31 | Song, Dance, and (Con)Texts: Re-Examining Performance Traditions in Medieval and Early Modern South Asia.
This panel considers the production and circulation of performance traditions and texts in medieval and early modern South Asia. By redirecting attention from narratives of syncretism and hybridity, we seek to promote reflections on a processual understanding of these histories.
Convenors:
· William Rees Hofmann SOAS, University of London (London, United Kingdom)
Timeslots:
· 07/26 | 17:30-19:00 UTC+2/CEST
Long Abstract
Essentialist readings of the performance traditions of medieval and early modern South Asia have either relied on crystallised notions of religious divides, or idealistic notions of hybridity and syncretism. These readings reduce complex processes to monolithic, unidirectional explanations of multiculturalism. Recent scholarship, however, has stressed the importance of drawing on multilingual sources as well as multi-disciplinary approaches - reading, listening, and visualising the vernacular and the classical/courtly in conversation, rather than through hierarchical relationships. The overlapping and multidirectional networks of patronage and production present a dynamic exchange between desi (local), Sanskrit, and Persian traditions. This has led not only to the creation of new genres of text and performance, but also to the articulation of pre-existing traditions within new intellectual milieux. From the performance of early Hindavi Sufi poetry, to the production of vernacular epics in translation, new strategies of ‘self-fashioning’ were being navigated within new contexts. Moving away from simplistic understandings of multicultural production, this panel emphasises the frameworks of translation and transculturation which posit a processual understanding of histories of production, circulation, and reception of performance traditions. We invite papers examining texts and traditions of performance that negotiate the interaction between different forms, languages, geographies, and aesthetic conventions. Papers may address, but are not limited to, genres of music, dance, and poetry that were being written about or performed within changing cultural contexts.
Presentations
-
07/26 | 15:30-15:50 UTC+2/CEST
Songs of Love and Loss: Early Vernacular Sufi Musicking and the Development of an Indo-Persian Music (William Hofmann) -
07/26 | 15:50-16:10 UTC+2/CEST
Deśī Rāgas in Courtly Texts : The Case of a Sixteenth Century Rāgamālā Treatise. (Ayesha Sheth) -
07/26 | 16:10-16:30 UTC+2/CEST
Political Notes of the Kitab-I Nauras: An Analysis of Aesthetically Embodied Kingship Practices in Ibrahim Adil II's Bijapur (Namrata Kanchan) -
07/26 | 16:30-16:50 UTC+2/CEST
On the Ethos of the Multilingual: Exploring Sanskrit Registers of Performance in Maratha Tanjavur (Talia Ariav) -
07/26 | 17:30-17:50 UTC+2/CEST
The Dance Chapter of Tulaja’s Saṅgītasārāmṛta as an Encounter of Sanskrit and Local Tradition (Agnieszka Wojcik) -
07/26 | 17:50-18:10 UTC+2/CEST
Jathikkummi, the Song of Caste: Knowledge, Sanskrit and Folk in Performance (Athira Sreedevi Prasenan) -
07/26 | 18:10-18:30 UTC+2/CEST
Mawlīd as Text and Ritual: Prophetic Love and Devotion in Colonial Malabar (Muhammed Niyas Ashraf)