Body Puppetry and Bharatanatyam

Physical eloquence is a much sought-after skill across the performing arts. How might the highly stylized forms and storytelling structures of bharatanatyam, a classical dance-theater form from South India, enrich the work we do as puppeteers, theater artists, storytellers?

In this rigorous intensive, participants will work toward increased awareness, specificity, and control of their own movement while getting a taste of a performance philosophy that works from the outside in, using external physical shapes to generate internal emotional experiences for both audience and performer. In the first phase of the class, students will learn a traditional story-dance sequence, practicing eye exercises, mudras (hand shapes), and bhavas (emotional mask shapes). In the second phase, participants will deconstruct this dance sequence, identifying the body vocabulary and narrative tools used in order to use these new tools in conjunction with existing skills. Each participant will then create an original dance-theater composition based on a favorite story or myth. This intensive will leave artists armed with both improved physicality awareness and new tools for the creation of original work.