Learning to dance by putting oneself in another’s shoes

Do you have to be one to know one? (Fay: 1996) 

Writ­ten in the ear­ly 1980s, Ini­ti­a­tion au tra­vail de la danse en Inde (“Ini­ti­a­tion to the mat­ter of dance in India”) intro­duces the appren­tice’s rela­tion­ship to his dance mas­ter through a learn­ing process per­formed under the gaze of a so-called “oth­er” sub­ject. The appren­tice, who assumes the sto­ry in the name of the nar­ra­tor, sets up the role of the mov­ing sub­ject when intrane­ity and extrane­ity can only be achieved through the arti­fice of a game. For the implic­it nar­ra­tor (the one who writes), the learn­ing in the case in point is only a pre­text for the deploy­ment of a meta­per­for­mance tak­ing place between the one who plays and the one who is played, going from the inter­change­abil­i­ty of roles to the pirat­ing of the oth­er.

Trem­blay, Richard (1982). “Ini­ti­a­tion au tra­vail de la danse en Inde”. Les Cahiers de la danse de l’Inde (Kalashas, éd. SILENTCULTURE), 10 – 30.

Pho­to: Kala­man­dalam Gopi dans le rôle de Bahukan. (Crédits: R. Trem­blay, 1978.)

See: Dance-the­atre kathakali.