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Book details

Contemporary Indian dance

creative choreography towards a new language of dance in India and the diaspora

by Ketu H. Katrak

Published 2011255 pagesISBN 978-0-2302-7855-4

Contemporary Indian Dance delineates a new language of dance - multi-layered and multi-vocal - in India and the diaspora. This language unfolds at the intersection of classical Indian dance forms with yoga, pan-Asian dance and martial arts traditions as well as modern and€postmodern dance, and theatrical tools that result in hybrid dance creations. Cutting-edge themes - ethnicity, gender and sexuality - are inspired by artists' geographical locations in the global North or South. This study is grounded historically (the revival of Indian dance in early 20th century), and examines€today's phenomena of globalization and diaspora that impact artists in India and worldwide. It includes creative choreography (with over 30 images) from selected artists and€pioneers that has impact and reverberates in 'an ancestry of gesture' in the work of emerging choreographers. An interdisciplinary and comparative approach makes visible inter-connections among artists in sites as distant and disparate€as Toronto to Chennai, and London to Los Angeles.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.

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Themes to notice

Nonfiction

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Content notes

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Reading experience

Dark tone · Steady pace

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Who it may suit

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At a glance

This book's DNA

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ToneDark
LuminousDark

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Contemporary Indian danceKetu H. Katrak
Powerful4.9/5

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Before you choose

A quick reading snapshot

Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.

Reading lengthA standard-length read255 pages in this edition
Publication eraModernFirst published or edition dated 2011
Primary categoryNonfictionExplore similar books below
ISBN-13
978-0-2302-7855-4
Language
English
Edition record
OL24852964M
BookenDeX editorial lens

A more thoughtful way into this book

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Good to know

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.

Try this reading approach

Read for connection, not completion.

Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.

Three questions to carry with you

  1. Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
  2. Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
  3. How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?

Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.