Mobilizing Dance: Cinema, the Body, and Culture in South Asia
DANC 307
Fall 2019 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
FGSS 307, ANTH 306 |
| Certificates: South Asia Studies, South Asia Studies Minor |
This course focuses on questions of "mobility"--cultural, social, and political--as embodied in two major cultural forms of South Asia, namely "classical" dance and cinema. Using Tamil cinema and Bharatanatyam dance as case studies, the course focuses on issues of colonialism and history, class, sexuality and morality, and globalization. The course places the notion of "flows of culture" at its center and examines historical, social, and aesthetic shifts in these art forms over the past 150 years.
The course is both studio- and lecture-based. It includes learning rudimentary Bharatanatyam technique, watching and analyzing film dance sequences, and participating in guest master classes in ancillary forms such as Bollywood dance and Kathak (North Indian classical dance). The studio portion of this course is for beginners, and no previous dance experience is necessary. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA DANC |
| Course Format: Lecture | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ANTH)(GSAS-MN)(GSAS)(STS) |
Major Readings:
Early Transnationalism: Cinema as Colonial Technology in India
Hughes, Stephen Putnam. "When Film Came to Madras." BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 1/2 (2010): 147-168.
Baskaran, S. Theodore. "Cinema House as Public Space: The Advent of Filmic Entertainment in South India." In Folklore, Public Sphere, and Civil Society, ed. M. D. Muthukumaraswamy and Molly Kaushal. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 2004.
Making "Classical" Dance: A Critical History of Bharatanatyam Dance and Its Music
Soneji, Davesh. "Critical Steps: Thinking Through Bharatanatyam in the Twenty-First Century." In Bharatanatyam: A Reader, ed. Davesh Soneji. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Srinivasan, Amrit. "Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance." Economic and Political Weekly 20/44 (1985): 1869-1876.
Allen, Matthew Harp. "Re-writing the Script for South Indian Dance." The Drama Review 41/3 (1997): 63-100.
Intertwined Histories: Early Cinema and Dance in South India
Hughes, Stephen Putnam. "Music in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Drama, Gramophone and the Beginnings of Tamil Cinema." The Journal of Asian Studies, 66/1 (2007), 3-34.
Kaali, Sundar. "Disciplining the Dasi: Cintamani and the Politics of a New Sexual Economy." BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 4/1 (2013): 51-69.
Pandian, M.S.S. "Tamil Cultural Elites and Cinema: Outline of an Argument." Economic and Political Weekly 13/15 (1996): 950-955.
"Bollywood" and Its Relationship to "Nationalized" Performing Arts in the Global Age
Morcom, Anna. "The Bollywood Dance Revolution and the Embourgoisement of Indian Performing Arts." In Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2013.
"Filmi" Dance, Sexuality, Morality in Contemporary India
Weidman, Amanda. "Voices of Meenakumari: Sound, Meaning and Self-Fashioning in Performances of an Item Number." South Asian Popular Culture 10/3 (2012): 307-318.
Morcom, Anna. "Mumbai Dance Bars, Anti-Nautch II, and New Possibilities." In Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2013.
Global Flows: "Bollywood Dance" and "Classical Dance" in the South Asian Diaspora
Shresthova, Sangita. "More than India?: Bollywood Dance in Los Angeles." In Is It All About Hips? Around the World with Bollywood Dance. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2011.
David, Ann R. "Beyond the Silver Screen: Bollywood and Filmi Dance in the UK." South Asia Research 27/1 (2007): 5-24.
Ram, Kalpana. "Phantom Limbs: South Indian Dance and Immigrant Reifications of the Female Body." Journal of Intercultural Studies 26/1-2 (2005): 121-137.
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Examinations and Assignments:
(subject to change)
Mandatory attendance and classroom participation
End of semester journal (12 pages)
Major group dance project as in-class showing at the end of semester
Bi-weekly short reactionary papers to class discussions, various film dance sequences, guest dance classes and guest lectures
NO Final examination |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course also has a studio component. |
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