Trans-Local Mobilities and Spatial Politics of Dance Across/Beyond the Early Modern Coromandel
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Performative Geographies: Trans-Local Mobilities and Spatial Politics of Dance Across & Beyond the Early Modern Coromandel A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance by Pallavi Sriram 2017 Copyright by Pallavi Sriram 2017 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Performative Geographies: Trans-Local Mobilities and Spatial Politics of Dance Across & Beyond the Early Modern Coromandel by Pallavi Sriram Doctor of Philosophy in Culture and Performance University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Janet M. O’Shea, Chair This dissertation presents a critical examination of dance and multiple movements across the Coromandel in a pivotal period: the long eighteenth century. On the eve of British colonialism, this period was one of profound political and economic shifts; new princely states and ruling elite defined themselves in the wake of Mughal expansion and decline, weakening Nayak states in the south, the emergence of several European trading companies as political stakeholders and a series of fiscal crises. In the midst of this rapidly changing landscape, new performance paradigms emerged defined by hybrid repertoires, focus on structure and contingent relationships to space and place – giving rise to what we understand today as classical south Indian dance. Far from stable or isolated tradition fixed in space and place, I argue that dance as choreographic ii practice, theorization and representation were central to the negotiation of changing geopolitics, urban milieus and individual mobility. This study traces change through intersecting movement of people, ideas and repertoires anchored in specific new and changing urban milieus; developing the concept of performative geographies It unpacks the ways in which multiple stakeholders, themselves often on the move, drew from diverse milieus (performative, geopolitical, temporal and social), connecting through the subcontinent and across the Bay of Bengal. Examining three sets of articulations: of popular representations of performance, ideals of practice, and hybrid performed repertoire; this study reads across text (Indian language plays, memoirs, song text, treatise), painted visuals, and spaces themselves as archives. These circulations and the individual choices they weave together map shifting translocal relationships, imaginaries and politics of space. This interdisciplinary project lies at the intersection of dance studies, critical cultural studies approaches to space and place, and historiography of the Indian Ocean. It extends postcolonial dance studies investigations of performance and/as politics, focused on twentieth-century nationalisms and globalization, back into a consideration of eighteenth century shifts to engage with early modern scholarship on new subjectivities, circulations and intellectual networks. By offering performative geographies as both framework and methodology, this project works against macro-imperial narratives of decline, colonial rupture, and revival, as well as the fixing of precolonial bodily pasts in order to open up new considerations of urban connectivities across South Asia and the Indian Ocean world. iii This dissertation of Pallavi Sriram is approved. Anurima Banerji Susan Leigh Foster Sanjay Subrahmanyam Janet M. O’Shea, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iv This dissertation is dedicated to Sidharth, Latha and Sriram v Table of Contents Abstract Of Dissertation ................................................................................................................. II Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ X Vita ............................................................................................................................................. XIII Introductions ................................................................................................................................... 1 Debates: Performance, Post-colonial Critique, and Indian Ocean Early Modernity .................. 7 Methodology: Plural Archives, Intertextuality, Dance & Circulations .................................... 15 Structure Of The Dissertation ................................................................................................... 24 Significance............................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 1: Translating (Re/Staging) Urban Mobility: Space, Place And Scenarios Of Performance .................................................................................................................................. 34 Linking Political Geographies And New Politics Of Sensuality .............................................. 43 New Elite, Dance, Space, Place: Ramanathapuram .................................................................. 54 A World On The Move: The Kaveri Delta ............................................................................... 73 Dancing In/Out Of Space: Madras Europeans Inserting Into Scenarios Of Authority ............. 85 Scenarios Of ‘Native’ Romance: A Dutch Traveler Down The Coromandel Coast .............. 100 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 116 Chapter 2: Orienting Taste: Literati, Sanskrit Text, And Dance As Practice ............................. 121 Medieval Legacies And Inter-Textual Traces: Sangita Dance And Music ............................ 129 Early Modern Nartana: Instrumentalizing Text, Centralizing Courtly Eroticism .................. 142 Tukkoji’s Sangita Saramrta: Dance Practice As Effort In 18th Century Kaveri Delta ........... 169 Shifting Textual Temporalities: Orientalist Natya Sastra And Abhinaya Navaneetham In The Nineteenth Century ................................................................................................................. 189 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 197 Chapter 3: Structuring Repertoires And Socio-Spatial Publics: What Is A Kacceri? ................ 201 vi The Set Up: Kacceri As Assemblage ...................................................................................... 209 Constructing New Genres: Nrtta And Bhagavatar Migrations ............................................... 214 Ordering Dances: Sants, Dasas And Hybrid Performance Structures .................................... 236 Structuring New Public Space: Sadir, Kacchahari, And Concert Dance ................................ 257 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 269 Epilogue: Alternative Genealogies For The Present ................................................................... 274 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 285 vii List of Figures Fig. 1. Map of South Asia with Major Centers of Deccan and Coromandel, 18th century ............. 5 Fig. 2. Mural in the Ramalinga Vilasam Palace Durbar, Ramanathapuram, dated to early eighteenth century. Photograph from author’s travel ........................................................... 54 Fig. 3-8. Ceiling arches in the inner (3rd) chamber downstairs, Ramnad Ramalingavilasa darbar. Photographs from author’s travel.......................................................................................... 59 Fig. 9. Nayak era murals on walls of the inner corridor at Varadaraja perumal temple in Kancipuram, 17th century. Photograph from author’s travel ............................................... 69 Fig. 10. Setupati paintings on walls and ceilings of inner chamber at Ramalinga Vilasam, the palace darbar at Ramanathapuram, eighteenth century. Photograph from author’s travel. .. 70 Fig. 11. Bodinayakanur palace painting, part of Ramayana. Image by V Muthuraman............... 71 Fig. 12. Kalamkari Tapestry, late 17th century, Musee Guimet Riboud Collection .................... 71 Fig. 13-16. Friezes from along bottom of central courtyard, Maratha Yamunambal chatram at Needamangalam. Photographs from author’s travel. ............................................................ 80 Fig. 17-18. Upper floor half roof garden of Needamangalam Yamunambal chatram. Photographs from author’s travel............................................................................................................... 82 Fig. 19. Upper floor hall, where queen Yamunambal entertained and ostensibly stayed. Photograph from author’s travel ........................................................................................... 83 Fig. 20. ‘Nautch Scene’ with inscription “General Sir John Dalling Bart/Governor of Madras”, 1785-86; Artist Unknown. British Museum ......................................................................... 86 Fig. 21. “Dancers”, Artist Tilly Kettle; 1789. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi ............................................................................................................................. 91 Fig. 22 (left): “Tanjore Dancing girl & her Tickataw men (Tanjavur)”, 1790s, Artist Unknown. British Library ......................................................................................................................