Musicology & Ethnomusicology
Nautchwork
Nautchwork uses moments of intersection between European and Indian dance traditions to revisit a question Joann Kealiinohomoku posed nearly fifty years ago. “The question,” she asks bluntly, “is not whether ballet reflects its own heritage. The question is why we seem to need to believe that ballet has somehow become acultural. Why are we afraid to call it an ethnic form?” While Kealiinohomoku aimed to challenge other dance scholars, I want to ask—and begin to answer—her question by considering its prehistory. In that process, I will also attend to the rich sonic dimensions often neglected in such discussions. Nautchwork is divided into two broad sections, the first of which examines three historical encounters between European ballet and India during the early twentieth century. The book’s second section jumps forward in time to the twenty-first century to consider the legacy of those intersections between European and Indian dance traditions discussed in the preceding chapters. Nautchwork thus confronts the supposed acultural status of ballet, to recall Kealiinohomoku’s turn of phrase, both through an investigation of historical contexts as well as current movement practices.