Dance reconstruction

The narrator telling one’s story

 A stage re-enn­act­ment of a 1916 Dance Performance 

Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a woman in a 1916 dance. (Kot­tayam, Ker­ala).
From Mer­warth (1926), In Trem­blay (2020), The Kathakali Explor­er, Per­form­ing His­to­ry.
Kala­man­dalam Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

Eth­nol­o­gist and lin­guist A. M. Mer­warth who attend­ed a kathakali per­for­mance in Kot­tayam in the state of Ker­ala in 1916 wrote an account of the pro­duc­tion includ­ing an intro­duc­tion to the Kathakali dance the­ater, and pub­lished his 120 pages fea­tured arti­cle in Le Jour­nal Asi­a­tique (Paris, 1926). The arti­cle com­pris­es a series of draw­ings and graph­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and was recent­ly trans­lat­ed, intro­duced, anno­tat­ed and reviewed with com­ments and relat­ed sources in The Kathakali Explor­er (2020). This anno­tat­ed trans­la­tion and its adden­da make up the pri­ma­ry source of the reconstruction.

The 1916 per­for­mance
Title of work: Naraka­sur­avad­ham
Author of the per­for­ma­tive text: Kar­tikatirun­nal (1724 – 98)
Year per­formed: 1916
Place per­formed: Kot­tayam (Ker­ala, India). 

Research and cre­ation project under the direc­tion of
Richard Trem­blay

Send a note for fur­ther infor­ma­tion and/or to express a pro­fes­sion­al inter­est in par­tic­i­pat­ing in research and/or creation:

The con­tem­plat­ed recon­struc­tion calls for a pro­duc­tion cum research set­up aim­ing at a final stage work. As a major project of col­lab­o­ra­tion, this  pio­neer­ing project in the field of past per­for­mance stud­ies calls for a vast work plan involv­ing:
a) A fun­da­men­tal research pro­gramme applied to the recon­struc­tion of past stage works in the field of the Kathakali stud­ies, rely­ing on
b) A cre­ative input from artists, actors/dancers, vocal­ists, per­cus­sion­ists, and pro­duc­tion col­lab­o­ra­tors under a chore­o­graph­ic direc­tion and aca­d­e­m­ic guid­ance, and
c) A fund­ing pro­gram of con­tri­bu­tions from uni­ver­si­ties, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and oth­er tar­get­ed sources.

Use­ful link:
The Kathakali Explor­er  (2020)

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