Most traditional Indian performance forms are characterised by distinct modes of embodied knowledge that increase in intensity with the degree of systematization present in their performative practices and also problematize the mind-body hierarchies that are inherent to most modern schemes of thought. The instance of Kathakali , the traditional performance form of Kerala, is taken to consider how a repetitive training regimen that inscribes in the young student a comprehensive language and aesthetic of performance is employed to establish a distinctive ‘body mind’ and a ‘body memory’ that almost entirely elide the participation or intervention of the ‘conscious mind’. There is also the inherent expectation that this formal embodied knowledge will come to be informally enriched in performance by a greater awareness of the aesthetic, emotive, thematic and other significant aspects of performance, as the student acquires life experience and matures both as a person and as a practitioner. Underlying this pedagogy is a certain relationship between the teacher and the student, characterised by the exercise of hierarchical npower and violence from one side, and submissive compliance and deference from the other, which is at once both an extension and a recreation in an instructional setting of a set of social relations and certain paradigms of social power, class and patronage that are to do with the time in which the form evolved. The paper also examines the tensions that have developed in these pedagogic practices today in the context of modern institutions and the vastly different modalities of teacher/student subjectivities and relationships.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Laemmli, Whitney E.;
(January 2015)
A Case in Pointe: Romance and Regimentation at the New York City Ballet
(/isis/citation/CBB001550719/)
Book
Paster, Gail Kern;
(2004)
Humoring the Body: Emotions and the Shakespearean Stage
(/isis/citation/CBB000640102/)
Thesis
Owens, Sarah M.;
(2006)
Leechcraft/Stagecraft: Performing Bodies in Late Medieval English Medicine andDrama
(/isis/citation/CBB001560610/)
Book
Kerwin, William;
(2005)
Beyond the Body: The Boundaries of Medicine and English RenaissanceDrama
(/isis/citation/CBB000720434/)
Book
Zylinska, Joanna;
(2002)
The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age
(/isis/citation/CBB000201629/)
Thesis
Votava, Jennie M.;
(2012)
The “Other” Senses: Mediating Mind and Matter on the Early Modern English Stage
(/isis/citation/CBB001562786/)
Book
Hodson, Derek;
(2009)
Teaching and Learning about Science: Language, Theories, Methods, History, Traditions and Values
(/isis/citation/CBB001032757/)
Article
David E. Meltzer;
Valerie K. Otero;
(2015)
A Brief History of Physics Education in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB763880389/)
Book
Barbara Schneider;
Joseph Krajcik;
Jari Lavonen;
Katariina Salmela-Aro;
Margaret J. Geller;
(2020)
Learning Science: The Value of Crafting Engagement in Science Environments
(/isis/citation/CBB848656364/)
Essay Review
Michael R. Matthews;
(2016)
Mario Bunge: A Long and Productive Life
(/isis/citation/CBB944245974/)
Chapter
Alberto Cevolini;
(2016)
Storing Expansions: Openness and Closure in Secondary Memories
(/isis/citation/CBB246313956/)
Book
David Salomoni;
(2023)
La lezione di geografia. Scuola, religione, scienza nell'età delle esplorazioni (1400-1800)
(/isis/citation/CBB248373698/)
Book
Despy-Meyer, Andrée;
(2002)
Institutions and Societies for Teaching, Research and Popularisation: Proceedings of the XXth International Congress of History of Science (Liège, 20-26 July 1997) Vol. XIX
(/isis/citation/CBB685113092/)
Article
Brandon Boesch;
(2018)
Representing in the Student Laboratory
(/isis/citation/CBB947401532/)
Article
Christopher May;
Ryan Wittingslow;
(2018)
Cultivating Standards of Taste: "Aisthesis" in Liberal Arts and Science Pedagogy
(/isis/citation/CBB480712244/)
Article
Norman Henniges;
Andreas Christoph;
(2017)
Schulwandkarten ─ ein herausforderndes Medium für die digitale Erschließung
(/isis/citation/CBB822962953/)
Book
Emily Wakild;
Michelle K. Berry;
(2018)
A Primer for Teaching Environmental History: Ten Design Principles
(/isis/citation/CBB566919463/)
Article
Van Gorp, Angelo;
(2005)
From Special to New Education: The Biological, Psychological, and Sociological Foundations of Ovide Decroly's Educational Work (1871--1932)
(/isis/citation/CBB000740582/)
Article
Zigmunde, Alīda;
(2013)
Baltic Historians of Pedagogy at the International Standing Conference for the History of Education in Geneva
(/isis/citation/CBB001451604/)
Article
Karady, Viktor;
(2014)
Les inégalités ethniques et confessionnelles dans les performances scolaires des bacheliers en Hongrie (1851--1918)
(/isis/citation/CBB001510215/)
Be the first to comment!