{"id":7459,"date":"2018-04-16T11:11:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/?p=7459"},"modified":"2024-04-22T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T18:37:10","slug":"dance-matters-too-professor-pallabi-chakravortys-latest-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/2018\/04\/16\/dance-matters-too-professor-pallabi-chakravortys-latest-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance Matters Too! Professor Pallabi Chakravorty’s Latest Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Pallabi Chakravorty of the Swarthmore\u00a0Music<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Dance<\/span>Department has had a busy year. Despite her abrupt sabbatical due to a back injury, Professor Chakravorty has published two books within the past year that she has been working for close to a decade:\u00a0This is How We\u00a0Dance<\/span>Now! Performance in the Age of Bollywood and Reality Shows<\/em>, published in October of 2017, and\u00a0Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too: Memories, Markets, Identities<\/em>, which was published in India this past March and is forthcoming in the United States.<\/p>\n

Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too<\/em>\u00a0was inspired by a conference Professor Chakravorty attended that sparked conversations about the nature of classical Indian performance in the face of contemporary global changes. People from all over the world interested in classical Indian\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0gathered at this international conference to address their diverse experiences in the field, and when Professor Chakravorty and her co-editor Nilanjana Gupta sent out calls for papers, they were surprised by the influx of articles from scholars anddancers<\/span>\u00a0all over the world.<\/p>\n

The book is divided into sections loosely separated by historical significance. The first looks at the history of the style itself and what remains of classical Indian\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0now. The second part looks at the current influence and fusion of popular culture on Indian\u00a0dance<\/span>. It investigates the role of globalization ofdance<\/span>\u00a0alongside shifting ideas of Indian national identity. The final section deals with the creation of subnational identity through the development of regional styles of classical Indian\u00a0dance<\/span>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When asked what inspired her to do the research for her article, titled \u201cCosmopolitan Then and Cosmopolitan Now: Rabindranrtiya Meets\u00a0Dance<\/span>Reality Shows,\u201d in\u00a0Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too<\/em>, she referenced her own experiences as a Kathak-trained\u00a0dancer<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became very interested in challenging myself. I have a certain mindset about aesthetics. We develop strong tastes and preferences as\u00a0dancers<\/span>\u00a0if you are trained in certain ways…so it creates a mindset and I wanted to challenge that. I\u2019ve always been very fond of Bombay films, which after the 1980s, after liberalization, became Bollywood. It is much more global and spectacle-oriented, prior to [Bombay films] that were more classically oriented and had folk forms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Chakravorty\u2019s fieldwork for\u00a0This is How We\u00a0Dance<\/span>\u00a0Now<\/em>, which she also used for her article in\u00a0Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too<\/em>, has taken her to the sets of Bollywood films to work and\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0alongside young Bollywood\u00a0dancers<\/span>. \u201cIt was a challenge. What I first learned was I am not a Bollywood\u00a0dancer<\/span>…After being exposed to that kind of movement and energy, high energy movement that is not line oriented but spectacle oriented, I thought there\u2019s something there. These people are enjoying [what they\u2019re doing]. Through these interactions, I saw how versatile they were, how fabulous they are asdancers<\/span>. It\u2019s a different kind of\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0and I have tremendous respect for what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once her most recently published book,\u00a0Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too<\/em>, is available in the United States, Professor Chakravorty hopes to see forums for writers anddancers<\/span>\u00a0to write about\u00a0dance<\/span>, giving more visibility and accessibility to\u00a0dance<\/span>studies and\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want more people to do\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0research in different venues, so that writing becomes a part of the culture of\u00a0dance<\/span>, to think about\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0not in isolation, that it\u2019s this esoteric world, but that\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0is connected to other things.Dance<\/span>\u00a0is first and foremost culture…so [I want people] to understand how it is part of culture and why it changes, how it is dynamic and cross-cultural, and to make people competent in cross-cultural understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dance<\/span>\u00a0Matters Too: Memories, Markets, Identities<\/em>\u00a0contributes to these forums and will offer insight on the ever-shifting nature of Indian\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0in an increasingly global world, providing its readers with compelling reasons for the continued study and appreciation for a variety of\u00a0dance<\/span>\u00a0forms.<\/p>\n

\n

Marion Kudla ’19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Pallabi Chakravorty of the Swarthmore\u00a0Music\u00a0and\u00a0DanceDepartment has had a busy year. Despite her abrupt sabbatical due to a back injury, Professor Chakravorty has published two books within the past year that she has been working for close to a decade:\u00a0This is How We\u00a0DanceNow! Performance in the Age of Bollywood and Reality Shows, published in October […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7461,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7459\/revisions\/7461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}