Duet with Camera
Expressive Arts Module-DANCE at O.P Jindal University, India
Dance, Vision and Movement
Professor Rashmi Raman and Sumedha Bhattacharyya
Any given work of art is an expression or an embodiment of various elements put together as a whole to be experienced. The elements used are diverse, and yet compatible. The work is created with an intention to communicate. With dance in particular, it is about a body, or multiple bodies, moving together; responding to elements in a given space and time. The meaning of dance is made by analysing it as a result of a relationship between the public display of bodily motion vis-à-vis its perception, transformation, transmission and enactments of social categories.
We are indebted to the efforts and guidance of Urmimala Sarkar, Aadya Kaktikar, Bhargavi Gopalan, Gargi Bharadwaj, Subhashini Ghoda, Beatriz Herrera Corado
The course, its roots and aims
What connects ballet, bhangra and bharatanatyam and produces an epistemology, an internal language of logic, rhythm and syllogism that transcends spoken language, culture, medium, and most other barriers of identity to create a universally understood expression of the infinite?
This course begins an inquiry process to understand this question. Born out of our personal journeys with dance and imagining collisions and creating bridges between the left and right sides of the brain. Where Rashmi's sense of self is tied to two very different spaces – Dance and Law, Sumedha's exploration begins in the intersections of Dance and Film.
The aim of the course is to equip students across various disciplines and courses to get together and through discourse, engagement and creative inputs, demonstrate a critical understanding of the larger meaning, potential and responsibility of dance. This course is designed to develop a critical appreciation and awareness of various forms and motions in dance to further delve in questions regarding dance and its importance.The practice-based nature of the course is deliberated so that the students can think of this as a methodology to grasp theories and histories of dance making. This will enable students to think through movements and its possible analysis. Aiming at helping the students to think beyond the regular notions of dance practice, the course will open up the discourses on traditional and the contemporary forms of practice, especially within the context of Indian dances.
Rashmi Raman is a classically trained dancer who seeks expression of her art form very far from the arts; professionally, I am a lawyer and academic working in international law and human rights. This course explores how the finite (law) and the infinite (dance) collide and collaborate to produce new frontiers of thought.
Sumedha Bhattacharyya is an interdisciplinary dance artist, choreographer, researcher, a dance filmmaker and a primary caregiver. With her training in Electronics Engineering, an empanelment by Indian Council for Cultural Relations as a Kathak performing artist, she finds herself exploring in-between performance and technology vis-à-vis dance and camera. She is also the founder of Duet with Camera, an evolving research-creation lab.
