Date and time:
2019-04-01 13:00 - 2019-04-01 14:30
Location:
VU Azijos ir transkultūrinių studijų institutas, A. Bidenio aud., Universiteto g. 5, Vilnius
The histories of Romantic Ballet and Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of India, were conjoined spectacularly when a troupe of Indian temple dancers travelled to Europe in 1838. Recently the acclaimed British choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh dramatized this tour of the five dancers in her production entitled Bayadère: the Ninth Life.” A Radical reworking of Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère, the work was premiered in Linbury Studio theatre, Royal Opera House, in 2015. It was restaged at the Sadler Wells theatre in Oct, 2017. More than a retelling, the remarkable work searches for the roots of the ‘Bayadère temple dancer herself and the allure she exerted in Europe over the centuries.’
Dance scholars have recognized the historical significance of this extraordinary event in world dance history. Yet the interlocked history of these two forms, extending over a 200 year time span, remains underresearched in dance and performance research because much of the scholarship on world dance forms continues to be articulated within the exceptionalizing framework of the ‘West and the Rest’ and or the anthropological framework of the local and the national. The lecture rejects this divided East/West framework and historicises the entangled histories of Romantic Ballet and Bharatanatyam within the global framework of British imperialism, Orientalism and decolonization.
Lecture will focus specifically on two nodal moments in world dance history, that of decolonization and cold war dance internationalism, explored within the framework of cultural translation and transnationalism. How do world dance forms like Bharatnatyam, Kathak and Kathakali, transnationalize? What is the place of history and memory in these cultural transformations? And how does the postcolonial state negotiate the global imperatives of globalization?
Dr. Avanthi Meduri is a scholar/dancer/actress/playwright/curator and arts administrator. Born in India, she received her PhD in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of Arts, New York University, in 1996. Her doctoral thesis, examining the transnational traditions of Bharatanatyam, is widely acknowledged as having helped constitute a new subfield within Dance Studies known today as Postcolonial South Asian Dance Studies. As a scholar-practitioner, Meduri had the unique opportunity to teach in premier Universities in the US, India and the UK, and work within global, public arts organizations, which have supported her research/ performance work through numerous grants and fellowships.
Currently a Reader in Dance and Performance Studies, Meduri is Ex-Convener of the first post graduate South Asian Dance Studies Programme at Roehampton University, London. As Convener of the first MA in South Asian Dance Studies, Meduri conceptualized a Global South Asian Dance Studies programme at Roehampton University, which was identified as an ‘area of excellence’ in the UK national Research Assessment Exercise of 2008; and was featured as an Impact case study for the UK Research Excellence Framework (2014).
Trained in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, two classical forms of India, Meduri works within the developing field of ‘practice as research.’ Recipient of several national and international awards and fellowships, Meduri has over 40 publications, among which a book on Rukmini Devi Arundale, which has seen several reprints. As a Ford Fellow, and Academic Director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture, New Delhi, Meduri curated the Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986) photo-archive and presented it in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Japan and the UK (2003-2004). In 2017, she curated a Kuchipudi dance festival which toured seven European countries in a travelling coach.
Web link: bit.ly/2CCG54y