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7. From Floor to Stage: Kalarippayattu Travels
- State University of New York Press
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7 From Floor to Stage Kalarippayattu Travels Martin Welton In The Meaning of Truth William James draws attention to significance of the relationship between the doer and the thing done in the accrual of value to either. “The relations between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive,” he suggests, “are just as much matters of direct particular experience, neither more, nor less so, than the things themselves” (1975: 7). The appeal to direct experience of relations as well as objects is of relevance to this discussion of the deployment of a martial arts practice within a variety of theatrical contexts for three principle reasons: first, it directs attention to processes of embodiment that might be shared across martial and performance practices; second, it suggests that understandings of the martial arts as a process of embodiment be made on the basis of comparing the differing contexts within which they are variously martial and/or artistic; and third, it demands that the perspective of those involved in these reckonings be brought into the account. A focus on the acts or processes of embodiment not only directs our attention to the centrality of the acts and the quotidian condition of their practice, over and above their ideal forms, but also to the significance of the context—or habitus—within which such activities take place. A contextual understanding of embodiment demands a consideration of how situatedness is both formative of embodiment and is in turn informed by it. Furthermore, an attention to the peculiarities of context draws our attention to the very 161 162 Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge modality of practice as itself expressive or exploratory of meaning as well as to the objects and environments against and within which it occurs. This chapter considers primarily the nonmartial practice of a martial art, in which the doer-done relationship is shifted from its original context, not only in consequence of the change in application, but also because this shift occurs across cultures. However, the chapter is not simply concerned with the “use” (or abuse) of the practices of one culture in and by another, but with the condition of movement by which this translation is both enacted and made manifest. The essay thus seeks to explore both the kind/s of bodies that might be articulated or enculturated by this movement, and also how movement itself carries with it and develops certain conditions of knowledge, even as it travels across contexts and across cultures. Indeed, the significance of “travel” here is that it not only draws attention to the fact of movement—that culture/s as well as people travel—but that it identifies movement as the meeting point of body and culture (Rojek and Urry 1997: 10). As suggested, this chapter concerns the nonmartial practice of a martial art, and does so in conditions of cross-cultural application. Specifically , it considers three recent contexts and examples in which British, or British-based, theater makers have made use of the South Indian martial art kalarippayattu. While these three examples are by no means exhaustive of the uptake of kalarippayattu by practitioners of the performing arts, rather than martial arts, they do allow for rather different illustrations of the extent to which the practice is caught up in global flows of travel—from India to Great Britain for example. They also allow for some discussion of the practice as itself bound up in a process of travel(ing). The use of kalarippayattu by non-Indian performing artists raises a number of anxieties, centered around the authenticity (or otherwise) of the manner and usage of this borrowing. Leaving those concerned with the postcolonial encounter in an era of globalization to one side, several of these can be seen to be connected to the validity of the use of a martial art in a theatrical context. These concerns pass in both directions, for both the integrity of the form itself, and also for an authenticity or integrity that it might lend to theatrical performance. Readers with interests in the martial arts might well be familiar with kalarippayattu from the ethnographic writings of Phillip Zarrilli, not least of which is When the Body Becomes All Eyes, by far the most comprehensive work on the subject written in English. Those who have [44.222.104.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:57 GMT) 163 From Floor to Stage studied his writings in detail might be aware that Zarrilli is also a theater director and actor trainer of some...