"Sattriya's Journey from Sattra to Stage" a talk by Arshiya Sethi
Karishma Pais
THE ATTIC 36 REGAL BUILDINGS, NEW DELHI. TEL: 23746050
thursday 18th february
6.30 pm "Sattriya's Journey from Sattra to Stage" a talk by Arshiya Sethi
Sattriya
dance, from the eastern state of Assam in India is located in a matrix of an
intense system of belief. It is drawn from a five hundred year old dance and
comprehensive theater tradition nurtured in the Vaishnav Monasteries of Assam.
Preserved by the monks, most of them celibate, the dance form of Sattriya, has
been extracted, like many of the other Classical Dance forms of India, from a
mother theatrical tradition. In the year 2000, it was declared a “major
dance tradition of India” at par with the others loosely called the
Classical dances of India. This action introduced into the pantheon of the
classical dances of India, a rare aesthetic and spiritual gem, but raised a
deep problematic that has many aspects to it. It raises several questions of
motivation, cultural property and management, appropriation and future of the
style. This talk will firstly demystify its background, contextual crucible and
its aesthetics. The second part will touch upon some political issues and
explain how the form has been impacted.
A practitioner and scholar of Indian dance for over twenty years, Arshiya Sethi has long been concerned with the dynamics surrounding traditional dance and dancers working during times of social transformation. Issues of preservation, presentation, and the progression of art forms have been the subjects of her research and very active public career. Arshiya Sethi has been the Executive Director of the Delhi International Arts Festival that includes performing arts, visual arts and film, since its inception in 2007. Before that she served as the Creative Head of Programmes of the India Habitat Center and has also worked with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
She is one of the foremost contemporary scholars of Sattriya and has been the dance critic for the Times of India for several years. For nearly three decades she has hosted and narrated a program on national television showing archival value recordings of the greatest Indian dance and musical performers. Ms. Sethi has been a Fulbright Fellow in 2003-2004, attached with New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
