Music and Dance as Everyday South Asia

Dilip Menon, Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of Witwatersrand An outstanding volume that combines exceptional scholarship and range striking a register that will appeal to the expert as much as the general reader. The recognition that music and the performing arts are the lifeblood of social relations in South Asia, ranging across spaces that include the domestic, the sacred, the cinematic, and the contentious politics of performance framed by power and hierarchy, makes this volume singular and unique in its imagination. An intervention that will change forever how we think questions of embodied and sonicaesthetics in relation to the political in South Asia.

Pallabi Chakravorty, Stephen Lang Professor of Performing Arts/Dance, Swarthmore College This book is a tour de force on South Asian music and dance. Its thirty distinct essays use embodied approaches to examine every day cultural experiences with ethnographic and analytical rigor. They disrupt and unsettle hegemonic hierarchies and aesthetic values of styles, genres, canons, and the artificial boundaries between music and dance. The innovative pedagogically-oriented scholarship is a much-needed addition to the existing world music anthologies.

Amanda Weidman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College Music and Dance as Everyday South Asia provides a fantastic sampling of current research on music and dance in South Asia and its diaspora. The thematic organization breaks down old divisions between the folk, popular, and classical that have long organized the study of music and dance in South Asia, and traverse national boundaries to explore the dynamics of how musical form and embodied dance practices encode, express, and enable different projects of identity and sociopolitical contestation. Audiovisual and supplementary materials on the companion website enable readers to directly engage with dance and musical forms, making this a unique and extremely valuable resource for teaching.

Sarah L. Morelli is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Denver. Active as a scholar and performer, her work draws on training with sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, kathak master Pandit Chitresh Das, and select disciples, and study in several regions of India and the US diaspora. Her book, A Guru's Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora (2019), details the development of the "California gharana" of kathak. Sarah is a co-founder and soloist with the Leela Dance Collective and Artistic Director of Leela Institute of Kathak, Denver. Zoe C. Sherinian is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Oklahoma, a scholar-filmmaker, and percussionist. She is the author of Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology (2014) and has released two documentary films on the Dalit drummers of India. Her research has been supported by the University of Oklahoma and by Fulbright fellowships, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Asian Arts Council. Her current book project is titled Drumming Our Liberation: The Community, Cultural, and Sonic Power of the Parai Drum.

Introduction Sarah L. Morelli and Zoe C. Sherinian Section One: Identity in Place and Community Introduction by Peter Kvetko and Sarah L. Morelli 1. A Sense of the City: Embodied Practice and Popular Music in Mumbai Peter Kvetko 2. A Melody of Lucknow: Hearing History in North Indian Music Max Katz 3. Sufi Devotional Performances in Multan, Pakistan, a "City of Saints" Karim Gillani 4. Hale da Divan: Trance, Historical Consciousness, and the Ecstasy of Separation in Namdhari Sikh Services Janice Protopapas 5. "Small Voices Sing Big Songs": Music as Development in the Thar Desert Shalini R. Ayyagari Section Two: Performance Dynamics: Style, Genre, Coding, and Function Introduction by Zoe C. Sherinian 6. Changing Musical Style and Social Identity in Tamil Christian Kirttanai Zoe C. Sherinian 7. Professional Weeping: Music, Affect, and Hierarchy in a South Indian Folk Performance Art Paul D. Greene 8. Sindhi Kafi and Vernacular Islam in Western India Brian E. Bond 9. Music, Religious Experience, and Nationalism in Marathi Rashtriya Kirtan Anna Schultz 10. Prestige, Status, and the History of Instrumental Music in North India George E. Ruckert Section Three: Intersectional Dynamics: Caste, Class, and Tribe Introduction by Zoe C. Sherinian 11. Mundari Performance After the Revolution: Did Dance Save the Tribe? Carol M. Babiracki 12. Systematic and Embodied Music Theory of Tamil Parai Drummers Zoe C. Sherinian 13. Caste, Class, Aesthetics, and the Making of Modern Bharatanatyam Dance Hari Krishnan and Davesh Soneji with a contribution by Nrithya Pillai 14. Sacred Song, Food, and the Affective Embodied Experience of Non-Othering in the Sikh Tradition Inderjit N. Kaur 15. Following in the Footsteps of Muria Music and Dance Roderic Knight Section Four: Identity in Gender and Sexuality Introduction by Zoe C. Sherinian 16. Bhangra Brotherhood: Gender, Music, and Nationalism in Rang De Basanti Pavitra Sundar 17. Disrupted Divas: Conflicting Pathways of India's Socially Marginalized Female Entertainers Amelia Maciszewski 18. "All the Parts of Who I Am": Multi-Gendered Performance in Kathak Dance Sarah L. Morelli 19. Music and the Trans-thirunangai Everyday at Koovagam, Tamil Nadu Jeff Roy 20. Performing Youthful Desires: Bihu Festival Music and Dance in Assam, India Rehanna Kheshgi Section Five: Technology, Media, and Transmission Introduction by Sarah L. Morelli 21. "We Know What Our Folk Culture Is from Cassettes and Videos": Rethinking the Popular-Folk Dynamic in the Indian Himalayas Stefan Fiol 22. The Female Voice in Hindi Cinema: Agency, Representation, and Change Natalie Sarrazin 23. Love Politics, and Life Between Village and City in Nepali Lok Dohori: One Album, Three Titles Anna Marie Stirr 24. Pedagogy and Embodiment in the Transmission of Kerala Temple Drumming Rolf Groesbeck 25. Sonic Gift-Giving in Sri Lankan Buddhism Jim Sykes Section Six: Diaspora and Globalization Introduction by Nilanjana Bhattacharjya and Sarah L. Morelli 26. Contemporizing Kandyan Dance Susan A. Reed 27. Desi Dance Music: A Transnational Phenomenon Nilanjana Bhattacharjya and Rekha Malhotra 28. Dance in The Round: Embodying Inclusivity and Interdependence through Garba Parijat Desai 29. Tamil Rap and Social Status in Malaysia Aaron Paige 30. Beyond the Silver Screen: Filmi Aesthetics in Bollywood Fitness Classes Ameera Nimjee Index