EMOTIONS - BODY - TEXT
IN INDIAN PERFORMING TRADITIONS
Workshop a cura di Heike Oberlin
NUOVO TEATRO ATENEO
2, 4, 9 APRILE 2025 ORE 10.00-13.00 15 APRILE 2025 ORE 12.00-16.00
Attività valida per
l'acquisizione di 1 CFU AAF
SARAS: vito.dibernardi@uniroma1.it
ISO: carmela.mastrangelo@uniroma1.it
Prof Dr Heike Oberlin
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen – Germany
Together with my host Vito Di Bernardi, Professor of Performing Arts and Sanskrit expert Dr Carmela Mastrangelo I will be working on the research project “Text to Actress: Female Roles, Textuality and Performance in Indian Kūṭiyāṭṭam Theatre”. Kūṭiyāṭṭam is the only Sanskrit theatre with a tradition dating back at least a thousand years, originating in the south-western Indian state of Kerala, and was declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2001. Since the 1990s, when I lived in Kerala for several years to learn the Malayalam language and to study both the theory and practice of the Kūṭiyāṭṭam Sanskrit theatre tradition, I have been focusing on the subject from both a philological-indological and a theatrical-performative perspective. Kūṭiyāṭṭam is an excellent example of how a living tradition constantly negotiates its margins and boundaries, adapting 'tradition' to 'today', including in terms of gender.
During my visit, I will hold a series of cross-disciplinary sessions, open to students of the Music and Performance and Asian and African Civilization’s PhD programmes, focusing on the texts of the Kūṭiyāṭṭam repertoire, especially the Malayalam-language stage manuals, and the history of this tradition. In addition, a practical workshop entitled “Emotions – Body – Text in Indian Performing Traditions” on acting techniques in Indian theatre and their transmission will be held at the Teatro Ateneo. Students will practise hand gestures (mudrā), eye and facial movements, first steps, and recitation of text in the Kūṭiyāṭṭam style; they will learn the representation through physical expression of the major emotions (nava-rasa).