Thinking Minds, Virtual Bodies

With the emergence of the pandemic, the world adapted virtually; dance education and performance were no exception. Particularly, Indian classical dance (ICD) education and practice garnered mixed reactions due to the deviations from the intimate personified practices which are inherent in the traditional ICD system. Therefore, certain changes in the system became mandatory. With reference to the ideal tenets of arts pedagogy as mentioned in the ancient performing arts treatise Natyashastra, this paper provides specific significant methodologies which can benefit the knowledge exchange process in ICD especially in the online environment. Derived from the training in the sciences, this paper is an attempt to inform the virtual ICD scenario regarding complementation of and improvements in the traditional ways of knowledge acquisition and dissemination. These ways will appreciably enrich the desired purposes of the “felt” and “embodied” which may have been lost with the shift to the virtual scenario.

A Critique of Gender Roles in Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man

Bharatanatyam is an ancient Indian classical dance form that originated from Tamil Nadu. It was performed by devadasis (prostitutes) in royal courts in the early period. Later, the elite Indian class separates it from devadasis and makes it more like a commodity. A man’s passion towards such kind of an art form creates commotion in a patriarchal society. His manhood is questioned and he is considered as inferior to the exaggerated version of masculinity. The breaking of particular roles which are destined to each gender in a society leads to tension within the patriarchy. Mahesh Dattani’s play Dance Like a Man explores themes like gender discrimination, stereotyping, gender roles and identity crisis. In reality, the problems of men due to gender discrimination is not discussed effectively. This play tries to give a clear picture of a male victim of gender discrimination through Jairaj’s character. The current research explores the problems in reversing gender roles, question on masculinity and involvement of society in carrying gender stereotypes as portrayed in Dance Like a Man.

A comparative assessment of flexibility of backline and strength of lower limb in bharatnatyam dancers and non-dancers

Background: Bharatnatyam is an Indian classical dance form which have been practiced for a long period of time and is equivalent to any sporting activity. The postures attained during this dance form require good amount of muscle strength and flexibility among the dancers. There is lack of research on flexibility of backline and lower limb strength in bharatnatyam dancers. The overall function of the superficial backline is to support the body in full upright extension and impacts musculoskeletal dynamics. The lumbar lordosis angle and the pelvic inclination angle in bharatnatyam dancers is more than the non-dancers which can affect the backline flexibility. This study analysed if there is any difference, in the lower limb strength and flexibility of backline as compared to participants of same age group.Methods: 10 bharatnatyam dancers and 10 non-dancers between 15 to 30 years participated in this study. Triple hop distance test for both sides and toe touch test was used to check the strength of lower limb and flexibility of backline respectively.Results: There was significant difference in the triple hop distance of right lower limb between bharatnataym dancers and non-dancers. There was no significant difference in the triple hop distance of left lower limb between the two groups. There was not quite significant difference in the toe touch test of between the two groups.Conclusions: There was significant difference in the strength and power of right lower limb of dancers as compared to right lower limb of non-dancers. There was no statistical difference in the left lower limb of both the groups. There was no statistical difference between the flexibility of backline of bharatnatyam dancers and non-dancers.

Survey of Musculoskeletal Injuries among Female Bharatanatyam Dancers in the Udupi District of India

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.

An Enhanced Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Classifying Indian Classical Dance Forms

Indian classical dance (ICD) classification is an interesting subject because of its complex body posture. It provides a stage to experiment with various computer vision and deep learning concepts. With a change in learning styles, automated teaching solutions have become inevitable in every field, from traditional to online platforms. Additionally, ICD forms an essential part of a rich cultural and intangible heritage, which at all costs must be modernized and preserved. In this paper, we have attempted an exhaustive classification of dance forms into eight categories. For classification, we have proposed a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) model using ResNet50, which outperforms various state-of-the-art approaches.Additionally, to our surprise, the proposed model also surpassed a few recently published works in terms of performance evaluation. The input to the proposed network is initially pre-processed using image thresholding and sampling. Next, a truncated DCNN based on ResNet50 is applied to the pre-processed samples. The proposed model gives an accuracy score of 0.911.

Crossings with Jatra: Bengali Folk-theatre Elements in a Transcultural Representation of Lady Macbeth

This paper examines a transcultural dance-theatre focusing on Lady Macbeth, through the lens of eastern Indian Bengali folk-theatre tradition, jatra. The wide range of experimentation with Shakespeare notwithstanding, the idea of an all-female representation is often considered a travesty. Only a few such explorations have earned recognition in contemporary times. One such is the Indian theatre-dance production Crossings: Exploring the facets of Lady Macbeth by Vikram Iyenger, first performed in 2004. Four women representing four facets of Lady Macbeth explore the layered nuances that constitute her through the medium of Indian classical dance and music juxtaposed with Shakespearean dialogues from Macbeth. This paper will argue the possibilities posited by this transgressive re-reading of a major Shakespearean tragedy by concentrating on a possible understanding through a Hindu religious sect —Vaishnavism, as embodied through the medium of jatra. To form a radically new stage narrative in order to bring into focus the dilemma and claustrophobia of Lady Macbeth is perhaps the beginning of a new generation of Shakespeare explorations. Iyenger’s production not only dramatizes the tragedy of Lady Macbeth through folk dramatic tradition, dance and music, but also Indianises it with associations drawn from Indian mythological women like Putana (demoness) and Shakti (sacred feminine).

Background Subtraction of an Indian Classical Dance Videos using Adaptive Temporal Averaging Method

A slew of motion detection methods have been proposed in recent years. The background includes some constraints such as changes in illumination, shadow, cluttered the background, scene change and speed of dance between hand gestures and body gestures are different. One of the most basic methods for background subtraction is temporal averaging. We looked at a new adaptive temporal averaging approach in this paper. To identify moving objects in video sequences, an adaptive temporal averaging technique is used. Depending upon the speed of the technique we proposed a Gaussian distribution technique. Gaussian distribution done background subtraction depending upon active pixels it differentiates whether it is a background or foreground. The background model's update rate has been modified to be adaptive and determined by pixel difference .Our aim is to improve the method's F-measure by making it more adaptable to various scene scenarios. The experiment results are shown and evaluated. The proposed method and the original method's quality parameters are compared

THE IMPACT OF MANIPURI DANCE IN THE ROYAL COURT OF TRIPURA

Manipuri people are a small group of Tripura. During the time of the Maharaja’s these people’s song and music attained a very special status. Firstly, it was royal palace centered, secondly, in various places of Tripura in the Manipuri dominant areas and in their temples, mandaps or at various festivals. According to many writers it can be said clearly like a mirror the Manipuri culture touched Tripura during the tenure of Rajdhar Manikya from 1785 – 1804. And at that very same time the tenure of Manipuri king Bhagyachandra is 1759 – 61 and 1763 – 1798. The Manipuri Raas established by him later on achieved the status of Indian classical dance. In later times, Manipuri culture started influencing the royal palace right after Harisheshwari became the queen of Tripura. In that time’s Agartala that means in Old Agartala, near to the royal palace for the first time Radhamadhab temple was established. The name of the Manipuri dominant areas in this Old Agartala is Nalgaria. This is where Maharani Tulsibati took birth. According to the writer Udainarayan Adhikari – “The Manipuri’s who came to Tripura with Princes Harisheshwari of Manipur at the fag end of the 18th century as a result of her wedding with Rajdhar Manikya II of Tripura, were settled in a village near capital old Agartala. This village now goes by the name of Mekhlipara, because Mekhli was the Tripura name for Manipur in the days of yore. There is a small township called Ranir Bazar a few kilometres east of Old Agartala or Khayerpur. It was founded by the Manipuri queen Maharani Tulsibati. Her parents lived at Nalgadiya a little east of Ranirbazar. So she founded this bazaar or township in order to develop this area. The name Ranirbaazar reminds us that it was founded by a Rani (Maharani Tulsibati).