Being "Sita" : physical affects in the north Indian dance of kathak

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Re-exporting 'tradition' : the transcultural practice of kathak in Kolkata and the creation of a new female body

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The perspective of epigraphic research and the concept of information management

Epigraphy is one of the auxiliary sciences of history and yet it is still not fully used by scholars. The problem connects to the dispersion of research results and the form of their presentation. There are many independent researchers, representing different fields of science and studies that deal with nscriptions in their university and job activities. The only issue is that the results of their field researches are often presented in completely various ways, using a number of methods. That seems to be a bit problematic to use the metadata, because they regularly contain irrelevant data. Non - ssential ones from the perspective of different scholar point of views. The aim of the article is to exhort scholars dealing with inscriptions (historians, historians of art, historians of culture, language etc.) to present the outcome of their researches in a way, every person interested in, could get what they need. E.g. while historian of art presents architectural programme of an epitaph, the inscription is barely mentioned, instead of being presented with the full analysis. One may find information about the art as itself, but semantics and semiotics of the inscription is not attached. The author of the article also asks to create an online version of all the inscription being gathered till nowadays, and those which are still in the progress of cataloguing. Many researchers does the enormous work, yet keeps their results for themselves, not publishing them to the broad circle of recipients. If creating such an instrument, scholars, especially students and beginners might find all interesting data at one place. Not only would it be useful, but also kept every collected data safe. 

Learning kathak: crafting bodies and selves in the guru-shishya parampara

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Dept, of Anthropology, 2012.Bibliography: p. 265-290.Introduction: learning kathak -- History of a kathaka: a transnational lineage -- Translating guru-ness in practice: a 'moder-guru in training' -- Place matters: the experience of gurukul -- Place-making and transnationalism in the Indian diaspora -- The wider ecology of the guru-shishya relationship: the community of senior students -- Ways of knowing: the shared production of bodily knowledge -- Discipling the body: paramparic bodies -- Learning abhinaya: 'becoming the character' -- Conclusion: learning kathak, learning agency.Kathak dance is a north Indian dance form that integrates elements of dance, music and drama: rhythmic footwork, recitation, pirouettes, elaborate gestural movements and dramatic storytelling form part of the repertoire. Learning historically occurred within the guru-shishya parampara, the tradition of one-to-one learning between master-disciple. The shifting socio-economic circumstances of today's world make this approach difficult to sustain; universities, academies, commercial and private dance schools are slowly replacing this traditional model, both in India and abroad. The re-making of kathak is further exacerbated by the increasing and ongoing flow of teachers, students, images and ideas as they travel between India and its many diasporic locations. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of one such transnational lineage of dancers, based between India and America, who continue to subscribe to a re-created version of the guru-shishya parampara. -- This is an ethnography of learning and apprenticeship in kathak dance. My research is based on two and a half years of fieldwork under the tutelage of Pandit Chitresh Das and the larger community of dancers in Kolkata and the San Francisco Bay area, the two main locations of his lineage. I take the guru-shishya relationship as the grounding for practitioners' experience of the dance, for it is only through study with the guru that one can participate in the lineage's idealised way of life of the kathaka. I address the hierarchical nature of guru-shishya, a relationship based on ideals of surrendering, submission and discipline, with a description of the slow temporality of the process, the productive nature of discipline, and the expanded sense of agency that is the long term goal of such learning relationships. -- Place-making has become a salient feature of existence in the Indian diaspora, brought about by the migrations and movements of people between India and America. Through a study of learning kathak, I consider the experiences of place-making and the limits to which entire 'places' can be moved. I consider the importance of the spatial located-ness of practice, and of place as a materialised site of practice, where people move, emote and relate to one another in particular ways. I also consider the potentiality of flows and the transformations of transnationalism, as well as of its limits.Mode of access: World Wide Web.viii, 290 p. ports. (some col.