The quest of finding the self in the Bedhaya: Unravelling the psychological significance of the Javanese sacred dance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110474
Author(s):  
Satwika Rahapsari
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Court Dance ◽  
Psychological Significance ◽  
Embodied Wisdom ◽  
Psychological Capacities ◽  
Sacred Dance ◽  
Higher Consciousness

The Bedhaya is the avant-garde of Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Java, Indonesia) court dance. This classical dance replete with Javanese symbols, spirituality and cultural values embedded in its aesthetic elements. Furthermore, the Bedhaya was created not for entertainment but rather as a meditative medium that would allow individuals to gain wisdom and higher consciousness. These noble characteristics of the dance suggest that the Bedhaya has psychological purposes for the performers and the spectators. We may gain insight into the process of attaining mental growth through studying the embodied wisdom and aesthetic ideal of the Bedhaya, which reflects the development of the human’s psyche. Therefore, the author proposes an interpretation of Bedhaya’s underlying symbolism, aesthetic experience, and potential as means of psychological growth. The paper’s primary argument is delivered by studying a set of theoretical ideas that present Bedhaya as a distinguished aesthetic with psychological capacities. Further, art as an embodiment of cultural wisdom and ethics is also discussed by connecting Bedhaya and other artistic forms drawn from varied cultures.

scholarly journals Critiques on the Ideologies of Contemporary Bedhayan Dances

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-114
Author(s):  
Sawitri Sawitri ◽  
Bani Sudardi ◽  
Wakit Abdullah ◽  
Nyoman Chaya
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Life Orientation ◽  
Court Dance ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
The Relationship

This present paper provides a descriptive analysis toward a traditional court dance called Bedhaya, one of the cultural products of the Javanese community in Surakarta which evolved into its modern version Bedhayan due to the flow of global culture. By applying the theories of hermeneutics, ideology, aesthetics and Semiotics, the data are inferred according to the purposed questions. The inquiry is directed to infer the factors encompassing Bedhaya dance such as its emergence and the development, relationship with the existence and its role in the society, the relationship with systems within the society or with various interests. The results as inferred from the data obtained views in looking at the development on the classical dance of Bedhaya into Bedhayan left worthy of critical assessments. The reality of Bedhayan dance in the view of art as an ideology, from the outside, appears that the choreograhers/artists can freely express their creative ideas in the context of the fight agains the classical culture which is strongly enacted by the myths and power of the rulling king. However, it should be noted that Bedhayan dance artists which have managed to bring the classical bedhaya dance out of the walls of the Kraton also in essence always work in the confines of the iron curtain of a creativity called ideology. Whether consciously or not, being forced or sincere in living it, these choreographers actually fall into the life orientation which solely concerns the fulfillment of material needs.

scholarly journals Art as a Critique of Language: On the Continuity of the Tradition of the Avant-Garde Aesthetic in the Modern and the Postmodern

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-303
Author(s):  
Susanne Kogler
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
New Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Language Of Music ◽  
The One

That art functions as a corrective to rational-scientific insights is one of the formative thoughts of art philosophy. The fact that artistic expression represents a corrective to linguistically-rationally affected insight also ranks among the constants of art philosophy in the 20th century. “Expression is the opponent of articulating something” can be read, for instance, in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory with regards to the character of language in art and Jean François Lyotard wrote on aesthetic experience: “What happens to us is by no means something which we would have controlled, programmed or conceptually apprehended beforehand”. The uneducible, conceptually unattainable is also at the centre of current art production of the 21st century. On the basis of Lyotard’s and Adorno’s positions, the article shows that one should acknowledge a constancy of the topos of art as non-conceptual knowledge on the one hand as the continuing function of a tradition defined from the philosophical aesthetics of modernity to post-modernity and orientated on the artistic avant-garde. On the other hand and beyond this a continuous line of tradition of New Music becomes clear, leading to the expressionistic avant-garde of the 20th century which represented the starting point for Adorno’s music philosophy, through Lyotard’s focus on John Cage, up to the avant-garde of New Music in the era of post modernity. Specific features of contemporary art, such as rebellion against linguistic standards, an understanding of expressivity that opposes the traditional language of music and operates on the verge of silence, as well as the utopian vision of a modified reality which aims at transcendency enable a conception of art as non-conceptual knowledge, corresponding with the positions of art philosophy in modernity and post-modernity in important points. The relevance of focusing on this line of tradition for musicology lies in the fact that it sheds new light on the musical avant-garde and its further function and, last but not least, that it opens new perspectives in understanding contemporary artistic productions.

Chandraleka (1928–2006)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anurima Banerji
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Cancer ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Martial Art ◽  
South Indian ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artistic Career

Chandralekha Prabhudas Patel, known by the mononym Chandralekha, was a pioneering choreographer, dancer, writer, graphic designer, and social activist based in Chennai, India. Best known as an innovator of dance, she originated an open-ended, layered movement style that has been variously labeled ‘‘modern,’’ ‘‘postmodern,’’ ‘‘avant-garde,’’ ‘‘Western-influenced,’’ and ‘‘experimental,’’ although she resolutely rejected all of these categorizations. Initially trained in the classical dance Bharatanatyam, Chandralekha rebelled against the strictures of Indian concert performance by fusing the traditional lexicon with the structures and vocabulary of yoga, quotidian gestures, and Kalarippayattu—a South Indian martial art—to create a novel dance language devoted to the exploration of body politics in a contemporary frame. In the arc of her artistic career, which spanned half a century from the 1950s to 2006, the period between 1985 and 1995 is often cited as the time when she crystallized her choreographic technique and vision. Regarded as an iconoclast, Chandralekha is also considered a controversial figure in the field of Indian performance for her radical approach to art and politics, domains that she saw as indivisible from each other. She pursued her creative commitments up to the time of her death from cervical cancer in 2006. A significant force in the history of Indian dance, Chandralekha continues to serve as an influential figure for many artists working at the intersection of a number of indigenous and transnational South Asian forms.

Jay Pather Reimagining Site-Specific Cartographies of Belonging

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Ketu H. Katrak
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
South African ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Indian Classical Dance

This essay examines Jay Pather's site-specific workCityscapes(2002) within a theoretical discussion of the conjuncture and disjuncture of space and race in South Africa. Jay Pather, a South African of Indian ancestry, an innovative choreographer and curator of site-specific works, creatively uses space to inspire social change by providing access and challenging exclusions—social, cultural, political—of black and colored South Africans during apartheid (1948–1994) and after. A progressive vision underlies his avant-garde work expressed via a hybrid choreographic palette of South African classical and popular dance styles, Indian classical dance, modern and contemporary dance. His choreography is performed across South Africa and the African continent as well as in Denmark, Mumbai, and New York City.

scholarly journals Even as We Keep Trying: An Ethics of Interculturalism in Jérôme Bel's Pichet Klunchun and Myself

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
SanSan Kwan
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Body ◽  
Set Design ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatial Composition ◽  
Concert Dance ◽  
East West

In 2004, Singaporean presenter Tang Fu Kuen commissioned French avant-garde choreographer Jérôme Bel to create a work in collaboration with classical Thai dancer-choreographer Pichet Klunchun. The resulting piece is unlike most intercultural collaborations. In the world of concert dance, East–West interculturalism takes place in a variety of ways: in costuming or set design, in theme or subject matter, in choreographic structure, in stylings of the body, in energetic impetus, in spatial composition, in philosophical attitude toward art making. Bel's work, titled Pichet Klunchun and Myself, does not combine aesthetics in any of these ways. In fact, the piece may more accurately be described not as a dance but as two verbal interviews (first by Bel of Klunchun and then vice versa) performed for an audience and separated by an intermission. There is no actual intermingling of forms—Thai classical dance with European contemporary choreography—in this performance. The intercultural “choreography” here comprises a staged conversation between the artists and some isolated physical demonstrations by each.

scholarly journals Terrorens poetik: Revolutionen skrives med småt

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (107) ◽  
pp. 52-73
Author(s):  
Susanne Stoltz ◽  
Anders Tønnesen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Situationist International ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Aesthetic

The Poetics of Terror: The Manifestoes of the RAF:This paper points to a ‘forgotten’ literary history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) in order to contest a common misconception. The RAF is often perceived solely as a political phenomenon and its justification of terrorism as a political discourse. Thereby many scholars bluntly fail to pinpoint the attractiveness of the left-wing terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s. The paper argues that the writings of the first generation of the RAF also convey a ‘poetics’ of terrorism. It points to a somewhat overlooked strategy of justification in the writings, which can be formulated as follows: Both the act of terrorism and the utterance of its defence are justified as aesthetic experiences. Furthermore, this was constructed under heavy influence from groups of avant-garde artists in the tradition of the Situationist International (SI). The paper analyses the strategy of justification found in the first few RAF-statements. Beneath the political jargon of left-wing radicalism and the »credo of immediate action«, the paper locates another strategy of justification that carries the sign of avant-garde thought. According to the manifestoes of the RAF, the aesthetic experience of a terrorist act could liberate the spectator. The study concludes that the writings of RAF unveil a ‘poetics’ of terrorism. The act of terrorism is a radical transgression of reality. Hence, the terrorist act destroys the ‘mechanical’ system of cognitive oppression because it shows the possibility of another world. That is why the RAF views terror as a model of spiritual liberation. In addition to this the statements communicate a parallel concept to the ‘poetics’ of the terror act. The RAF constructed a concept of revolutionary language, ‘the armed propaganda’, which claimed to break down the barriers of ‘domination’ in the consciousness of the recipient. In doing so the statements perform what they preach; they are themselves acts of terror. The RAF’s concept of terrorism comprises both word and deed. The writings are acts and the acts are utterances. Accordingly, RAF’s ‘poetics’ of terrorism can be described as the transgression of reality in the word or deed of terror that leads to spiritual liberation.

scholarly journals PHILOSOPHICAL STATUS OF ARTISTIC AVANT-GARDE

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
N.G. Krasnoyarova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Philosophy Of Culture

The article asserts the exhaustion of art criticism and culturological approaches to the artistic avant-garde. The context of the philosophy of culture as an actual section of philosophy makes it possible to reveal the essential moments of culture as a whole in the artistic avant-garde and to manifest the function of the avant-garde as a special “new phenomenon” imparting dynamism to culture in ways of accepting or rejecting cultural values.

The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde

Experiment ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-230
Author(s):  
Linda Nochlin
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
World War ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Ballets Russes

Abstract “The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde” deals with the complex relationship between Diaghalev and the members of the Parisian avant-garde he commissioned to design sets and costumes for his productions after World War I. Despite their previous aesthetic radicalism, such artists as Gris and Derain were obliged to rein in their vanguard originality and produce work of surprising conservatism, at the urging of the impresario. Matisse attempted greater originality, but in an unsuccessful ballet. The only really avant-garde production sponsored by Diaghalev after the war was Parade, in which such luminaries as Picasso, Satie and Cocteau played a leading role. Yet ultimately, it was not Diaghalev but Rolf de Mare’s Ballet Suedois that created the most experimental productions involving dance: Relache and Entr’acte. Yet, in experimenting with new forms, de Mare, in effect, abandoned ballet for different forms of expression relying on cinematic techniques rather than classical dance.

The Avant-Garde and Technology: Toward Technological Fundamentalism in Turn-of-the-Century Europe

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Trommler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Material World ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Art And Technology ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Art Works ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Mies Van Der Rohe

The ArgumentThe avant-garde's fascination with technology around 1900 grew out of several motivations: to shock the antitechnological bourgeois public; to experience a sense of mastery toward the material world, especially with cars, airplanes, and other machines; and to overcome the nineteenth-century separation of art and technology. The article highlights the radical shifts in the perception of technology that correspond with the emerging hands-on encounter with technological objects in homes, cities and at the workplace at the turn of the century. This technological fundamentalism differed sharply from the anxious and symbolically mediated approach to the “materialism” of the machine in the nineteenth century. It was accompanied by a concept of liberation through technological purity which is reflected by the fact that Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Corbusier did not just design functional objects but also made special efforts to accentuate their functionalism as part of the aesthetic experience of modernity. As French and Italian artists, especially the Futurists, incorporated speed, virility, and the experience of the elementary in the metaphoric construction of technology, they even expressed a kinship with those painters and sculptors who shifted their focus to the rediscovery of the “primitive” magic in the art works from Africa and Polynesia

scholarly journals The Roles of The Dance Education Institute and The Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat Palace in The Inheritance Process of Yogyakarta Classical Dance Style

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Muhammad Fazli Taib Bin Saearani
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Dance Education ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Classical Dance ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Court Dance ◽  
Special Region

<p>This study aims to examine the roles of the Ngayogyakarta Palace, formal educational institutions, and non-formal educational institutions in the inheritance of the classical court dance of Yogyakarta or <em>Tari Klasik Gaya Yogyakarta </em>(TKGY). The method employed was a qualitative method through interviews and observations with a number of informants from dance institutions in Yogyakarta. Based on the interviews, a number of independent and collaborative roles among the three types of institutions under study can be identified. These roles were then placed in a theoretical framework related to the inheritance of the classical court dance of Yogyakarta (TKGY) that justifies the reasons why it can be well-inherited in the Special Region of Yogyakarta. Based on this effort, it was found that each institution took a place in the attempt to support the inheritance layers (core, practical, philosophical, and developmental) causing the absence of problems in the existence of the classical court dance of Yogyakarta in the Special Region of Yogyakarta. These findings then can be used as the best practice for the inheritance efforts for classical dances in other places in the Indonesian Archipelago.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document