Journal articles on the topic 'Kathak (Dance) – India – History'

Modernity, once a prerogative of the West, is now ubiquitous, experienced diversely by people all over the world. The changing notions of modernity are historically linked to the development of the public sphere. This article broadly attempts to map the discourse of modernity to the evolution of Kathak, a premier classical dance from India. The article has two threads running through it. One is the development of the public sphere in India as it relates to anti-colonial nationalism, the formation of the modern nation-state, and globalization. The other focuses on transformations in Kathak as they relate to changing patronage, ideology, and postcolonial history. I emphasize the latter to mark the transitions in Kathak as emblematic of Indian national identity and national ideology to a new era of cultural contestation. This emergent public domain of culture is coined as “public modernity” by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai in contemporary India. It is linked to economic reforms, or “liberalization,” leading to globalization and a resurgence of communal politics. Both of these make culture, tradition, and identity central to the contestation of power among the diverse social formations in India.

India is a country with diverse culture. Indian folks reflect the way of life in India. Bollywood, the name for Indian films had marked its signature in music and dance with the influence of traditional Indian folk. It had begun in the 1940s with the song “Diwali Phir Aa Gayi Sajni” from Khajanchi (1941) and coloured by the later generation of directors. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is one of the grandiose filmmakers in Bollywood who had glorified Indian folk, culture and aesthetics on screen. This paper titled “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam to Padmaavat: An Epitome on Traditional Indian Folk Dance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Movies” is a close study on the folkdances employed in Bhansali’s movies such as Gujarat’s Garba in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Uttar Pradesh’s Kathak in Devdas (2002), Garba in Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ramleela (2013), Maharashtra’s Jugalbandi, Lavani, Kathak in Bajirao Mastani (2015), and Rajasthan’s Ghoomar and Kathak in Padmaavat (2018). Evaluating all these songs trace back its relation and devotion to North Indian cultures which marks the bond between people and the culture of our society.

India is a country with diverse culture. Indian folks reflect the way of life in India. Bollywood, the name for Indian films had marked its signature in music and dance with the influence of traditional Indian folk. It had begun in the 1940s with the song “Diwali Phir Aa Gayi Sajni” from Khajanchi (1941) and coloured by the later generation of directors. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is one of the grandiose filmmakers in Bollywood who had glorified Indian folk, culture and aesthetics on screen. This paper titled “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam to Padmaavat: An Epitome on Traditional Indian Folk Dance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Movies” is a close study on the folkdances employed in Bhansali’s movies such as Gujarat’s Garba in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Uttar Pradesh’s Kathak in Devdas (2002), Garba in Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ramleela (2013), Maharashtra’s Jugalbandi, Lavani, Kathak in Bajirao Mastani (2015), and Rajasthan’s Ghoomar and Kathak in Padmaavat (2018). Evaluating all these songs trace back its relation and devotion to North Indian cultures which marks the bond between people and the culture of our society.

Kathak dance is a prominent classical dance of northern India. Indian dances have seen enormous changes in the past few years, but the fact that remains is not only has there been a change in the movements and “abhinay prakar” or expressions but also light and stage management and the costumes.Kathak performing artists or the “kathakkas” as they were called were actually story tellers and were earlier the messengers of the king. Gradually this art of storytelling changed its track to become India’s most performed classical dance.In 10th century this dance became a way of tribute to the almighty and was popularly performed by the devdasis in various temples. Though they were not openly performed for the devotees at first but only for the idols of the deity. Since the dance was performed in privacy, there was no need of stage and light. It was assumed that the dance was performed to depict ones bhakti or devotion towards the god and for the god’s entertainment hence costume and jewellery were given special weightage. Blunt colours like red or green in fully covered lehenga; choli and dupatta were selected with loads of gold jewellery of all kinds.

Manipur, a small state in the North-Eastern India, is traditionally regarded in the Indian classics and epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata as the home of gandharvas (the celestial dancers). Manipuri is one of the eleven dance styles of India that have incorporated various techniques mentioned in such ancient treatises as the Natya Shastra and Bharatarnava and has been placed by Sangeet Natak Akademi within ‘a common heritage’ of Indian classical dance forms (shastriya nritya): Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Sattriya, Chhau, Gaudiya Nritya, and Thang Ta. In the late-1950s Louise Lightfoot, the ‘Australian mother of Kathakali,’ visited Manipur to study and research different styles of Manipuri dance. There she met Ibetombi Devi, the daughter of a Manipuri Princess; she had started dancing at the age of four and by the age of twelve, she had become the only female dancer to perform the Meitei Pung Cholom on stage––a form of dance traditionally performed by Manipuri men accompanied by the beating of the pung (drum). In 1957, at the age of 20, Ibetombi became the first Manipuri female dancer to travel to Australia. This paper addresses Ibetombi Devi's cross-cultural dance collaboration in Australia with her impresario, Louise Lightfoot, and the impression she and her co-dancer, Ananda Shivaram, made upon audiences.

Indian theatre practice under British colonial rule was marked by differing strategies of resistance: agit-prop drama to promote social and political reform; the preservation of classical dance as cultural heritage; and the continuing practice of folk rituals in rural areas outwith the immediate control of the colonial authorities. Postindependence India, however, has witnessed those ‘deviant’ practices of resistance become the dominant ideological performance practices of modern India. Much actor training continued to be modelled on British drama schools such as RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art); classical dances have survived to incorporate certain aspects of western ballet (for example, group sequences in Kathak); and the folk rituals have come increasingly under the microscope of western cultural tourists. Indian theatre practice, therefore, succumbs to the power of the dollar, as western academics and practitioners, with their financial and technological power, act as legitimizing agents for the global recognition of Asian culture. We are at a time when great currency is being attached to the notion of intercultural rejuvenation of home cultures by acts of productive reception with foreign cultures (a more positive definition of the practice by Erika Fischer-Lichte in direct response to Edward Said's charge of cultural colonialism which he terms orientalism). It is worthwhile taking note of how certain forms of modern Indian theatre are resisting intercultural practices, not by refusal or direct opposition, but by theatrical acts of intra-cultural rejuvenation, without the injection of the foreign culture as a serum.

At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth, lead dancers from different countries became famous and toured internationally. These dancers—and the companies they created—transformed various dance forms into performances fit for the larger world of art music, ballet, and opera circuits. They adapted ballet to the variety-show formats and its audiences. Drawing on shared philosophical ideas—such as those manifest in the works of the Transcendentalists or in the writings of Nietzsche and Wagner—and from movement techniques, such as ballet codes, the Delsarte method, and, later on, Eurythmics (in fashion at the time), these lead dancers created new dance formats, choreographies, and styles, from which many of today’s classical, folk, and ballet schools emerged. In this essay, I look at how Rabindranath Tagore, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Uday Shankar, Leila Roy Sokhey and Rumini Devi Arundale contributed to this translocal dance scene. Indian dance and spirituality, as well as famous Indian dancers, were an integral part of what at the time was known as the international modern dance scene. This transnational scene eventually coalesced into several separate schools, including what today is known as classical and modern Indian dance styles.

This article examines the intertwined discourses and debates of classicism, linguistic regionalism, caste, and gender in the case of South Indian dance. By focusing on the dance form, Kuchipudi, from Andhra Pradesh, the first administrative region in India formed on the basis of language, this study exposes the important connections between identity politics and the creation of cultural icons, such as classical dance. This study deconstructs the paradox of Kuchipudi's classicization, as it has become historicized as a symbol of masculine, Brahminical, Telugu culture, on the one hand, and the projects of Indian modernity, which center on the iconicization of the female dancer, on the other.Through archival, discursive, and ethnographic analysis, this article examines how the construction of classicism in Kuchipudi dance creates and supports hegemonic versions of Telugu history. This focus extends previous studies of Indian classical dance by sustaining questions about the reification of the Kuchipudi dancing body, the implications that this has regarding the fate of hereditary courtesan dancers, and the discursive strategies that allow Brahmin male history and female dance practice to coalesce.

BACKGROUND: Bharatanatyam is an Indian classical dance form that is practiced globally. There is limited information about the prevalence of injuries in Bharatanatyam dancers. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries and specifics of dance training in female Bharatanatyam dancers in the Udupi district of India. METHODS: We developed and tested a survey for Bharatanatyam dancers regarding injury history in the prior year, including location, time loss, cause, and need for medical help. We also obtained demographic and training information. RESULTS: 101 dancers completed the survey. 10.8% of dancers reported musculoskeletal injuries because of participation in dance. They sustained 0.65 injuries/1,000 hours of dancing. The most frequently injured areas were ankle (27.2%) and knee (27.2%) followed by lower back (13.6%) and hip (9%). Despite being injured, 36.4% of the dancers continued to dance. 54.5% of the injured dancers sought the help of a medical professional for their dance-related injuries. The most common surface for dance was concrete followed by other hard surfaces such as marble and tile. CONCLUSION: Female Bharatanatyam dancers are prone to injuries of the lower extremity and back. Most dancers in our study practice the Pandanalluru style on hard surfaces. There is a need to investigate the impact of training factors on the injury occurrence.

Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form derived from ancient dance styles, which is now seen as representative of Indian culture. In India, it is the most popular classical dance form exerting a great impact not only on the field of dance itself, but also on other art forms, like sculpture or painting. The Indian-American diaspora practices it both in an attempt to preserve its culture and as an assertion of its cultural identity. Dance is an art form that relates to sequences of body movements that are simultaneously aesthetic and symbolic, and rooted in specific cultures. It often tells a story. Different cultures observe different norms and standards by which dances should be performed (as well as by whom they should be performed and on what occasions). At the same time, dance and dancers influence (and are influenced by) different cultures as a result of transcultural interactions. Priya Srinivasan’s Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor is a particularly valuable source wherein its author critically examines a variety of Indian dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam, tracing the history of dance as well as the lived experience of dancers across time, class, gender, and culture. With the help of this text, selected journal articles, and interviews with Bharatanatyam dancers in India and the US, I explore larger issues of gender, identity, culture, race, region, nation, and power dynamics inherent in the practice of Bharatanatyam, focusing on how these practices influence and, in turn, are influenced by transnational and translocal connections.

Abstract The Karnataka African Indians (Siddis, Habshis and Cafrees), drawing on both Indian performing arts and their African heritage, use dance and street theatre for political action, entertainment, social critique and self-expression. This paper focuses on Siddi dance and theatre in Uttara Kannada (North Karnataka), South India. Karnataka Siddis number about twenty thousand (Prasad, 2005). Using dramatic aesthetics, performers portray farming, hunting, child labour, violence against women and domestic work motifs to articulate Siddi grundnorms (foundational norms). I address how some Siddi dances and street theatre parallel and yet may differ from other performing arts in South India. Further, the paper complicates the current discourse on how diasporic African communities use the performing arts. My paper goes beyond the Atlantic Diaspora model. It examines ways in which Siddis of South Asia use their dance and theatre to express multiple domains of cultural art forms alongside the everyday use of such performances including a counter-hegemonic stance.

Despite the creation of the Kalbeliya (Kālbeliyā) dance form in the 1980s, it was recognized as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage in 2010. Rajasthani “Gypsy” performances, featuring a dance designed by the nomadic Kalbeliya community, have quickly become popular among tourists in India as well as on Western world music stages. The state of Rajasthan, where the Kalbeliyas hail from, is celebrated as “India’s heritage state” by the Indian government as it seeks to promote tourism and the international dissemination of Indian culture through performances and festivals. In this paper, I sketch the history of the Kalbeliya dance form from its origins in the 1980s through to the UNESCO nomination in 2010. Moreover, I discuss the effects of its recognition as a world heritage dance tradition. The official approval of the Kalbeliya dance form as a heritage activity further highlights the challenges to UNESCO’s candidate selection process. This paper aims to explain the reasons for the nomination of the Kalbeliya dance form (how and why UNESCO was persuaded to recognize it as a suitable candidate) by connecting this to the continued processes of nationalism and romanticism, the economic strategies adopted by the cultural tourism industry and the commodification and commercialization of Indian folk arts.

Culture is the identity of any country, region, region, village city. India is a country steeped in cultural prosperity. Culture has many elements. Among those elements, dance and music are the most powerful elements. India is the only country where the scriptures were composed for dance music. In the scriptures rules were made for music and dance drama etc. The dance music which came under these classical rules got the name of classical dance and music.There are seven classical dance styles in India. If we look at the history of each, then we will see that many changes were made in the ancient and present form of each to make the dance more visible. These new experiments were done in her dance distinctions, in her performance, in her music, in her costumes. संस्कृति किसी भी देश प्रदेश, अंचल, गाँव शहर की पहचान होती है। भारत सांस्कृतिक समृद्धि से ओतप्रोत एक देश है। संस्कृति के निर्माता कई तत्व होते हंै। उन तत्वों में नृत्य व संगीत सबसे सशक्त तत्व होते हैं। भारत एकमात्र ऐसा देश है जहाॅं पर नृत्य संगीत के लिए शास्त्रों की रचना की गई। शास्त्रों में संगीत व नृत्य नाट्य आदि के लिए नियम बनाए गए । इन शास्त्रीय नियमों के अन्तर्गत आने वाले नृत्य संगीत को शास्त्रीय नृत्य व संगीत की संज्ञा प्राप्त हुई।भारत में सात शास्त्रीय नृत्य शैलियाँ हैं। अगर प्रत्येक के इतिहास पर दृष्टि डाली जाए तो हमें दृष्टिगोचर होगा कि प्रत्येक के प्राचीन एवं वर्तमान स्वरूप में कई परिवर्तन हुए नृत्य को और दर्शनीय बनाने के लिए कई नवीन प्रयोग किए गए। यह नवीन प्रयोग उसके नर्तन भेदों में, उसके प्रदर्शन क्रम में, उसके संगीत में, उसकी वेशभूषा में किए गए।

Hey Ananta Punya, a dance-drama adapted and choreographed by the Bangladeshi choreographer Warda Rihab was performed in Kolkata, India, in December 2009. Rihab plays the main character Srimoti, a dancer at the court of King Ajatashatru. Srimoti embraces Buddhism but is not allowed to practice since Ajatashatru decrees Hinduism to be the state religion. In the narrative, Hinduism, the predominant religion of India, represses Buddhism, which is a minority religion in the subcontinent. Even though on the surface the dance-drama deals with Hinduism and Buddhism, the performance is complicated by the knowledge that the choreographer and most of the performers are Bangladeshi Muslims. In the context of Hindu-Muslim conflicts and India's political and economic hegemony in South Asia, the performance can be considered as a critique of India's policies. In considering the choreographer's background and the dance-drama's narrative, aesthetics, and location of performance, I analyze the various structures of power that a Bangladeshi female choreographer operates within during her training and performance in India. Hey Ananta Punya is significant because it points to the complex web of issues involving politics, history, and religion that have been a part of dance in Bangladesh for the past few decades because of India's influence in the field, particularly through Indian-government scholarships for advanced dance training. In the paper, I use Michel Foucault's theory of power as systems of interrelated networks and knowledge as a system of power to show how dance as a form of embodied knowledge can function as a tool in shaping, disseminating, and expressing ideology.

Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form derived from ancient dance styles, which is now seen as representative of Indian culture. In India, it is the most popular classical dance form exerting a great impact not only on the field of dance itself, but also on other art forms, like sculpture or painting. The Indian-American diaspora practices it both in an attempt to preserve its culture and as an assertion of its cultural identity. Dance is an art form that relates to sequences of body movements that are simultaneously aesthetic and symbolic, and rooted in specific cultures. It often tells a story. Different cultures observe different norms and standards by which dances should be performed (as well as by whom they should be performed and on what occasions). At the same time, dance and dancers influence (and are influenced by) different cultures as a result of transcultural interactions. Priya Srinivasan’s Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor is a particularly valuable source wherein its author critically examines a variety of Indian dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam, tracing the history of dance as well as the lived experience of dancers across time, class, gender, and culture. With the help of this text, selected journal articles, and interviews with Bharatanatyam dancers in India and the US, I explore larger issues of gender, identity, culture, race, region, nation, and power dynamics inherent in the practice of Bharatanatyam, focusing on how these practices influence and, in turn, are influenced by transnational and translocal connections.

One of the most beautiful-classical forms of dance which has persisted since 220 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) came from the Egyptian culture with its traditional ‘bedlah’ (suit‎) or suit. But it grew from the off-spring of the Arab Empire (Islamic expansions, 632-1492) and then spread towards India.1 It has been said or noted that from this dance style evolved the traditional patterns used by the Indian women with their saris, to the Romani (Gypsy) women while dancing flamenco in the medieval period, and the later burlesque techniques which flourished in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Belly dance didn’t only influence these latter cultures, but it further influenced in the ways of dress and fashion for females. A dance taken from humble origins and converted into something for the international spectrum to glorify the body of women who wished to be in contact with Mother Earth/Nature. This dance wasn’t only for a female’s rite of passage. It was modified through different times in history to be danced in the courts of the Imperial Palaces across the Middle East. Through time, even used by the infamous Mata Hari to spy on men and used to get information during World War I. Belly dance grew, and with time became part of the line-up of classical dances. Because it is one of the oldest and most enjoyed worldwide. With this paper, I intend to demonstrate that belly dancing isn’t only to entice. It is more than that, it can be adapted to a woman’s anatomy and give her way into womanhood.

AbstractThis article is based on interviews made with gurus and dancers in Orissa, East India. The Odissi, a “classical” dance which stands at the centre of attention here, is a mixture of centuries-old traditions and relatively new influences, or even “inventions“. By discussing the dance′s history, its aesthetic qualities and, most importantly, the emic points of view of contemporary practitioners of the dance, it is shown that today′s Odissi is based on ideas and practices that stem as much from old Sanskrit writings and late-medieval temple practices as they do from the contemporary realms of popular Hinduism and tribal religion and art. For its practitioners, the dance represents a form of devotion to Jagannath, and Odisssi is thus understood as a “spiritual dance” through which a relationship between the god and his adherents is established or performed. While the attitude exhibited by dancers and audience alike is one of spirituality and bhakti, this spirituality and loving surrender can only be achieved through the bodily practice of the dance, which turns the presence of the deity into a somatic experience in which all the bodily senses are involved.

This paper studies the history of dance education in Manipur and social value, psychomotor domain, and creative development of students at the school curriculum in Manipur (India). Dance education plays an essential role in molding a person into a perfect human being with good health and behaviour in society. It also furnishes the essential elements humans need to live in our society other than imparting knowledge and skills. In overall development, Manipuri dance plays the most crucial role in the school curriculum. The descriptive research method used in this study revealed the importance and the role of dance education for the four upper primary school students, i.e., class VI to class VIII of Imphal West District and Imphal East District, where dance class had been adopted as one of the subjects in these schools. The 915 students have been taken from the following four schools: Kendriya Vidyalaya-Lamphelpat, Tolchou Ibeton Memorial Academy-Hiyangthang, Rajkumari Sanatombi Devi Vidyalaya-Haotal Pangei, and SL Arena of Learning-Khurai Khaidem Leikai. The researcher collected 70% of students’ respondents, of which 287 are males and 343 are females out of 630 students. Finally, the investigator has found that the social value of students is significantly improving due to dance education. Dance education helped in realizing one’s own potential for self-enhancement, confidence, problem-solving, and creativity among the students. Moreover, it also developed and enhanced the psychomotor domain and the students’ creativity to a certain extent. Thus, dance education should be made compulsory as a curriculum subject at all levels of schools.

The world in which we live is crisscrossed by multiple flows of people, information, non-human life, travel circuits and goods. At least since the Sixteenth Century, the Americas have received and generated new social, cultural and product trends. As we see through the case studies presented here, modern literature and dance, the industrialization of food and the race to space cannot be historicized without considering the role the Americas, and particularly the United States, have played in all of them. We also see, at the same time, how these flows of thought, art, science and products emerged from sources outside the Americas to then take root in and beyond the United States. The authors in this special volume are devising conceptual tools to analyze this multiplicity across continents and also at the level of particular nations and localities. Concepts such as cosmopolitanism, translocality and astronoetics are brought to shed light on these complex crossings, giving us new ways to look at the intricacy of these distance-crossing flows. India, perhaps surprisingly, emerges as an important cultural interlocutor, beginning with the idealized, imagined versions of Indian spirituality that fueled the romanticism of the New England Transcendentalists, to the importance of Indian dance pioneers in the world stage during the first part of the twentieth century and the current importance of India as a player in the race to space.

Many studies assume that dance develops as a bearer of tradition through iconic continuity (Downey 2005; Hahn 2007; Meduri 1996, 2004; Srinivasan 2007, 2011, Zarrilli 2000). In some such studies, lapses in Iconic continuity are highlighted to demonstrate how “tradition” is “constructed”, lacking substantive historical character or continuity (Meduri 1996; Srinivasan 2007, 2012). In the case of Mohiniyattam – a classical dance of Kerala, India – understanding the form’s tradition as built on Iconic transfers of semiotic content does not account for the overarching trajectory of the forms’ history. Iconic replication of the form as it passed from teacher to student was largely absent in its recreation in the early 20th century. Simply, there were very few dancers available to teach the older practice to new dancers in the 1960s. And yet, Mohiniyattam dance is certainly considered to be a “traditional” style to its practitioners. Throughout this paper I argue that the use of Peircean categories to understand the semiotic processes of Mohiniyattam’s reinvention in the 20th century allows us to reconsider tradition as a matter of Iconic continuity. In particular, an examination of transfers of repertoire in the early 20th century demonstrates that the “traditional” and “authentic” character of this dance style resides in semeiotic processes beyond Iconic reiteration; specifically, the “traditional” character of Mohiniyattam is Indexical and Symbolic in nature.

"India inherits a rich culture and heritage with vivid art forms such as music, dance, architecture, sculpture and painting. It is found from the history in India more than sixty-four forms of art have been identified and nurtured till date. Indian music has greater precedence in the world. Music in primitive days marked their beginning with natural language and sound. Music was considered a means for communicating the feelings and emotions. Thus, the natural way of expressing the music gave rise to folklore which imitated the daily activities through songs sung naturally in native language without support of any specific instruments. India being a county with diversified culture and language has more than 100 local languages for which many does not have scripts. Here an attempt is made to bring few such instances of folk songs describing various instances of daily life in the southern India (Karnataka). Kannada being the communicating language has various variants local to the region of living."

India’s Soft Power which is part of Smart Diplomacy or cultural diplomacy in India. India’s soft power diplomacy can be traced back to the time when Swami Vivekananda visited Chicago Parliament of Religion and spoke about Hinduism and India, which attracted many Indians and Foreigners who visited India and learnt about the Indian culture and the Sanskrit, his book on Raja Yoga influenced Western countries to practice Yoga who came to India and visited asharams, India’s main soft powers include spiritualism, yoga, Ayurveda, the world is shifting towards organic method of treatment which has its trace in India. There is culture exchange of arts, music, dance. Indian Diaspora and Young youth are the weapons for the spread of Indian culture across the globe, People are interested in Indian culture and epics of Ramayana and Mahabharat and studying on Kautliya. India literature and craft have received international recognition, countries abroad have included Sanskrit as part of their educational curriculum. India has also emerged has an export of herbs medicine to many foreign countries like Middle East, Europe, Africa etc. and this soft power of India will help in creating a massive influence across the world but before that Indian should have ample knowledge about their own history and culture and languages.

Punjab, one of the diverse states of India, is known for its composite culture, impeccable hospitality, delish food and incredible history; having been the site of great partition, it is also replete with the stories of loss, suffering and resilience. While Punjab can be seen and comprehended through various vantage points, the current paper proposes and focuses on the proposition that ‘Punjabiyat’- the essence and way of being a Punjabi, is reflected specifically through its attire-folk embroidery (Fulkaari and Baag), Folk-Dance and Music Art forms (Sammi and Jaago) and the focal point of hospitality (Saada Pind). Phulkari, literally translated as flower shape, is a folk-art embroidery that originated in 15th c by rural women in Punjab, and is popularly arranged on Dupattas135. “Many Punjabi women used phulkari (literally, “flower-work”) embroidery to decorate their daily garments and handmade gifts in the nineteenth century. Illustrations only partially convey the vibrant visual impact of phulkaris, and even color photographs fail to capture fully the sheen of the silk thread. The embroidery ranges from striking geometric medallions in reds, shocking pinks, and maroons, through almost monochromatic golden tapestry-like, fabriccovering designs, to narrative embroideries depicting people and objects of rural Punjab”.136 Initially intended to be given away to daughters in marriage and holding a strong emotional value, the use of Fulkaari has widened and transitioned in the recent past. This study asserts that it can now also be seen as a cultural symbol and an artefact, to convey the bright and cheerful attitude of Punjabis and their general happy disposition towards lifeCarpe Diem. Similarly, the folk-dance art form of Sammi- a dance performed originally by tribal women of Punjab, represents the true culture and spirit of Punjabiyat- the friendship, longing, celebration of love and a sense of optimism for life. While Bhangra and Giddha folk dance art forms have gained wide popularity; folk dance art forms like Sammi and Jaago too need representation and space in academic and historical discourse. This paper also intends to trace these two relatively lost dance art forms as signifying essentiality of ‘Punjabiyat’. Further ‘Saada Pind’- roughly translated as ‘my village’; conveys a sense of oneness, camaraderie, raw emotion and a place in time-space continuum where each stranger is welcomed with ‘Ji Aaayan Nu’137. This study would establish how ‘Punjabiyat’; and consequentially ‘Indian’ cultural art forms can be a possibility of re-looking at the lost values of friendship, camaraderie, connection with the outside real world rather than a disparate and robotic connect with the monotonous clicks on our smart devices.

AbstractThe mando is a secular song-and-dance genre of Goa whose archival attestations began in the 1860s. It is still danced today, in staged rather than social settings. Its lyrics are in Konkani, their musical accompaniment combine European and local instruments, and its dancing follows the principles of the nineteenth-century European group dances known as quadrilles, which proliferated in extra-European settings to yield various creolized forms. Using theories of creolization, archival and field research in Goa, and an understanding of quadrille dancing as a social and memorial act, this article presents the mando as a peninsular, Indic, creolized quadrille. It thus offers the first systematic examination of the mando as a nineteenth-century social dance created through processes of creolization that linked the cultural worlds of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans—a manifestation of what early twentieth-century Goan composer Carlos Eugénio Ferreira called a ‘rapsodia Ibero-Indiana’ (‘Ibero-Indian rhapsody’). I investigate the mando's kinetic, performative, musical, and linguistic aspects, its emergence from a creolization of mentalités that commenced with the advent of Christianity in Goa, its relationship to other dances in Goa and across the Indian and Atlantic Ocean worlds, as well as the memory of inter-imperial cultural encounters it performs. I thereby argue for a new understanding of Goa through the processes of transoceanic creolization and their reverberation in the postcolonial present. While demonstrating the heuristic benefit of theories of creolization to the study of peninsular Indic culture, I bring those theories to peninsular India to develop further their standard applications.

Examines the contemporary lexical component of the English/Creole of Trinidad (TEC) that is derived from languages of India. Author focuses on the TEC as spoken among Indo-Trinidadians, but also pays attention to Indic words used in the TEC of Afro-Trinidadians and other groups. Author sketches the history of Indian immigration into Trinidad, explaining how most came from the Bihar province in northern India and spoke Bhojpuri, rather than (closely related) Hindi, and how in the 20th c. Indian languages were replaced by English with education. She further focuses on retained Indic words incorporated in current-day TEC, and found 1844 of such words in usage. She discusses words misassigned locally as Indian-derived, but actually from other (European or African) languages. Then, she describes most of the Indo-TEC lexicon, categorizing items by their semantic-cultural domain, with major domains for Indian-derived words: religious practice, music, dance and stickfighting, food preparation, agriculture, kinship, and behaviour or appearance. Further, the author discusses to what degree Indic words have been mainstreamed within the non-Indian population of Trinidad, sometimes via standard English, sometimes directly assimilated into TEC, and made salient through the press or street food selling.

Examines the contemporary lexical component of the English/Creole of Trinidad (TEC) that is derived from languages of India. Author focuses on the TEC as spoken among Indo-Trinidadians, but also pays attention to Indic words used in the TEC of Afro-Trinidadians and other groups. Author sketches the history of Indian immigration into Trinidad, explaining how most came from the Bihar province in northern India and spoke Bhojpuri, rather than (closely related) Hindi, and how in the 20th c. Indian languages were replaced by English with education. She further focuses on retained Indic words incorporated in current-day TEC, and found 1844 of such words in usage. She discusses words misassigned locally as Indian-derived, but actually from other (European or African) languages. Then, she describes most of the Indo-TEC lexicon, categorizing items by their semantic-cultural domain, with major domains for Indian-derived words: religious practice, music, dance and stickfighting, food preparation, agriculture, kinship, and behaviour or appearance. Further, the author discusses to what degree Indic words have been mainstreamed within the non-Indian population of Trinidad, sometimes via standard English, sometimes directly assimilated into TEC, and made salient through the press or street food selling.

The Kerala state in India offers a huge assemblage of various percussion eccentricities. Each percussion instrument sustains and preserves its own attributes: some drums accompany visual arts, others create a vibrant world of percussion music, and a few maintain both attributes. Almost all instruments are related to ceremonial pursuance and worship customs. Mizhavu is a single-headed drum from Kerala that employs these kinds of ceremonial pursuance. The purpose of the instrument, which had also been used in temples in Tamil Nadu, is to accompany the Kūṭiyāṭṭam and Kuttu performances in the great temples (mahakshetras) for the pleasure of God’s souls and the invocation of their powers. Kūṭiyāṭṭam and Kuttu – Kerala’s Sanskrit drama performing art forms – have been recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage due to 2000 years of tradition. As ‘visual sacrifice’ staging scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, they combine dance with theatre performance, Sanskrit verses (slokas), and percussive music in a ritualistic context. The main supporting percussion instrument (mizhavu) serves as deva vādyam – an instrument for the deities. Its classification as a one-headed drum covered with skin (avanaddha vadya of the dardura type) goes back to the Natya Shastra of Bharatamuni – some 2000 years ago. Definitions as kettledrum (bhanda vadya) trace it back to Kautilya’s Arthasastra. The Buddhist Pali Tripitaka refers to pot drums (kumba toonak). Tamil epics mention a muzha or kuta muzha drum. Publications in recent decades nearly mention that drum. Production methods, forms, and material of the drum have changed over the ages. Attached to the artistic heritage of a certain Brahmin caste – the Nampyar – the drum has spent a long period in the environment of temple theatres. Since 1966, it has been taught to pupils of all castes at the Kerala Kalamandalam, Thrissur District. P.K.K. Nambiar worked as the first mizhavu teacher in the later added Kūṭiyāṭṭam department. He was followed by his pupil K. Eswaranunni, the first mizhavu guru from another caste, fighting for acceptance among members of Chakyar and Nampyar families. As a passionate master with numerous awards and performance experience all over the world, K. Eswaranunni has trained most of the contemporary mizhavu percussionists, who are still performing all over India as well as abroad. This paper gives an overview of the instrument and shows how the mizhavu is described by both gurus in their books written in Malayalam and by both authors including their personal relations to the drum.

Filariasis of the breast is a very rare condition. In India, largest number (around 600 million) of people live in endemic areas. Despite the huge number, it is quite rare to find microfilaria in routine smears and body fluids and it is even more rare to find it in breasts. A 40 years old female, presented with a history of lump in the right breast approximately 3x3 cm in size in the right lower quadrant. Findings were confirmed by clinical examination which did not reveal any palpable ipsilateral or contralateral axillary lymph nodes. FNAC showed it as a benign lesion. After local excision, histopathology revealed a filarial worm. Filariasis of the breast is a rare disease. The presence of microfilaria in breasts using FNAC has been reported at times but the presence of the filarial worms can only be confirmed on histopathology, hence a core biopsy or an excision biopsy is a must in all the cases. A presumptive diagnosis of filariasis can be made on sonography if the worms are alive and active, the typical presentation on USG is the filarial dance. Surgical excision of the lump followed by DEC therapy is the treatment of choice for filarial lump of the breast.

Music is an art that is loved by all the people of the world. Music is seen as the key factor in uniting all living beings in the world with God. There are many different types of music found all over the world. Among them, Carnatic music is found as a branch of Indian music genres. Carnatic music is seen as a music genre that mainly represents South India and is loved by many people worldwide. Our hymn is joyful. Music consists of three sections, namely: songs; instrumental music; and the mode of dancing. "Geetham" means vocal music, "Vaathiyam" means instrumental music, and "Niruthiyam" means dance. Carnatic music concerts are organised as vocal music and instrumental music concerts. The mridangam is the most important rhythmic and pitching instrument in Carnatic music concerts. The mridangam, the primary percussion instrument, is also the main instrument used in Carnatic music concerts to keep all the songs in a rhythmic pattern. In this research paper, the importance of the mridangam in Carnatic music concerts has been examined by presenting various matters. In that way, apart from the introduction and summary of the research paper, the introduction to the Carnatic music concert, the history of the mridangam instrument, and the uniqueness of the mridangam in Carnatic music concerts have been examined in this study.

This paper has developed over a span of four years since I first visited Ziro valley in 2017, guided by reflections and insights that I came upon while revisiting the field in recent years in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. The dree ritual was historically an individual household ritual for Apatani people who owned cultivable land for better crops and good harvest before 1967. However, presently Dree is celebrated in a common ground and all villages come together to celebrate it. Through this ethnomusicological study with active fieldwork participation, archiving and tools borrowed from historical ethnomusicology, I have attempted at studying the gradual shift of ritual space within the Apatani community leading to an emerging performing space which is able to accommodate and nurture the diverse range of cultural practices of miji-migung (oral tradition) traditions, traditional dance forms, story-telling and other friendly sports for recreation within the celebration of an egalitarian Dree festival. Diary entries from C.V.F Haimendorf ’s field notes on “Drii”2 helped me to conceptualize further the drastic change in the structure and historical location of the Dree ritual and the specific role played by the Nyibu (ritual specialist and performer of miji) within the Apatani community. Dree festival among the patanis has projected a history where the feeling of nationalism and identity in post-independent India is being not only practised but also been creating a new emerging performance space and soundscapes among the Apatani people of Arunachal Pradesh, which could be better conceptualized as a process of glocalization and inter-community sustainability.

Background : Indian classical dance has since long been practised in India. Kathak and Bharatnatyam are two of the commonest dance forms in India which involve taping of the feet. Impact forces produced during dancing may cause biomechanical change in the feet which in turn cause injury to various ligaments, tendons and fascia affecting balance and intricate movements of the feet. Method : Foot evaluation of 44 Kathak Dancers, 44 Bharatnatyam Dancers and 44 Non Dancers in the age group of 15-25 years was done using Foot Posture Index – 6 Scale and the Groups Were Compared using Non Parametric ANOVA Test . Conclusion: There was no significant difference in foot of Kathak and Bharatnatyam Dancers .However Foot of Dancers deviated from that of Non Dancers.

This paper is a study of the progress of Kathak from the erstwhile courtesan culture to the contemporary classroom, structured practice. It aims to highlight the works of contributors like Nirmala Joshi and Sumitra Charat Ram as the pioneers of institutional Kathak that completely divorced its cultural past in the Mughal courts. Amidst all this cleansisng of Kathak history, Madame Menaka, one of the first female Kathak dancers to perform on the proscenium stage and to legitimise her presence by her association with insitutions of Kathak stands out. Madame Menaka truly deserves more attention in dance history and this paper aims to celebrate her life and works in Kathak. These artists and art entrepreneurs have never come together on the same platform for their contributions in the field of art and culture as they do in this paper. Their works lie scattered in biographies and articles that perform a discrete study on each of them. This paper is therefore an attempt to draw a linear development of Kathak through the works of female art contributors.

Among the new Classical dance and dance dramas like Bharatanatyam, Lavni, Bihu, Kathak, Kuchipuri, Kathakali, Odissi and few more Chhau the Wonderful mask dance of Eastern India are Completely Unique in Various point of View. In this paper I have discussed the Origin, Development, Types of Chhau Dance and the basic differences between Mayurbhanja chhau, Sareikala Chhau and Purulia Chhau.

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA, GOA 2005 At the inaugural function of International Film Festival of India 2005, on 24 November, there were some more high points and some lessons to be learnt. On the dark side were the disappointing audio-visual, the technical problems with digital sound, wrong cues and the length of the show itself. Sound played havoc for nearly half an hour, crackling and going silent in turns. Choice of the items and costumes ranged from the kathak dance, Mughal period style, to Bollywood item numbers of the 21st century, to a rap-kathak fusion! On the bright side, octogenarian actor-director-producer Dev Anand, known for his now jaded romantic on-screen escapades with actresses one-fourth his age, gave a compact speech, without the stylised diction he is known for. It was not easy getting a seat at the screenings held at the INOX multiplex cinemas, especially built at the...

Abstract The devadasi community of south India are originators of a popular dance form called bharatanatyam. This paper explores several dimensions of this community including legal and social angles. A misjudged and misunderstood community, the modern-day devadasi’s circumstances can be described as fraught with social disabilities ranging from a lack of economic opportunities and the resultant poverty to an increased propensity for delinquency. The paper presents an unbiased view of the history of the devadasi system that attempts to use a varied range of sources so as to paint a clear narrative. The paper proposes a mechanism to move forward through truth commissions as a form of restorative justice that is likely to help both policymakers as well as artists.

Game development and production practices are complex and highly reflected processes—worldwide. This explorative article discusses video game development as a cultural and creative industry in India, including the industry’s history and introducing recent trends which indicate profound transformations—the use and implementation of Indian cultural heritage in game settings. In the rather short history of Indian game development as compared to other countries—a significant number of games made in India first were produced around 2010—the industry has already lived through big changes and challenges. This article aims at introducing Indian game development and argues that especially independent (so-called indie) game studios in their search for their own, region-specific game development and stand-alone characteristics for Indian games increasingly turn to what they perceive as their own cultural heritage, including, for example, elements from history, art (music, dance, dress styles, and others), and architecture.

On the morning of June 23, 1985, Flight 182, en route from Toronto to Bombay, India disappeared from all radar screens and subsequently was lost to a mid-air explosion over the Atlantic Ocean, 100 miles from the southwest coast of Ireland. It was the largest aviation disaster in Canada’s history. Of the 329 passengers aboard the flight, 156 were Canadian, three of whom were Canadian choreographer Lata Pada’s husband and two daughters. This essay is an account of Pada’s artistic process in the creation of Revealed By Fire, a bharatanatyam performance choreographed by Pada for her dance company Sampradaya Dance Creations. Set in a theatrical interface between Pada’s present and the dream-like life of her past prior to the crash, Revealed evokes the darkness and destruction that followed on the heels of this event, as well as her tumultuous journey of self-discovery in the process of the dance’s making.

One of the most controversial discussions in the contemporary Indian arts environment remains the connection of the post-colonial classical dance practice with the DevadƗsƯ or the MaharƯ, the temple dancing girls. Born in the Early Medieval India, amidst and in close connection to the Bhakti and the Tantric movements, abiding in the temple institution, the so-called ‘DevadƗsƯ temple system’ remains a mystery, between awe and fascination to the nowadays practitioner and connaisseur of Indian arts. While tracing back the socio-religious contexts that brought the temple dancers on the foremost place of the stage of Indian art history, the author looks for the understanding of this myth in the imaginary and the reality of contemporary practitioners, from the perspective of a foreigner researcher-cum-practitioner of an Indian art form. The paper is based on consulting the existing literary sources concerning the DevadƗsƯ system, and the research is focusing on the nowadays classical dance practitioners’ imaginary (re)construction(s) of this system. Till today, here she stands, the woman-as-dance practitioner, either Indian or from any other part of the world, at the cross-road of all myths, imaginarily rooted in the past, but living all the aspirations of the nowadays social, cultural, religious, political dynamics, neither celestial maiden, nor sacred prostitute.

The development of the Hindi/Urdu cinema is intimately connected to the history of artistic performance in India in two important ways. Not only did hereditary music and dance practitioners play key roles in building this cinema, representations of these performers and their practices have been, and continue to be, the subject of Indian film narratives, genres, and tropes. I begin with this history in order to explore the Muslim religio-cultural and artistic inheritance that informs Hindi/Urdu cinema, as well as examine how this heritage has been incorporated into the cinematic narratives that help construct distinct gendered, religious, and national identities. My specific focus is on the figure of the tawa’if dancer, often equated with North Indian culture and nautch dance performance. Analyzing the ways in which traces of the tawa’if appear in two recent films, Dedh Ishqiya and Begum Jaan, I show how this figure is placed in a larger representational regime that sustains nationalist formations of contemporary Indian identity. As I demonstrate, even in the most blatant attempts to define the Indian nation as “Hindu,” the “Muslimness” of the tawa’if—and by extension the cinema she informed in ways both real and representational—is far from relinquished.

India is very rich with the variety of aboriginal tribes . The tribals have a very rich socio-cultural history. They have enriched the Indian arts and crafts with their innovations and creativity .Their arts and crafts have the speciality of being eco- friendly and using the local natural resources .The art and crafts of the tribals cause no harm to nature and environment .The tribal people are basically the worshippers of nature and so their music, dance, folk, literature arts, crafts, painting are harmonious with nature. The tribals have very brilliantly used there crafts for their livelihood. But widespread modernization has posed same challenges before the tribals regarding the very sustainability of their arts and crafts. As deforestation increased highly in the Satpura mountain the tribal people are facing the decline of their handicrafts .As the tribal people are greatly affected by the displacement caused by Sardar Sarovar in Nandurbar district.

The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). 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