Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: the Way of Being Rasa
SING RĀGA, EMBODY BHĀVA: THE WAY OF BEING RASA Thanmayee Holalkere Krishnamurthy, B.E. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2019 APPROVED: Steven Friedson, Major Professor Vivek Virani, Committee Member Catherine Ragland, Committee Member Felix Olschofka, Interim Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John W. Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Holalkere Krishnamurthy, Thanmayee. Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: The Way of Being Rasa. Master of Arts (Music), May 2019, 88 pp., 1 table, 7 figures, 10 musical examples, references, 94 titles. The rasa theory of Indian aesthetics is concerned with the nature of the genesis of emotions and their corresponding experiences, as well as the condition of being in and experiencing the aesthetic world. According to the Indian aesthetic theory, rasa (“juice” or “essence,” something that is savored, that is tasted) is an embodied aesthetic experienced through an artistic performance. In this thesis, I have investigated how the aesthetics of rasa philosophy account for creative presence and its experiences in Karnatik vocal performances. Beyond the facets of grammar, Karnatik rāga performance signifies a deeper ontological meaning as a way to experience rasa, idiomatically termed as rāga-rasa by South Indian rāga practitioners. A vocal performance of a rāga ideally depends on a singer’s embodied experience of rāga and rāga-bhāva (emotive expression of rāga), as much as it does on his/her theoretical knowledge and skillset of a rāga’s svaras (scale degrees), gamakas (ornamentation), lakṣhaṇās (emblematic phrases), and so on.
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