Journal Articles

Contemporary dance scholarship has increasingly turned toward decolonial perspectives, yet much of this work continues to operate within conceptual frameworks that separate theory from practice and aesthetics from embodied experience. This paper addresses this limitation by revisiting the Nāṭyaśāstra as an Indic framework for understanding methods in dance education.

Contemporary dance scholarship has increasingly turned toward decolonial perspectives, yet much of this work continues to operate within conceptual frameworks that separate theory from practice and aesthetics from embodied experience. This paper addresses this limitation by revisiting the Nāṭyaśāstra as an Indic framework for understanding methods in dance education.

Learning the 108 karaṇas, codified dance units from the ancient text Nāṭyaśāstra, offers new possibilities for embodied training, creative exploration, and pedagogical renewal in Bharatanatyam. As a Bharatanatyam dancer, I engage these possibilities through a practice-as-research (PaR) lens. Structured training in karaṇas revealed significant pedagogical potential: enhancing kinaesthetic alignment, enabling both expressive and abstract choreography, and fostering aesthetic integrity.

Blurb: The paper examines the disappearance of Tulare Lake (California) and the Aral Sea (Central Asia) - where river diversions for irrigation destroyed millennia-old lakeshore societies - as emblematic cases of global lake desiccation due to over-exploitation, silting, and waste dumping. It is pointed out that lakes, ponds, and other waterbodies would play an increasingly important role in recharging underground aquifers and offering a relief on a planet under stress due to climate change.

Blurb: The paper examines the disappearance of Tulare Lake (California) and the Aral Sea (Central Asia) - where river diversions for irrigation destroyed millennia-old lakeshore societies - as emblematic cases of global lake desiccation due to over-exploitation, silting, and waste dumping. It is pointed out that lakes, ponds, and other waterbodies would play an increasingly important role in recharging underground aquifers and offering a relief on a planet under stress due to climate change.

The access to higher education for Dalits through positive affirmation is an important step to address representation. However, representation of Dalit women in male-dominated disciplines has received little attention. This article seeks to understand the process of social differentiation that affects Dalit women in engineering colleges. Through the lived experience of these women, the article explicates how caste privilege has transformed itself into merit in the modern era.