ARTH 6858 - [Dancing the Stone: Body, Memory, and Architecture]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 6656

Next Offered: 2020-2021. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Permission of instructor required. Co-meets with ARTH 4858/ASIAN 4456/PMA 4358/VISST 4858.

K. McGowan.

This course examines the role of temples and their sculptural programs in South and Southeast Asia as creative stimuli for performative reenactments. Choreographic encounters between imagination and memory will be mapped as they occur at various points historically and politically in Java, Bali, Cambodia and India. Since architectural choreography implies the human body’s inhabitation and experience of place, the nature of ritualized behavior and its relationship to performance and politics will be explored spatially, both in organizing experience and defining or redefining identity on colonial, national, and diasporic margins. Bringing back the haptic sense (i.e. of feeling and doing at the same time) students will have the unique opportunity to balance the demands of learning a Balinese traditional dance while exploring performance traditions in historical perspective.