Speaking of Dance in Indian Critique

by Mandakranta Bose

With a fresh, critical appraisal of the key concepts surfacing from the Natyasastra of Bharata Muni and some of the other landmark treatises, like Abhinayadarpana, Sangitaratnakara, and Nartananirnaya, the book tries to highlight how these time-honoured writings have contributed to the evolution of classical dancing in India. And, yet more significantly perhaps, the author ventures into a comparatively uncharted terrain seeking to explore the status of performing arts (including dance) in early Jaina tradition. Focussing on the position of dancing in the contemporary cultural life of India, Mandakranta Bose shows how classical dance in India today has achieved a creative blend of tradition and modernity, leading to a vigorous revival of a great heritage, a part of the larger effort towards 'nationalist rediscovery'.

About the Author:

MANDAKRANTA BOSE is Director of the Centre for India and South Asia Research at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, where she also teaches in the Department of near Eastern, Classical and Religious Studies. She began her Sanskrit studies in Calcutta and continued with them for her doctorate in Oxford. Her research covers the classical performing arts of India, Sanskrit literature, and the representation of women in the arts and literatures of India.