In the Shadow of Hollywood Orientalism: Authentic East Indian Dancing

Coreference and disjoint reference in the semantics of narrative dance

“…Bharatanatyam is a classical South Indian dance that originates in Tamil Nadu (see Puri, 1986Puri, , 2004Williams, 2003;Ramesh, 2013Ramesh, , 2014; it is a type of figurative (narrative) dance that typically serves to tell a story. As a figurative dance, it is more similar to language (and silent visual narrative) than other dance forms (such as ballet, contemporary or street dance), yet more conventionalized than pantomime (which can be viewed as an extreme form of figurative dance; see Charnavel, 2016).…”

The Mereotopological Space/Time of Dance

“…At the same time, the topological analysis of these dances shows the unpredictable migration of gestural attractors (or what might be defined as a "movement idea") across cultures: if, as Drid Williams suggests, A photograph were to be taken of a Bharatanatyam dancer in the ara mandi [bent-knee] position and a ballet dancer in [a] demi-plie position, it [might] superficially appear that both dancers are executing the same movement, but this is not the case. (Williams, 2003) Attentive observation of the two positions in fact shows that they are not the same movement. The ara mandi is an "ending" position that can be maintained for long periods of time: ara mandi in fact means "half-sitting," a position that is considered to be a middle level of the whole movement gesture.…”

“…At the same time, the topological analysis of these dances shows the unpredictable migration of gestural attractors (or what might be defined as a “movement idea”) across cultures: if, as Drid Williams suggests, A photograph were to be taken of a Bharatanatyam dancer in the ara mandi [bent-knee] position and a ballet dancer in [a] demi-plie position, it [might] superficially appear that both dancers are executing the same movement, but this is not the case. (Williams, 2003)…”

“…A photograph were to be taken of a Bharatanatyam dancer in the ara mandi [bent-knee] position and a ballet dancer in [a] demi-plie position, it [might] superficially appear that both dancers are executing the same movement, but this is not the case. (Williams, 2003)…”

“…The ara mandi is an “ending” position that can be maintained for long periods of time: ara mandi in fact means “half-sitting,” a position that is considered to be a middle level of the whole movement gesture. And differently from the ballet dancer, “the Indian dancer does not utilize any move that rises onto the toes,” where a “low” position “would necessarily involve a full bend of the legs in a ‘full-sitting’ position” (Williams, 2003). Bending the knees in this case becomes more like an idea, a movement abstraction drawing, with its different concrete realizations, an alternative “rhythmic” map across “East” and “West.”…”