsasya demonstrates
the face as pretty as a lotus. The bees sitting on the lotus symbolizes the kiss put on a beautiful
face. Even in the video, the teacher needs to demonstrate meanings clearly… CDs information,
but the Guru needs to demonstrate what is chowka, tribhanga arasa, mandala. (Pradhan refers to
the postures of Odissi and the individual dance pieces of the dance that comprises the entire
section). Then you can have the idea and you can emulate that correctly… Books on dance
showing postures, Videos will give only the information. Still working with the Guru is required
to understand the nuances of the dance.”
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That traditional dance has been rooted to the presence of the body is evident in some of
the responses. An Indian dancer based abroad wrote, “There is no substitute of Guru's personal
presence in learning but there are many places in the world where my dance form (i.e. Odissi)
doesn't have good teachers/ performers. My stay abroad has convinced me that there are many
students who are not able to learn the dance form just because they do not have a teacher in their
city /town. In such cases, use of recorders / webcams could be helpful but sometimes the internet
speed is too slow to do such class. It is definitely better than practicing all by yourself with a
video recording.” Dance scholar Uttara Coorlawala explained her experience with dance video
CDs with these words: “it subtracts the presence of the whole body and adds to the presence of
close up faces... It gets both revelatory and tricky... depending on how well you search, how
much you already know from other sources, and you are able to read against the text (as image,
word, sound, medium).” In a forum on CDs for basic Odissi training, one person stated a
comparison between two available CDs: “X’s DVD offers a brief breakdown (upper body and
lower body) before each Chouka stepping which is something that Y’s video lacks.22” Using a
CD as a pedagogical tool breaks down the body into an upper and lower half for the practical
reason of clarity and access. This is, however, in contradiction to the nature of traditional
pedagogy.
One veteran non-Indian Odissi dancer, who received training during her visits to India,
wrote that the traditional mode of teaching in the presence of the teacher was important to her:
“It was important for me to live in India to fully understand and appreciate the culture and
imbibe in the subtle nuances. During my time I could not have done it in any other way. I would
not even be able to communicate with my family in a different country for months. I steeped into
22
This blog was comparing the videos of two dance teachers. I am refraining from disclosing
their names here, and therefore altering the quotation.
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this culture in a very pure form.” To her, “it is still possible to learn authentic Odissi” despite the
digitization of the art. This is because digital technologies have brought cultures closer together,
foreign and diasporic learners of the dance, who might be depending on technological tools to
learn, can imbibe in themselves the intrinsic Indian-ness because of their exposure to the digital
media. An non-Indian dancer based in USA wrote the following in a forum post within a thread
on finding CDs for basic Odissi steps: “as a student of Odissi with a real live teacher (I know I'm
super lucky), I find the tape and the Odissi Pathfinder book to be very good practice aids.” She
went on: “The book and video together should be far more useful than either alone, but there is
no substitute for a live teacher.” Another post in the same blog reflects a similar opinion: “... it
still doesn’t take the place of having someone there in person to fall in synch with and help you
refine, especially with such an intricate form.”
My research revealed problems with using training CDs, despite their popularity. A
blogger discusses this problem in this forum: “It would be a great practice-along drill set IF you
already had learned all the forms and vocab(ulary) from a live teacher, but with nothing but a
two-inch tall fuzzy little dancer to go by it was rather discouraging. I've danced all my life and
was terribly humbled by it. I had a handful of other professional dancers over one day for a
rehearsal and turned the vid(eo)s on for everyone to try. We all laughed as we flailed around
hopelessly trying to keep up. We stomped most of the books off my shelves in the process! Then
I spent a week playing thru it and rewinding in order to write down what was happening in each
4 counts, in western dance terminology, so that I could teach myself from the notes and
eventually work up to doing it along with the videos, and that worked pretty well, but I wouldn’t
say I ever mastered it. I definitely made some progress though and I got some great combos from
it .... and I love Odissi dance in general.” This indicates the struggles of a dancer with some basic
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training in Odissi dance who was using CDs to learn the dance. It also points to the inferior
quality of the recording that affected the learning process.
One Indian dancer based abroad wrote: “I am using video recordings to help students
practice dance by themselves in between classes. It helps a lot they say.” An Odissi dancer from
the middle east wrote: “The technology is used in several ways: 1) remembering the poses and
sequence, 2)criticizing later and improving the movement, 3)educational use for the future,
4)promotional use.” A non-Indian student wrote: “I can view the video and remember the
sequence and incorporate the rasa if the video is clear enough.” She opines, “Does not affect the
form of the dance. Dance can be preserved, performed and taught authentically.” Non-Indian
students wrote: “We use DVD players for rehearsals, We record our new compositions and video
record it during choreography so that we can improvise if need be. At times, to give a different
feel I use pre recorded audio track even for teaching basics to my students we have produced
documentaries to preserve our dance styles.” The same respondent reflected upon the experience
of using technology in dance. She wrote that using technological tools “strongly affects”
traditional dance. It alters the form and soul of the dance completely.”
Some interesting moments of tension arose during my conversations with the
dancers/Gurus. There was a sense of urgency when Pradhan mentioned: “Gurus , artists, need to
be ‘awake’ … they need to transmit the tradition to one generation to the next and to the next.
They need to advise, teach to remember what is traditional.” He went on to express disapproval
for dancers who are “slipping” from the classical tradition by attempting to change the dance
style. After learning a dance, one might record it on video. He said, “Gurus should take care to
explain the meanings and demonstrate clearly. CDs will be used for teaching. That does not
mean the Guru's name is deleted and that you can learn straight from the CD without a Guru.
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That is not right. CDs give the information, but as a Guru, I need to demonstrate what is choka,
tribhanga arasa, mandala.23”
Basanta Pradhan, a former student of Guru Maguni Das and now a teacher himself, said,
“In the acrobatic gotipua dance the young performers need to be given regular massages in a
particular way. You can watch a CD for entertainment, but if you try learning from it, it might
not be a good idea.” He goes on to describe the way in which the bodies of the gotipuas are
prepared and conditioned with regular massages and exercises in order to make them
appropriately conditioned for the extremely strenuous dance. Most of the people indicated that
classical arts in general need regular conditioning (of the body in case of dance, the voice in case
of music and so on) in order to achieve perfection and to avoid injuries. Learning the basic
nuances of this dance through personal interactions with an expert is not only crucial for learning
the right way to perform, but also for gaining the knowledge of the underlying values of the art.
“You can learn recipes from the Internet, not dance”, said Ratikanta Mohapatra.
Moments of conflict between dance and digital technology
Several survey respondents noted how social networking websites and mailing lists have
helped them communicate with fellow-artists about events among other things. One interviewee
said, “Virtual networking spaces make it easier for one to understand what people are doing
where. It has become easier to build a community within the dancers. It is now easier to promote
events.” On the other hand another interviewee stated, “Social networking is not helping the
23
These are the basic postures of Odissi. Students begin learning by conditioning the body to the
basics. Chowka is the square stance where the knees are bent outward and hands are bent to form
a square. Tribhangi means “three bends”. In this, the body is bent in three places: the neck, the
torso and the knee. Arasa is a pose for indolence. Fingers are interlocked and may be placed in
several positions to indicate arasa. Mardala means a two-sided drum, and is indicated with palms
facing each other as if planning on the instrument.
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dance-form at all. It is harming.” When I wanted to know the reason for this comment, he opined
that some people use technology to gain visibility and prominence within the community, though
they are not good dancers. He furthermore expressed dissatisfaction about the way websites
represent concepts on Odissi inaccurately and often provide wrong information: “There are a
hundred versions of the history of Odissi... which are not accurate.” He recommended, “Use
judgment and ask the Gurus if you need to know what is the correct history and origin of the
dance. Read books that are by authors that did proper research” and not depend on what websites
say. This reaction indicates that some practitioners see the Internet as a liberatory space which is
not necessarily in coordination with the nature of this dance that has traditionally needed to be
protected by the community against any kind of colonization. To them, Internet gives power,
knowledge and visibility, which might not necessarily be a good thing since it creates a digital
divide amongst the artists.
One survey respondent opined: “When one learns just the art from videos without
complete understanding of the cultural context, the art is only half-learned. They often might do
something or perform somewhere, which might be an insult to the art form. Performing an art
form in dinner party is not proper. Classical dance is a very formal thing, it is important for
students to understand that. For this, the Guru needs to help students understand the importance
of tradition that determines what is proper and what is not.” On the other hand, a South
American Yoga teacher and Odissi dancer wrote: “Nowadays people have CDs to teach Yoga,
too. It depends how well it is explained. I do not think it is any problem at all if the explanations
are clear.” To her, the context needs to be communicated clearly. CDs are important and
inevitable in dance training. Teachers who are creating the CDs need to represent the art fully
and properly.
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To Uttara Coorlawala, “Technology can be helpful in documentation, propagation,
teaching, learning and choreography. It is just an aid for dancers and dance teachers. The Guru
(must) maintain the pristine form in practice and performance of the dance style.”
Most respondents agreed that digital technology has strongly influenced Odissi over the
recent past, and the effect is still visible. For example, all survey respondents use technology in
some way or form. Does it affect the dance’s authenticity? The respondents expressed a variety
of viewpoints on this topic.
The survey generated substantial data on the tools of technology for learning and
teaching dance. I followed that up with my question of why these individuals were using the
tools. Table 3.1 shows an analysis of the findings. The table contains an evaluation of digital
tools used in virtual pedagogies and performances by Odissi teachers and teachers. The left
column of the table contains the most-used digital and technological tools that survey
respondents mentioned. The top row is an assimilation of the positive features of all the tools as
revealed by the respondents when asked why they use a certain tool for learning, teaching or
performing. This table attempts to make a comparative study of the tools and to assess them
against each other against in terms of the qualities that each demonstrates I considered the
following questions to assess the tools : (a) do the tools facilitate or require the presence of the
body, (b) is there the possibility of immediate of feedback, (c) are the responses synchronous, (d)
do the tools succeed in producing a good quality product which can be helpful for performance,
teaching and learning, (e) is it possible to have personal interaction other than teaching, and (f)
can the lesson have the convenience of being self-paced?
This table, however, is an assessment of the non-oral tools used by several Odissi
practitioners who responded to my survey.
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The table above and the analysis of the survey show that performers, teachers and
learners use these technologies across the world, and the users justify the choices they make. The
pedagogic choices of the respondents indicate what they value most in the teaching/learning
technology. These are (a) presence of the body, (b) immediacy of feedback, (c) quality of the
learning/teaching tool, (d) personalized interaction with the tool, (e) convenience of using the
tool. The responses also indicate that the respondents were evaluating some of the tools by
comparing them to the experience of having a Guru present. This coding scheme gave me a very
clear understanding of what the respondents valued in a pedagogic tool. For respondents, the
most important of these values is the immediate physical presence of the Guru.
Most of the values described above are present in the pedagogy of real space involving
the Guru and the Shishya. The survey data reveals complications that are important to the
learning and teaching of this traditional art. Understanding the value system as described by
Odissi performers, teachers and learners will be helpful in the next chapter where we unravel the
profound significances of some of the nodes of tension and the drama surrounding them. In the
next section, I will analyze the surveys and blogs (technologically mediated methods) and locate
the moments of conflict indicated in the responses.
Chapter 4 – ABHINAYA- DRAMA OF THE CONFLICTING TRADITIONS
4.1 Prologue
In the previous chapter, I surveyed the data and presented excerpts which reveal the
tensions within the community of dancers regarding the role of digital technologies in the
learning and teaching of this traditional art. I argued that the opinion of the people associated
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with Indian classical Odissi dance varied on whether digital technology is changing the intrinsic
nature of this ancient art. The practice of Odissi dance has evolved over the past two thousand
years from being an esoteric dance practiced only in the temple, to being a dying art-form, to
being one of the most popular classical dances that is widely practiced by both Indians and nonIndians. In the previous chapters, I attempted to delve into the oral histories and stories of the
people associated with this dance to establish that the core value system of the art inculcates a
form of habitus. The artistic practice of Odissi has remained largely constant over the centuries
of ups and downs in its visibility and practice, possibly as a result of the underlying values. The
core value system of this traditional dance involves three essential elements: (a) an association of
the art with sacredness, (b) importance of the immediate presence of the corporeal body as a
bearer of the memory, and (c) the presence of the Guru. These concepts will be important in this
chapter as we delve further into the data to understand how digitally mediated performances is
actually transforming the dance. This chapter will investigate if the core value system associated
with the practice and pedagogy of this art is also being altered by the process. Most importantly,
I will present patterns within the survey data that form an argument on the effect of technology
on the value system of Odissi dance.
Some patterns emerged within my data. In this chapter, I will dig deeply into the patterns
that inform the theoretical framework that I have laid down. These are not repetitions of the data
already presented in the previous chapter. Rather, they are explorations of specific examples that
have lead me to reveal a non-Western understanding of the relationship between digitization of a
performative memory, traditional bias and the evolution of memory in the process of digitization.
My questions are focused on the virtualization of the pedagogy and performance of Odissi, how
this virtualization is altering the memory of this dance and the importance of exploring these
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ideas. In this chapter, I will first focus on the ways in which digitization of the dance is taking
place. I will survey the data for instances where digital technologies are central to the practice
and pedagogy of the dance. I will highlight into two specific practices: virtual collaborations and
using videos to teach. In the second part of the chapter, I will discuss the modifications of the
aforesaid value system when dance practices and pedagogy are digitized. The questions that I
will focus on are the following: (a) What are the tools and techniques used by Odissi dancers as
revealed in the date, (b) How has the body of the dancer evolved in digitized dance practices, (c)
How has the position of the Guru and sacred evolved, (d) What does the virtualization do to
evolve/shape the tradition?
The interpretation of the value system described at the beginning of this chapter
reverberates in most of the responses received in my interactions within the dance community.
Studying tradition in this way confirms some of the core values of the dance that I have been
brought up with. My data also revealed several perspectives on tradition, the body of the dancer,
and the importance of the Guru from several people involved in this artistic practice. These
perspectives often contradict, instigating conversations andthe formation of an alternative value
system that may not be in agreement with the core value system of this dance. Though values
evolve, it is important to be aware and respectful of certain primary values of this dance that
define its nature. Understanding its value system will be helpful in unraveling the profound
significances of some of the nodes of tension and the drama surrounding them.
It is important to understand that the core value system of Odissi dance does not represent
a hegemonic, coercive tradition that restrains it and hinders its evolution and growth over
centuries. The dance has evolved and innovation has been encouraged by the community.
However, a trilogy of central values of the dance have remained unchanged over the two
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thousand years— its sacredness, the importance of the body, and the importance of the Guru.
Digital technologies have led to some immense changes in the ways that the dance is being
performed, and this is being acknowledged by the community of dancers from across the world.
It is important to many classical dance performers that the essential values remain unspoiled in
the midst of all this.
Here, I will discuss these core values as the foundation of the tradition of Odissi dance
practice and pedagogy by delving deeper into specific examples that demonstrate this argument.
This will also help reveal the points of conflict between the traditions of the dance and the new
wave of digitization of the dance. These examples will lead to a better theoretical understand of
the performance of traditional cultural rhetorics from a non-Western perspective. I will continue
to explore the possibility of a non-Eurocentric frame of theoretical analysis. I have framed my
theory from the narratives spun within the community of dancers and their rhetorical and
performative practices. My theory is generated in the classrooms, virtual dance floors, SL dance
bars and the body of knowledge revealed during my exploration of Odissi practice. In my
theoretical framing in the beginning of this research, I wanted to locate tradition-technology
encounters and formations of a deviant discourse that challenge the dominant (traditional) norms
of embodied cultural memory. In doing so, I planned to examine how authenticity, sexuality,
sacredness and aestheticism are integrated in this new performative practice that involves
technology. The data I procured on these topics reveal a deeper understanding of the artistic
practice in today’s world. The conversations revealed a value system underlying the concepts
that is instigating tensions in the Odissi dance community. To me, this is not same as hegemonic
coerciveness of the traditional. To practitioners, it is the integral core of this artistic culture that
has developed over generations. Scholars in the field of Cultural/Digital Rhetoric who display a
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similar research stance include Cushman (1996), Baca (2008), Lindquist (2002), Royster (1996)
and others. These theorists aim to extend theoretical explorations by bringing about constructive
changes/understandings of the community or the classroom. In her study of the scholar as an
agent of social change, Ellen Cushman presents a theory that is interspersed in her ethnographic
inquiry. In her book on the academic’s role as an agent of social change (1996), she proposes an
active role of scholars in their respective communities in a way that is accessible, constructive
and empowering. Across his scholarship on non-textual “writing” practices of Mesoamerica,
Baca argues that Mestiz@ literacies advances "new" ways of reading and writing, applicable to
diverse classrooms of the twenty-first century. Linquist in “A Place to Stand” (2002) finds her
data in mundane communicative interactions in a bar. Her theoretical inspiration comes from an
apparently non-academic setting, and it applies to the understanding of a non-academic problem
of classes in the US society. In the influential article "When the First Voice You Hear is Not
Your Own," Jackie Royster posits a de-colonial argument that “inquiry and discovery of any
cultural need to be deliberately reciprocal” (33). In the same article she goes on to articulate the
best practices of teaching, engaging in research and talking across boundaries with others that act
as tools of empowerment. My theoretical stance will be derived from my experiences in the field
of classical dance and composition studies. I am keen to design a theoretical approach which will
inform the field in a practical and constructive way. The understanding gained from this study
aims to apply to the classroom as well as the performance of the ancient tradition of Odissi
dance.
Performance of the body is the result of the collaborative effort of the physical self with
the voluntary and involuntary responses of the spiritual self. The body responds to the emotions
created within and enacts those responses in the form of a dance. The aim of all this, according to
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Foucault, is to “transform ... to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or
immortality” (Foucault 18). A body performing in digital space is an extension of the physical
body, and the connection of these two selvess requires “knowledge of the self” (22). To
Foucault, the understanding of the self and the expression thereof is further complicated. Mainly
with reference to a political system, Foucault’s “self” is dominated by the technologies of the
dominant forces that are coerced by the governmental structure. To me, Odissi dance traditions
are not hegemonic institutions that have the same Power-Knowledge relationship as Foucault’s
vision of a governmental organization. In the context of Indian classical dance and the realization
of the “self” in the process of exploring the technologies of the body, I disagree with Foucault’s
view. To me, it is the underlying value system that shapes the concept of the body and the
function of the body engaged in the act of dancing. Bourdieu’s explanation of this idea is more
significant in my chosen method of understanding. For Bourdieu, realization of the “self” might
also be aligned with the habitus that determines the subject’s world view.
Bourdieu defines class habitus as “a subjective but not individual system of internalized
structures, schemes of perception, conception and action common to all members of the same
group or class and constituting the precondition for all objectification and apperception” (86).
The system is subjective and therefore interpretive. It not generated by an individual, but a group
that shapes the patterns of an understanding that is common to the members of that group. This is
the system that influences how the subject interprets the systems around him/her. The practices
and perceptions about these practices of the Odissi dancers, (especially of Indian origin) is not
consciously coordinated or governed by any coercive rule. The system that most dancers seem to
adhere to is derived from the socially patterned structures that are determined by the innate
cultural system. The practitioner of this dance is automatically a part of this value system. To
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me, understanding this system from the perspective of the survey responders and interviewees
was important for my research’s underlying theory. These stories are important because they
come from “a conscious, intentional and rational” (36) participant that is retrospectively
rationalizing their practices. In this chapter, I have tried to recognize patterns within the practices
from my data. This does not undermine the possibility of heterogeneity in the experiences. The
members of the same class who have confronted similar situations, however, are more likely to
be similar, ensuring homogeneity of habitus (85). To Bourdieu, “each individual system of
dispositions may be seen as a structural variant of all the other group or class habitus, expressing
difference between trajectories and positions inside and outside ofclass” (86). The individual
artistic practices are constructed from the habitus, and these contructions determine the value
system that underlies the artistic practices of the dancers.
The patterns of practice and attitudes towards digitization vary, depending on the
generation and their exposure to the digital technologies. The values of Odissi are not governed
by ideal universal logics, but function as constructs of the practices of individuals in their lives,
which n turn determines their attitude towards this artistic practice. For instance, teaching with
videos and using online social networking tools are practices more prevalent amongst Indian
than non-Indian Odissi dancers. This might be a result of accessibility to technology and speed of
the Internet. The attitude of dancers towards digitization and its impact on the traditional art of
Odissi is significantly different depending on the issue of accessibility. Without categorizing my
research participants in accordance with digital divide, I was still able to identify the
homogeneity of habitus within the participants by their immediate experience with and
interpretation of the social world. This concept is the foundation of the theory that I will frame in
this chapter, much of which is grounded on the data procured during my research.
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4.2 Virtual tools in traditional arts
There is a tension between Odissi dance and the digitization of the dance. The interesting
question is how far will dancer extend the borders of tradition for innovation/virtualization? My
field study reveals that, on the one hand, traditional practitioners of the art find the new
technologies have the potential to hurt both the transmission and performance of traditional
dance; on the other hand, the new generation embraces the technology, and uses it for teaching,
performance and collaboration. In my research, I found that Odissi artists use digital
technologies mainly in three ways: a) CDs are used for musical accompaniment; b) synchronous
communication with Internet is used to facilitate collaborations and sometimes as a teaching
tool,, and c) Videos are used to learn and teach the dance. I will delve deeper in the processes of
these activities and reiterate with greater detail some of the points already discussed in the
previous chapter, especially the data
Figure 4.1: Pakhawaj (Courtesy: Eric Parker)
analysis section. My attempt is to reveal the underlying value system that is going to shape the
theoretical framework described in this study.
What were traditional tools of this artistic practice? The temple sculptures show women
playing the two-sided drums or pakhawaj (Figure 4.1), flute, string instruments and other
traditional musical instruments associated with temple rituals. When Odissi had just come out of
its hiatus during the pre-1947 British colonial period, revivalists used the same instruments that
were a part of the mahari and gotipua traditions and the ones that were depicted on the temple
walls. One of the earliest performers of modern Odissi during the time of its revival, veteran
Odissi dancer Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi discussed the problem of using any form of
recorded music. She refers to the experience of playing a tape in the background of a dance as
“disappointing” (62). The instruments that accompanied a dancer at that time were the
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harmonium, pakhawaj, flute, violin and sitar. Other than the harmonium, the instruments used
are reflected in the ancient sculptures on the Orissan temple walls.
Most veteran gurus added a note of caution about not going too far away from the
original way that it Odissi is performed. There have been intriguing instances of stretching the
borders of tradition to some extent to allow room for innovation and influences of cultures. None
of the respondents of my research demonstrated firm denial of change. Respondents were either
supportive or neutral about the importance of the values associated with traditional Odissi. None
of the respondents denied the importance of the core values of the dance.
Finnegan acknowledges that "(i)n the modern world the spread of urbanism,
industrialism, and literacy has become so visible within a global cultural context that it is now an
even less practical proposition than before to insist on seeking only the far-off and “traditional”
forms or to ignore “change” as abnormal anywhere but in the West. It is therefore now
increasingly the practice to accept that culture" (110).
Most participants in the interview and survey admitted to using recorded music for a
performance. Music is an integral part of a repertoire that is often illustrated with a triangle (see
Figure 4.2). The performance and interpretation of music is a blend of three sensibilities24. The
melody or raaga (in Sanskrit), rhythm or taala and emotion or bhava that is enacted or
exteriorized by the body. In the experience of the dance and music, the three elements are in
constant reciprocation with one another. An
Figure 4.2: The Triangle of Music
performative situation is when the three
ideal
elements
are unmediated, immediate, present at one given time, and follow each other. Ideally none of the
24
Incidentally some say that three syllables "bhā", "ra" and "ta" make up the word "Bhārata"
which is the Sanskrit name for the Indian subcontinent. However, this might not be
etymologically correct, since there are several other historical significances of the "Bhārata".
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elements should be taking a leading role in this communicative situation. The dancer follows the
beats of played by the drums, the drums follow the feet of the dancer, music follows the time
kept by the drums and also the narrative enacted by the dancer. During a performance, the
breakdown of any one of the three parts can be made up for by the other parts. In an anecdote by
Hejmadi, during a live performance in front of the erstwhile Prime Minister of India, the
pakhawaj player Banabehari Moharana got so animated that when the drums rolled out of his
hand towards Hejmadi. Hejmadi, he continued to chant the ukuta (sound made by the drums and
chanted by the drum player) and continued the dance movement. There can be a breakdown of
complete harmony in a situation when the collaboration is carried out by collaborators who are
immediately present and able to interact in real space. However, the physical presences makes it
easier to make-up for such a breakdown.
Auslander’s research on the role of technology in performance is situated on rock culture
and live performance of bands. He writes, “technology cannot take the place of human presence
at the heart of performance … it is best used to extend the capabilities of human performers, to
express humanistic themes more fully, and to allow performance to explore or evoke responses
from realms of human physical and psychological experience not directly accessible otherwise‟
(299). To him, recorded music cannot be the same as a live performance, and this is the thought
reflected at several points in my interviews with veteran Gurus in the field of Odissi dance. A
similar view toward recorded music accompanying dance can be identified in the work of
Hejmadi. Hejmadi, however, did not give a clear explanation to this preference, and Maguni Das
simply stated that recorded music, “is never the same...” as live music. Auslander provocatively
articulated that liveness is always preferable over digitized music because the audience responds
in an entirely differently way than they do to recorded music.
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Using digital technology to replace any of the elements (of melody, rhythm and body)
might result in an absence of the live communicative process which may be regarded as central
to a dance performance. Digitization of music and rhythms in a CD makes the musical
accompaniment portable and convenient. But these devices might not be most reliable and might
spoil a recital. I will reiterate Veteran Bandha Maguni Das’s interview response to using
recorded music. He recognizes the convenience of recorded music, but says, “Music in Sanskrit
is “Sangeet”… “Sang” means union. Sangeet is the union between dancer’s body, music, sound.
It is important for the people to get together and perform.” He adds that the effect of live music
creates an entirely different experience for the audience who are able to witness the three
elements of melody, rhythm and enactment of emotion through the body. It is the importance of
the physical presence of the body and the concept of sacredness in the process of a performeraudience relationship that is valued. Since music can be edited and modified during the recording
and interspersed with sound effects generated in a live studio, it is may be difficult to produce the
same quality of music in live music. However, presence of the musicians on the same stage
communicating with the dancer during the performance can be a more cherished experience for
the performers as well as the audience.
When music is digitized, the relationship between the elements of the triangle of music in
Figure 4.2 may get lost. The rhythms and music do not follow the dance anymore, but bind the
performance within a set time. There is also no opportunity for conversation and collaboration
between the musicians and dancer during the performance, thereby destabilizing the way that
performance has been traditionally carried out as a temple dance.
Odissi dancers across the world started engaging and interacting in specialized online
social networking tools for the first time when a Yahoo group was created (July 2003) by one of
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the practitioners in the dance community. This group began with about 50 performers, teachers,
dance critics and journalists. This online interactive space had an incredible effect on the
communication of the Odissi dancers. Dancers use this platform to promote themselves as well
as their shows. As more people joined the group, dancers from all across the globe began to
know one another. The group also became a space for animated debates on several issues, like
fair use of choreographed music, copyright and spiritual philosophies. It became especially
beneficial for non-Indian Odissi artists to interact with the community beyond the few people
that they met when they were learning the art. Of the several interesting issues brought up in the
online discussions, here is one post by an Indian Odissi artist: “I am very interested in the groups'
thoughts and opinions regarding "foreign" students learning and performing Odissi Dance. Do
you feel that it is appropriate for non-Indians to study the artform, and/or do you feel this crosses
a line into cultural appropriation? What are the pros & cons of such exchanges? Also, when
dancers' ethnicity/nationality/race is outside of Orissa or India, can those dancers still "own" a
part of the dance, that is, "make it their own?" Is this ethically acceptable (to you)? Are there
specific cultural boundaries & limitations in which you expect be acknowledged and respected?
And if so, what are they and why? Looking forward to hearing all thoughts and ideas on these
perhaps controversial questions!!” (2003).
Here is an extract of another set of conversations regarding copyright and fair use brought
up by a group member and resolved by other members:
“Artist1: i saw some pics from www.nrityagram.org on this group's photo section and i
was wondering whether you asked Nrityagram for permission to use them, bcoz the site is
copyrighted stuff.
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Artist2: i don't know, but it seems to me if people do not complain about their photo
being posted it means it's ok Artist3: I believe the answer to your question is self-explanatory. This site is simply a
public forum to exchange thoughts and information surrounding the art of odissi. It is not for
profit, nor is it exploitative in any way. As <Artist1> suggested, neither Nritygram nor any other
group member has expressed concern.” (2005).
I am fascinated by the mildly confrontational nature of the conversations. Artist3, who
had actually posted the copyrighted pictures in this public forum, was confrontational and also
anonymous. This was the first time that such interactions amongst artists across the globe were
happening in the virtual space. Members of the group discussed copyright, fair use, authenticity
and other concepts. In this discursive space, the conversations revealed the value system of this
art and also helped in the shaping of values that were appropriate for the digital era. In one
conversation, members discussed if it was appropriate to download the music from Odissi dance
videos posted on YouTube and perform on those music. This group has strengthened over the
years, and in 2010, several open letters to the State government regarding certain grievances of
artists were posted. In 2010, Facebook became an important medium of communication for not
only artists but also people interested in the art of Odissi. Alongside listserv, Facebook is
beginning to be widely used as a space for publishing events for promotion, creating fan pages
for prominent and aspiring artists and creating interest in communities amongst artists across the
globe. This is an interesting phenomenon where digital tools are helping shape and broaden the
understanding of traditional knowledge on a global scale.
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The question of access of digital tools was briefly discussed above with regard to the
attitude towards technology. Access to the tools also determined the connectedness of the artist
with other artists in the community and their access to information on several opportunities of
performance. Digital media has created a public forum for the community of people associated
with Odissi dance to discuss the rights and wrongs of performing Odissi. Traditional values are
not a coercive hegemonic in the performance of this dance. My research data reveals that most
dancers wanted to stay true to the tradition, or at least to the way they understood tradition. In
general, the discussions in the forums reveal that the Odissi community supports experimentation
with style and form of Odissi while maintaining the purity of the dance. Unlike certain Western
traditions, neither music nor dance has any system whereby choreographies can be textualized
(though the basic dance movements, postures and gestures are described in the Sanskrit couplets
of Natyashastra as illustrated in chapter 2) (Chatterjee 143). The choreographies are memorized
and transmitted through memory. Altering original choreographies, experimenting with the style
in a way that challenges the limits of traditional Odissi and learning from videos are a few of the
occasions that prompt criticisms in the forums. Digitization of dance may be liberatory. It also
brings transparency to this artistic community and provides spaces for representation of voices
and visibility of talents.
The liberatory nature of the Web re-shapes cultures and identities. Social researchers
Burnett and Marshall identify a culture that has formed in this space. To them “production is
central to the meaning and use of the Web” (62) and it is the desire to produce in the Web that
forges heteroglossic (76) connections between interconnected Web sites that form cultural
communities. The Web is not just about the representation of the self; it is all about the
externalized representation of the community in which the individual is a participant. In the
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virtual space we “abandon the confines of the limiting self” (63). Web space opens up
possibilities for the performing body and helps create hyper-reality in the performed art, thereby
making it more astonishing than real art. Gravity can be defied and every move can be made to
look flawless with the use of digital tools, such as SL dancing. Most importantly, the
flawlessness of the dance can be imitated by the avatar time and again with the use of the same
codes. This is not possible in a real performance.
4.3 Evolved body of an Odissi dancer
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I experimented with the virtualization of the body in the performance of Odissi dance in
Second Life as well as in synchronous online collaboration projects. I carried out one such
project with Rahul Acharya, a young Odissi dancer based in Bhubaneshwar in Orissa, India. He
agreed to work on a project with me for the Computers & Writing Conference (themes “Writing
in Motion”) held in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in May 2011. This project was in
collaboration with Jill Morrison (PhD candidate at Wayne State University at that time) who
performed a ballet dance number in a digitized backdrop. Acharya and I planned a synchronous
live performance through Skype. He would perform from India. I would project him and perform
synchronously in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We originally designed this to be a regular presentation
panel to portray the rhetoric of performative bodies in motion and engaged in aesthetic storytelling. Nevertheless, the conference planners set this as an evening performance in the
University of Michigan Museum of Arts Auditorium. The integration of a performative
presentation was probably not “academic” enough and we had to carry it out as a post-dinner
intellectual ‘entertainment’ with a bunch of other extremely smart performances. However, this
spiked our attention towards the choreography and technical explorations of this piece, now that
we were dancing in front of an actual audience who came to see dance as a post-dinner
entertainment after an entire day of academic
Figure 4.3: Virtual Collaboration rehearsal
(East Lansing, July 2011)
papers.
Acharya and I had a primary plan and a back-up plan in this act of virtualizing our bodies
in this collaborative dance, keeping in mind the limitations and possibilities of technology. We
thought it would be gripping to do a piece involving fast-paced rhythmic beats where we would
match each other’s moves and steps in a virtual yugalbandi (a duet comprised of artists
performing alternatively). However, we could not find the technological support or idea that
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would help us overcome the un-uniform, fraction-of-a-second time lapse between us. We solved
this by choosing an expressional piece that involved story-telling without any rhythmic footwork
that required coordination. The movement of the bodies, reactions to the expressions and flow of
the narrative needed coordination, but that could be done without worrying about the time lapses.
Figure 4.3 shows one of our practice sessions.
We felt apprehensive about the possibility of failing Internet on both sides of the world. It
actually failed once during one of our rehearsals, thus escalating our anxiety. As a backup plan,
Acharya videotaped the entire dance sequence with the recorded music in his full Odissi costume
in the same backdrop where he would be performing on the day of the show. In case Internet
failed for either of us, I arranged a technician to immediately swap the Skype screen for the
video that would be playing simultaneously with my dance. That continuity would not be lost.
Fortunately, no such technical hitch happened on the day of the show.
The third problem concerned the relative dimensions of the body (See Figure 4.4). On
one of the days during a rehearsal in a classroom at Michigan State University, I was able to
adjust the projection so that the feet of the virtual dancer were closest to the ground, simulating
Figure 4.4: Virtual Collaborative performance by
Shreelina Ghosh and Rahul Acharya (University of
Michigan Museum of Arts Auditorium, Ann Arbor,
MI, July 20, 2011)
an un-mediated performance. At the conference,
video projections were different with different
projectors and screens. The projection needed to be full screen. We could not put Acharya’s
webcam too far away, because then the expressions of his face would not be prominently seen.
We did not find a way of adjusting the size to make me and my co-dancer of appropriate heights
for the duet. This was a major set-back in the show. The projection of my co-dancer behind me
was huge, and I was quiet dwarfed. I tried to help the situation by moving to the front stage for
the illusion of coordinated heights. However, the choreography required me to move up and
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down the stage. Also, the front stage had brighter light, and if I danced in that light, it dimmed
the screen projection as a result. Acknowledging the failure to simulate a real-stage situation, we
decided to focus on the story-telling in the sequence to make up for the visual set-backs.
The fourth and the most important challenge of our performance involved coordinating
our expressions and reactions to each other without me having to look at the screen behind me or
him having to look at the computer screen in front of him. The stage dynamics also needed to be
fixed. We were enacting an Ashtapadi or a lyrical poem containing eight lines. 12th century poet
Jayadeva wrote a series of these poems on the story of Radha and Krishna. Traditionally, the
maharis of the Orissan temples danced to these poems. These are significant characters in the
Hindu mythology. Krishna was the blue-skinned God who played on the flute, and Radha was
his beloved. It is important to provide some details on the theme of the piece to evince the
complexity of performance. The story enacted by us depicted Krishna promising to meet Radha
at night but not showing up. When he does come to her at dawn, his body bears tell-tale marks of
his faithlessness. Radha notices that his lips are smeared with a streak of kohl from a woman’s
eyes, his body has scratch-marks and other signs that showed he was cheating on her. He denies
the accusation that he is unfaithful, and says that he has eaten a black fruit. That is why his lips
have the black smear. He scratched himself by the spines of a flower tree while he was trying to
pluck a flower for Radha. In spite of these excuses he makes, Radha does not forgive him, and he
offers to lay his head on her foot asking. The stories of Radha and Krishna have deeper
significance, beyond the mundane sexual connotations between a man and a woman. Radha
symbolized “Aradhika” which means, the one who worships. Krishna is the divine consciousness
with whom the worshipper eternally tries to unite in Hindu philosophy. The union of the body
and the Supreme is denoted by the images of sexual union between Radha and Krishna. My guru
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explained to me that the story represents Radha’s failure to understand the Omni-presence and
omnipotence of God, and that He cannot be limited to one form.
In order to illustrate the tensions within the complex layers of this piece, beyond just the
literal story, dancers are required to perform a complex scheme of facial and hand gestures. The
accusations of Radha and excuses of Krishna call for perfectly timed reactions between the two
dancers. For the flow of the narrative to make sense, the subtle and inter-twined expressions
needed to be clearly portrayed, both onscreen and onstage, without the dancers having to
compete for the attention of the audience. To solve this problem, we choreographed the
sequences according to music so that we did not have to rely on reacting to each other’s
movements or expressions. Throughout the performance, we were trying our best to make the
piece look as spontaneous and un-choreographed as possible, despite the pre-ascertained
choreography of movements on the stage.
Dancing without bodies was a fascinating experiment for both Acharya and me. It helped
us to understand the role of the body in this dance. The evolved, virtual body can still be the
bearer of the memory. However, collaborating with each other and with the audience without
direct and immediate interactivity is challenging. We were looking at the reactions of each other
on the screen and negotiating with time lapses, but we were not able to get into a state of real
performed communication that a traditional duet performance could have facilitated.
Digitization of bodies happens in moments when movements create meanings. In Odissi,
this digitization results in the absence of the physically communicative connection between the
dancer, the audience and the co-dancer. Merleau-Ponty locates persuasiveness in the state of
being rather than the linguistic or communicative action. Understanding the words uttered in the
speech or interpreting performative movements alone cannot produce the complete
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understanding of the meaning that a body tried to communicate through performance. This
viewer’s phenomenological perception of the body along with their inter-subjective impression
of the consciousness of that body work to convey meaning. In this art form, communication
depends on forming inter-subjective experiences that create the impression of accessing the
consciousness of the other person. With the physical connection is lost in a virtual collaborative
performance, be it in through Skype or SL dancing, the process of accessing consciousness and
reacting to the layered meanings in a complicated story-telling performance of Odissi is
challenging. Through the rhetoric of performance, the body conveys the meanings needed to
perceive the world. Merleau-Ponty illustrates how emotions are externalized to
communicatewhat the body feels with the world. “The Body is the vehicle of being in the world,
and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify
oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them” (Smith 94). At other points
in this dissertation, I have attempted to assess both Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu to help me
understandhow the performing body is perceived and the linguistic and performative impositions
on this process. In the case of a virtual body performing a visible rhetoric and collaborating with
the audience and a fellow performer who is physically distant, the communication takes place
through both the visible and the invisible expressions of the collaborator’s body, creating an
impression of identification and harmony of consciousnesses between the bodies. Expressions
are externalized by a body that is alert, responsive and informed by the social experience and
context of the dance. The performer must simulate a state of total oblivion to the world and
merge completely into the character that he/she is enacting. This combination of concepts
presented by Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu’s theories can be helpful in understanding the role of
a virtualized performing body in Odissi dance.
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Another instance of the virtualization of the dance is the use of emoticons in the learning
process (also see chapter 1). Digitized representations of facial expressions, like emoticons, give
rise to new equations of relationships between the dancer and the audience. The emotional state
of mind of the artist is called “bhaava.” Audiences interpret and react to these emotions. The
audience imbibes the rasa in the performance. This has been exemplified in chapter one. In order
to teach the concept to my young students, I demonstrate the rasa and expect them to repeat, like
I did when I was learning from my Guru. However, one of my pre-teen US-born Indian students,
a child of the digital age, began making charts of emoticons that she believed corresponded to
the particular bhaava she was trying to learn. She made no attempt to embody the expressions,
but instead transcribed it the way that she is most closely associated with the rasa. Emoticons, in
this case, functioned as a technological tool of pedagogy that virtualized the physical presence of
the learning and performing body. For Foucault, it is the "technologies of production, which
permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things" and the "technologies of sign systems,
which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or signification" (18). To Foucault, these are
technologies of domination. To my current research, these function as subversions to the
traditional process of learning and performing. Hayles locates a correlation between the body and
written text “represented within (and without) an electronic document” and textual content on the
Web. Both are hypermediated information code carriers, and are “flickering signifiers rather than
durable marks” (257). In this way, sords and flesh that are re-inscribed in the Web are complex,
fluid, fragmented, subversive and treacherous.
Digital media extends the boundaries of the artistic bodies in ways that might challenge
the spiritual rhetoric inscribed on those body. Kent De Spain quotes Merce Cunningham, a
legendary choreographer in his essay on dance and technology: “With the computer one can
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make the figure do things the human body couldn't do” (8). However, he immediately adds,
“That doesn't basically interest me because I'm really concerned about people dancing.”
Enhancement of performance with technology is acknowledged by many dancers across the
world; however, dismissal and suspicions are two emotions that dominated some of the
conversations I had with some legendary dancers and choreographers of Odissi.
I have referred to Gray’s theories to enhance my argument that the body of the dancer
becomes a cyborg in a digitized performative space. In the book Cyborg Citizen, Gray surveys
the affordances of radical technological impacts, formation of the cyber sub-culture, performance
of the body in cyber space and integration of the body with technology. Gray illustrates cases of
technology participating in the performance of the body and controlling its ability to stay alive.
Some people celebrate proto-human cyborg existence because that is good living. Others looking
at cyborgism from a religious perspective are wary of human resistance against nature’s process
of selection. The article ends with a rather fatalistic note: “Cyborgs are invented as new
technoscience. Like culture, they are constructed out of past and possibilities. They – we – are as
much works of art as our identities... Horror is possible, perhaps inevitable” (195). Dancing in
digital spaces and constructing alternative bodies satisfies the desire to exceed the limitations and
the scope of the body, both in its spatial and temporal abilities and its shape.
My survey of the digitization of dancing bodies across cultures generated several
interesting works of art, science and categories in between. I will highlight three of them briefly.
Steven Dixon extensively studies how the body is represented through digital media in Western
theatrical arts. Dixon defines digital performance as “performance works where computer
technologies play a key role rather than a subsidiary one in content, techniques, aesthetics, or
delivery forms” (3). Its scope is vast and its location is ubiquitous. According to this perspective,
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digitization has brought a paradigmatic shift in everything that performance stands for. He goes
on to illustrate this idea with examples of stage technologies used creatively in dance and theatre
that extend the meaning and scope of physical performance. Japanese computer engineers
Nakazawa, Nakaoka, Kudoh and Ikeuchi developed a method to “digitize, analyze and present
human motion” (1). This is a highly technical article on computer programming, but I was
interested in reading about the reason behind the attempts to recreate human movement. “To
keep the robot standing during all dance sequences, its ZMP (Zero Moment Point), which
indicates a balanced force point existed between the robot and ground, must be within a support
area enclosed by its sole areas.” (7) The coordination of the artificially reproduced earth and
body involves a gamut of calculations. This technical article indicated the complex process
involved in the virtualization of the body and the limitations that are yet to be overcome. Though
the imagined possibilities of the virtualization of the body are immense, the realization is
extremely complicated. Kozaburo Hachimura, a Japanese researcher in the field of media
technology, writes about an application he uses for preserving a digital archive of dance
movements with an optical-type motion capture system for Japanese historical Noh plays. The
system he uses is effective for archiving tangible artifacts. Hachimura’s illustrations show that it
is possible to recreate appropriate backgrounds that recreate ambiance. However, recording
movement is complex and problematic. He recognizes the potential of technology in archiving
dance, but acknowledges its inadequacy in capturing the Kansei, the Japanese expression for
sensibility. In Indian aesthetic terminology, the closest word is rasa (described in chapters one
and four).
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4.4 Digitized Gurus in Virtual Spaces
The anti-digitization bias is strongest with regard to the concept of the Guru in Indian
classical dance. Veteran Gurus like Maguni Das and Gangadhar Pradhan and prominent teachers
like Sujata Mohapatra and Ratikanta Mohapatra vehemently negated the validity of teaching
dance online. For them, videos can provide a back-up in case someone forgets a piece. However,
the only way of learning good Odissi is to practice until the series of movements are normalized
in the body of the dancer and the memory of the dance is inscribed on the dancer in a way that
she/he can perform without having to make an effort to recollect. The process of learning is not
imitation. Rather, it embodies a memory. This memory can be of Odissi in general or it can be
more specialized, like the subtle nuances that make each of the three schools of Odissi dance
unique. I have talked about the position of the Guru in the traditional pedagogy of dance and the
problems of the virtualization of the body of the Guru. In this section, I will delve deeper into
three methods of teaching that are used in the dance and explore the process by which these
classes are conducted. I will also discuss the negotiations that take place with the underlying
value system of the dance with regards to the physical presence and the position of the Guru.
YouTube is a free and accessible digital tool with pedagogic potential. It is used by
several dancers, who have some years of training, to publish their own “how-to” videos.
Interview respondents were asked about these videos, and I received mixed reactions. To most,
uploading these videos is a horrible idea since no one can control the quality of the dance that is
being uploaded. To some, it is an effective way of popularizing the dance. If people are seriously
interested, they will be able to easily access more information on “better” ways of learning. I
assumed during this particular conversation that by “better,” the respondent meant a traditional
classroom and not a better video, since this respondent did not show absolute approval of using
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videos to teach. Amongst several others, one Japanese dancer, one India-based dancer, and two
USA-based dancers that I interviewed published lessons of basic Odissi as YouTube videos.
Teaching with digital technology completely alters the dynamic between the Guru and the
disciple. In a video that demonstrates the dance, the teacher assumes the identity of a culturally
savvy Guru. This is an interesting negotiation of the digital media and the Sari-clad Odissi artist
where the two images do not thematically align. Turkle explores the multiplicity of identity when
the body is re-forged on screen. MUD, Role Playing and gaming on cyber space take the body
“both within and beyond its confines” (191) as the player constructs and multiplies the self as
parallels and substitutes of relationships in real life. Intra-body relationships formed during these
interactions are indicative of the relationships between the virtualized body and the self. Turkle
wrote about “multiple, distributed self” (148). She posits that the human and machine boundary
has blurred as they have started interacting. The Guru’s identity is thus altered completely when
transposed into the video. Likewise, the pedagogy of Odissi as it must be taught also alters. The
traditional learning method (chapter 2) is replaced by a system where parts of the body are
shown on the screen in every take. The camera focuses on the footwork, then on the torso
movements, then the hand gestures and then the teacher explains the bhava or expressions of the
dance. The student is learning, not by watching the entire body of the dancer and getting inspired
to embody it, but in sections. The body of the Guru is thus viewed in portions by the student
instead of as a whole. The Guru might be repeating the portion of the dance in the same way as
traditional dance teaching, however, when the student is learning the footwork, s/he is not able to
see the face, and therefore there is a disconnect between the footwork and the facial nuances.
This disconnect is not attuned to the traditional concept of dance, where the body functions as a
whole and each gesture responds to the other. When the hand moves, so do the eyebrows and
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these movements might be subtle but very crucial in the overall impact of the dance. The
sacredness of the body of the Guru, in this respect, is lost.
The sacredness of the Guru and his/her position in the process and pedagogy of Odissi
dance can be hugely undermined. I have argued in chapter 3 how a teacher-centered space, to
me, is not necessarily didactic or de-generative in the process of learning. The student is not
expected to doubt or question the authority of his/her Guru. In this way, it does not appear to be a
discursive space. However, the discursiveness comes when the knowledge handed down by the
Guru and absorbed by the student is applied in performance and choreographies. In this learning
tradition, a good student does not train to be an imitation of the Guru. He/she embodies an
interpretation of the choreography that he/she learns. There comes the test of one’s own maturity
as an artist. Transposing this system of learning that has been around for several centuries into a
student-centered digitized space has disrupted its power structure. Like I mentioned in chapter 2,
this is not a Foucauldian concept of power, as it is happening in the traditional pedagogical
space. The discursiveness might not be visible or immediate in the instructional method.
Students are tacitly empowered to practice the art the way in which it fits his body in a traditional
classroom. This discursive movement does not happen during the lessons, but afterwards when
the students have enough expertise in the art to understand the relationship of the art with his/her
own body. To illustrate what I mean, I have learnt a piece of pure dance from an Odissi expert.
The piece is an amorous expressional dance of Lord Krishna and his beloved Radha. The
choreography of the piece contained expressions of bold eroticism and naughtiness expressed by
the characters. After I learned it, I decided to blend it with some subtle coyness and a sense of
spirituality since that is how I interpreted the story of this piece. The dancer has the scope and
liberty to interpret a story when performing in front of the audience. But before embodying and
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re-interpreting the “learned” choreography, it is expected that the dancer will imbibe the original
choreography with perfection and devotion. Conversations with practitioners revealed a similar
stance, when it came to re-inventing and re-interpreting elements of the dance in a way that
stretched the borders of tradition. To Gangadhar Pradhan, using videos is alright as long as the
presence of the Guru is not totally negated. He recommends using the video remember the dance
that one has been taught from the Guru and not use it to learn the foundations of the dance.
In the traditional pedagogy, the Guru steers the disciple towards perfecting the elements
of the dance. The disciple reaches that goal with a demonstration of complete faith in the
teaching method of the Guru. Unwavering faith in the Guru is a fascinating value from a western
perspective, and several martial arts movies have revealed that. The Karate Kid (2010) starring
Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith demonstrates an example of a Guru, or Master, breaking the
student in order to inculcate the essential “trust.” The “Jacket off – Jacket on” scene fascinated
me. Dre (Smith’s character) is asked by Hung (Chan’s character) to practice throwing down a
jacket, picking it up, hanging it on a peg, wearing it, taking it off, throwing it down and repeating
this activity in this order for hours. After several hours of practice, Dre loses his patience and
accuses Hung of being an ineffectual teacher. Hung gets up and starts attacking Dre with Kung
fu moves, and Dre automatically blocks each of the strikes. Continuous repetition of the act
involving a jacket sharpened Dre’s reflexes to such an extent that his body was moving without
his conscious effort on technique. Hung helps Dre understand the essence of the art of Kung fu.
The story indicates that the disciple needs to trust on the Guru, and this is integral in certain
eastern traditions.
Publishing a training video of a spiritual dance on an open forum like YouTube can
sometimes undermine the ethos of the Guru. Owners of the video have some control over the
Figure 4.5: YouTube video on Learning Odissi (Courtesy:
Mala Desai)
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comments posted by viewers. However, in an Odissi dance training video (Figure 4.5) on the
“Expert Village” channel of YouTube25, the control over content and user feedback is very
limited. In a YouTube video by New York-based Odissi teacher Mala Desai on Expert Village,
the comments were extremely vulgar, demeaning, sexist and racist. The focus of the users’
response shifted completely from understanding what the dance is, to her race, attire and so on.
The attempt to popularize an art by exploiting the immense possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies
where information is freely accessible, democratic and user-generated is important to understand
if we hope to assess how these tools must be s used correctly. Odissi practitioners are uploading
esoteric, ancient and sacred knowledge for the world to interpret. The presence of the Guru is
essentially sacred in this art, and it is important to understand and respect this core value, even
when we are stretching the boundaries of tradition to experiment with digital media.
4.5 Epilogue
What is the role of technology in shaping a cultural tradition? We should be careful to not
let it harm an ancient cultural tradition, but how can technology help? To Wang, the function of
technology as a memory-keeper is important. Wang asserts that “(t)he history of dance has
always been a history of loss. Most of dance produced is lost to us for good -- the result of the
lack of funding for preservation” (1). He makes a practical assessment of the available
technological tools that are capable of capturing human motion and translating them into digital
information. Performers often use Labanotations to record movement and moviemakers use
Motion Capture to shoot movies, but it is not economically viable for recording dance. He goes
on to elaborate the commercial prospects of using recording devices such as DVDs to capture the
25
Expert Village is a portal of several how to videos. It contains user-generated content, and the
channel does not give the owners of the video any control over the comments. The Privacy
policy of channels such as these include statements such as “WHERE IS THE REST OF THIS??
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ephemeral moments of a performance. There are three highly important points that he makes: (a)
it is crucial and commercially beneficial for dance and technology to have a symbiotic
relationship with each other, (b) the dance community should take primary and sufficient
initiative in order for this to happen and (c) the Internet can potentially be central to such
endeavors. To him, “production and management of digital dance products is a collaborative
effort, which can be facilitated by distributed Internet computing” (20). Pad.ma26 in attempting
to archive the fleeting moments of Indian classical dance by legendary performers, and this effort
has been met with both appreciation and suspicion by the dance community. This can raise the
important question of intellectual property, ownership of the art created on stage and copyright.
In a future projects, I would like to continue my exploration of digital archiving of traditional
arts.
Digitization of the traditional art of Odissi, to me, is not necessarily harmful. However, it
is important to understand the effect of this on the dance, so as to preserve the authenticity of this
ancient art. The authenticity of this spiritual art is valued amongst Odissi practitioners. To
McLuhan, the product determines culture in that the technology produced by man augments his
sensorial experience of the world. McLuhan views give the artist the power to raise awareness of
technology's effects before they occur. Understanding media is the only route to controlling
media. He does not ascertain man's relationships to technology to be not fatalistic, but to
recognize it as “staple” like the natural resources. Similarly, understanding the relationship
26
Pad.ma is a multi-national endeavour based in Malaysia that is engaged in digitizing dance and
music performances. The name stands for Public Access Digital Media Archive, and Padma is
also the Sanskrit word for a lotus flower, which has rich spiritual relevance. This is an “online
archive of densely text-annotated video material, primarily footage and not finished films” (from
the website http://pad.ma). The organization came into controversy with several musicians and
dancers who preferred to not digitize and archive the performative moment.
128
between technology and Odissi dance is critical in the current performance and teaching of the
art, and also for the future of this art.
There is a generational gap in the use of technology as revealed by my data. People who
were suspicious about technology in dance and those who were excited about experimenting are
both key in the evolution of the art for the next generation. They indicate that tradition and
change might continue to take place simultaneously. I have understood, in the course of my
research, that the underlying value system of the dance helps maintain equilibrium. This dance
has evolved in the way it is performed and taught, but it has not changed beyond recognition.
My project knits together the existing theories of performative rhetoric to specifically
look at the dancing body in digital space from non-Western, theoretical and methodological
perspective. The data gathered physically and virtually from both online and traditional spaces of
Odissi dance have attempted to show how practice and pedagogy of cultural dance practices
evolve when hypermediated in virtual spaces. From this data, I have also been able to reveal and
interpret the tools and methods adopted in this process of digitization of Indian classical dance
by the practicitioners of the art. In this project, I have aimed to develop a deeper understanding
of the nature of the relationship between a potentially subversive performance of digitized dance
and a two-thousand year old tradition. I have also aimed to understand how the virtual tools of
performance and pedagogy have worked to evolve the traditional dance of India. To investigate
these issues, I needed a different theory, one that was nuanced for the research. Dance in digital
space can be subversive to the traditional dance practices and pedagogies because it disrupts the
traditional concepts that surround the dance. This counter-public practice can account for
connections, remediations, and transgressions between virtual and geophysical spaces. However,
it seems that digitization of the practice does not have a colonial agenda. It does not represent
129
Bhaba’s concept of the central ideology and the subversive practices as mimicry. Both the
traditional dance and the digitized practices in general were deeply rooted in a value system that
made the new practice an extension of the existing practice. In the practice of Odissi dance, I
failed to locate a firm disapproval of technology from either the veteran or the pro-digitization
practitioners of the dance. However, there are moments of apprehensiveness and resistance. The
tradition is inter-generational learning, non-annotated and orally transmitted. My personal
cultural experience does not foreground victimhood or subalternity. Tradition, in most cases, did
not resist a new idea. It embraced it, but not without showing enough apprehension so that
practitioners implement the new ideas evermore carefully, adhering to the central values of the
dance.
This is not an institutionalized coercive language. Understanding this language requires
an alternative/extended episteme to interpret the theories of coloniality, resistance and
oppression. My study attempts to further decolonize how the discipline of Rhetoric and
Composition sees indigenous studies. Meaning-making is complex when we look at it from
multi-cultural points of view. The process of understanding rhetorical complexities does not need
fit-all theories, but a theory that is derived from within the context of that culture. The three
examples of digitization of dance that I have explored above, (replacement of live music with
recorded music, formation of a quasi-anonymous forum for discussion, virtual collaboration of
bodies engages in synchronous performance and teaching Odissi on YouTube) reveal the
discursive nature of the projects in relation to performing tradition art. The survey revealed a
divide between those who support virtualization and those who do not. However, the participants
that use virtualized processes are from several experience levels in the dance and belong to
several generations. Many individuals understand the value system underlying this tradition and
130
are wary of these developments, but the same people support a good choreography if they deem
that the structure, grammar and rasa of the dance is according to the Natyashastra. The habitus
shaped by the nature and the tradition of this dance is durable and flexible, and most importantly,
in the foreground of a very strong value system.
In the next chapter, I will apply a non-Western perspective of virtualization of tradition to
the virtualization of composition classes. As with Odissi dance, Habitus has shaped the value
system of composition to include the concepts of physical presence and space. By the end of the
chapter, I will attempt to understand the impact of virtualiziation on the way in which students
learn and understand composition. The next concluding chapter will demonstrate the necessity to
decolonize and reframe the existing theoretical and methodological perspectives of the disciple
of Rhetoric and Composition, and also pave way for future research in this field.
131
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