1. Special Issue: Transformations in Contemporary South Asian Ritual: From Sacred Action to Public Performance (2016.)
2. Dr Ann R. David is Head of Department and Reader in Dance Studies at the University of Roehampton, London, specializing in dance anthropology and South Asian classical and popular dance.
3. Geoffrey Samuel is Director of the Body, Health and Religion (BAHAR) Research Group and Emeritus Professor in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. He is also an Hon. Associate at the University of Sydney, Australia, and President of the International Association for Traditional Asian Medicine (IASTAM).
摘要
This is the first of two articles in this special issue focussing on the Dochula Tsechu, a festival which took place in Bhutan in December 2011. The festival incorporated reworked elements from the Tibetan and Bhutanese cham dance performances discussed in the previous article along with other, often innovative, elements. How, within today's globalised conditions, might embodied practices such as Bhutanese Buddhist danced ritual reflect changed meanings of both national and transnational identities, of religious practices, of aesthetic sensitivities as well as manage political pressures from outside and within? What is the effect of the State sponsoring a newly choreographed ritual? What coded information is being carried through these embodied performances of specific movement genres? Using information gathered during detailed fieldwork in Bhutan at the Dochula festival and the three day Trongsa Tschechu, and comparative material from the UK Hindu Tamil festival of Tai Pusam, the article argues that enculturation of religious precepts, of cultural values, and the accrual of merit or power drive these newly formed, or transformed rituals, as the rapidly changing world or diasporic status creates concerns of perceived loss or rupture. The paper also considers the place of such 'sacred' action in public performance. Are performances such as these 'performance of memory,' or are they events which are able to speak to today's cosmopolitan audiences and in periods of rapid social, political and economic change?
目次
Abstract 25 Introduction 25 Ritual Dance in Contemporary Bhutan 25 The Bhuranese Movementscape and the Trongsa Tsechu 27 The Dochula Festival 28 Transforming the Tsechu 30 Conclusion 31 Glossary of Tibetan and Bhutanese Terms for first two articles 32 References 33 Biographic Sketchs 34 Notes 35
