Living the abhinaya: Sensory-somatic approaches to rasa-bhāva in Odissi dance [Przeżywanie abhinaya: zmysłowo-somatyczne sposoby podejścia do rasa-bhāva w tańcu Odissi]
Living the abhinaya: Sensory-somatic approaches to rasa-bhāva in Odissi dance [Przeżywanie abhinaya: zmysłowo-somatyczne sposoby podejścia do rasa-bhāva w tańcu Odissi]

Author(s): Sabina Sweta Sen-Podstawska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Odissi; Indian classical dance; rasa-bhāva; sensory-somatic
Summary/Abstract: Odissi, one of the Indian classical dance forms, involves stylised and codified movements built upon a set of grammar and vocabularies that are interconnected with body-mind philosophy and the aesthetic theory of bhāva (mood, feeling, emotion) and rasa (essence, sentiment). In this expressive and dynamic performance a dancer internalises certain bhāvas within herself/himself and performs them with her/his entire body-mind to touch the audience’s body-mind by evoking rasa in both the performer and the audience. While learning and performing, the dancers carefully attend to their psychophysical sensations alongside the socio-cultural and aesthetic influences which together create meanings for the performer, and then become a point of reference for the audience. In this paper, I discuss the sensory-somatic approaches taken by contemporary Odissi dancers to explore the transformations in training and performance methodology. Drawing from my ethnographic fieldwork in India and my personal experience as an Odissi dancer, I analyse examples from abhinaya, expressive dance items, to demonstrate how rasa-bhāva can be re-interpreted as an enactive, embodied and animated aesthetic experience of the dancer.

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