Embodiment of Pakshi Kolam
Performing the molecular human
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7093963 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M R Vishnuprasad (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 153-157 |
| Publication date | 2020-04-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Performance Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1352-8165 • E-ISSN: 1469-9990 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13528165.2020.1807777 |
| OpenAlex | W3100796962 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
Pakshi Kolam is a mask dance that is performed as part of padayani, a week-long ritual taking place annually during nights in the Mother Goddess temples of the south Indian state of Kerala. The performance of Pakshi Kolam imagines the embodiment of a disease-causing bird through a ritual dance and it evokes the exposition of indigenous populations to pathogenic agents spread by birds, causing digestive ailments in children. I argue that the micro level embodiment in Pakshi Kolam is more enactive in nature compared to theatre acting and it can have the potential to transform a performer into a molecular human. The possessed performers have an enactive potential, beyond the anthropomorphic and mimetic strategies of the ritual performance, since they embody the gestures of a bird, which is, in turn, held responsible for spreading pathogens that cause human diseases
Aesthetics · Art · Biology · Dance · Exposition (narrative · Gesture · Indigenous · Literature · Performing arts · Tamil · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Philosophy · Ecology
| Highly cited | No |
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