Read more
This book offers an inclusive lens through which to study the music and dance of South Asia, its diasporas, and the people who produce and use these cultural expressions. Each chapter's central argument ties into a participatory exercise that provides active ways to understand and engage with cultural meaning.
About the author
Sarah L. Morelli is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Denver. Active as a scholar and performer, her work draws on training with sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, kathak master Pandit Chitresh Das, and select disciples, and study in several regions of India and the US diaspora. Her book, A Guru's Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora (2019), details the development of the "California gharana" of kathak. Sarah is a co-founder and soloist with the Leela Dance Collective and Artistic Director of Leela Institute of Kathak, Denver.
Zoe C. Sherinian is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Oklahoma, a scholar-filmmaker, and percussionist. She is the author of Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology (2014) and has released two documentary films on the Dalit drummers of India. Her research has been supported by the University of Oklahoma and by Fulbright fellowships, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and
the Asian Arts Council. Her current book project is titled Drumming Our Liberation: The Community, Cultural, and Sonic Power of the Parai Drum.
Summary
This book offers an inclusive lens through which to study the music and dance of South Asia, its diasporas, and the people who produce and use these cultural expressions. Each chapter's central argument ties into a participatory exercise that provides active ways to understand and engage with cultural meaning.
Additional text
Music and Dance as Everyday South Asia provides a fantastic sampling of current research on music and dance in South Asia and its diaspora. The thematic organization breaks down old divisions between the folk, popular, and classical that have long organized the study of music and dance in South Asia, and traverse national boundaries to explore the dynamics of how musical form and embodied dance practices encode, express, and enable different projects of identity and sociopolitical contestation. Audiovisual and supplementary materials on the companion website enable readers to directly engage with dance and musical forms, making this a unique and extremely valuable resource for teaching.
