Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Fieldwork Topic: Badmaash
For my fieldwork assignment, I plan to study The Brown Badmaash Dance Company. Badmaash is a South Asian fusion dance group, an area of which I know very little about. I don't really have much dance experience or exposure to a lot of the music they use, so I'm excited to learn about the process in which they select and edit their music and its relationship to the dancing and performance. Through this study I intend to gain a better understanding of the different types of dance utilized in performances and how this is interweaves with the chosen music. I also aim to study the fusion aspect of the dance group and how each type of music and dance functions together to form a cohesive whole. I will explore these and more ideas through the attendance of several rehearsals, performances, and interviews with members of the group.
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I don't want to send you down fieldwork paths that may not be interesting or relevant for you, but I wonder about the history of this group, and whether there is a sort of institutional memory at work here: when did they begin? Did they start of as another kind of group (ie, a bharatanatyam interest group or something) before turning to "fusion" as their central concern? When did that happen? Why is "fusion" the central interest here, what does it signify for the group's organizers? There is such an interesting history - and a thick, conflictive literature - on ideas of fusion and hybridity in relation to South Asian music and culture that I wonder how much of that bleeds into the group's own conceptions of their performances (this is, after all, a campus group...).
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