Eventos
Palestra | Understanding the body discourse in the context of dance in India
UNDERSTANDING THE BODY DISCOURSE IN THE CONTEXT OF DANCE IN INDIA
No dia 15 de novembro de 2023, o Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau recebe uma palestra proferida por Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, professora de Estudos Críticos de Dança e atual Reitora da Escola de Artes e Estética, da Universidade Jawaharlal Nehru, em Nova Deli.
Antes da palestra, que terá início pelas 18h30, haverá tempo para um coffee meeting.
A entrada é livre, mas sujeita a inscrição.
15-11-2023, 18h00 | Auditório do Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau | Rua da Junqueira, 30 – Lisboa
Resumo da palestra (apenas em inglês):
In India, most dancing bodies register two kinds of training. The first is through the socialization processes, which start at birth and consolidate the frames of reference for the embodied expressions, thoughts, and relationship that develops between individuals and their bodies. This process is both individual and community-specific and is structured through common everyday experiences as well as individual/family manifestations. The second training is very often a choice, and the knowledge involved is specialized and specific, attached to the form and not to a particular way of life. Its end-use could be a livelihood option or an art practice that the dancer is able to pursue as a hobby. Dance as a specialized art requires the dancers to acquire special skills received through specialized training processes. In contrast, many members of indigenous communities may be untrained but are regular participants in community or family celebrations as their knowledge and experience in dancing come from specific socializational learning particular to the socio-cultural background they come from. All dancing bodies are gendered, socialized, caste/class/creed-controlled bodies – from different geographical locations of India, that are very dissimilar in their cultural/embodied practices.
Even while dancing has historically been known to be a popular embodied practice that is part of the ritual celebrations, social rites of passage, and community gatherings in India, there is, however, a tangible sense of stigmatization that is simultaneously attached to the dancing body as well as the dancer. As a result, dance as an embodied act is the focus of a rapidly growing discourse in Indian scholarship, taking in situ experiences of embodiment into the specialized realms of multiple disciplines such as history, philosophy, anthropology, aesthetics, and cultural studies. The complexities are exciting, as dancing bodies in their individual and ensemble forms continue to demand attention, with the prehistoric evidence of dance going back more than 2500 years. There is a rising consciousness about creating an evolving methodology that is multidisciplinary as well as intersectional. In this talk, I propose to try and put together different references to the dancing body that have helped shape the dance discourse in the current times.
