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Staging War: Performing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2013

Ahalya Satkunaratnam
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Abstract

This article is an ethnographic study of Bharata Natyam choreographies performed in venues across Colombo, Sri Lanka, during the ethnically divisive civil war. The compositions reveal the strategies of female choreographers who are using dance to address the war in a climate that often silences citizens from discussing the topic in public. I illuminate the discreet negotiations of ethnic identity taking place within choreographies, informed by circulating meanings ascribed to the dance, the ethnic compositions of the bodies dancing and watching, and the shifting experience of living in the city during an escalating civil war.

Keywords

Bharata NatyamchoreographyethnicitynationalismSri Lankawarwomen
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , April 2013 , pp. 81 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2013

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