The Teaching of Kathakali in Australia

Book excerpt: This book tells the story of teaching Kathakali, a seventeenth century Indian dance-drama, to contemporary performers in Australia. A rigorous analysis and detailed documentation of the teaching of multiple learners in Melbourne, both in the group workshop mode and one-on-one, combined with the author’s ethnographic research in India, leads to a unique insight into what the author argues persuasively is at the heart of the art’s aesthetic- a practical realisation of the theory of rasa as first articulated in the ancient Sanskrit treatise on drama The Natyashastra. The research references the latest discoveries in neuroscience on ‘mirror neurons’ and argues for a reconceptualization of Kathakali’s imitative methodology, advancing it from the reductive category of ‘mimicry’ to a more contemporary and complex mirroring which is where its value lies in Australian actor performer training. The Teaching of Kathakali in Australia will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and dance, intercultural actor training, practice-led research, and interdisciplinary studies of neuroscience and performance.