Abhinaya Darpanam: An Illustrated Translation

Dance studies across genres require muliple approaches for an understanding of the sociological, phenomenological, political, cultural, philosophical and aesthetical practices that influences the dance’s kinesthetic and existential character. In the context of Bharatanatyam, the moment of explaining shifting ideologies and its impact on the form, content and process, is a moment of convergence, of past and present, dancer and society. This convergence has been so enduring that while dancer’s have found new ways of expressing in the language of Bharatanatyam, recoures is taken to the traditional texts for understanding the tenets of its practice. The second, revised and updated edition of Message in Movements, ‘Abhinaya Darpanam, An Illustrated Translation’, attempts for the first time an illustrative description of the aesthetic movement/suggestion in Bharatanatyam so learners may reconnect and experience its unique definitional identity to its source in nature and reestablish practical-theoretical, subject- object connections. This edition collates verses from the two available translated and edited texts of Manmohan Ghosh (328 verses), and P.S.R. Appa Rao (814 verses). The detailed illustration of every nuanced element is presented to offer a paradigm for exploring and understanding the embodied art within the broader context of performance, represntation and re-presentation.