Dance and the Secular Embodiment as Political Imagination

Sale price  $103.50 Regular price $115.00

Dance and the Secular Embodiment as Political Imagination

Sale price  $103.50 Regular price $115.00

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Dance in Dialogue

Dance and the Secular

Embodiment as Political Imagination

Mandeep Raikhy

Performing Arts / Dance / Regional & Ethnic

This volume draws on a travelling venture called The Secular Project, which travelled across India as well as within the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Vatican City, Italy and Greece, and deliberately chose to address the secular through the moving body.

The question of the secular has so far been studied in philosophy, theology and law departments. Rarely has the secular been imagined, configured and negotiated through the moving body. The Secular Project's catalyst was the recent wave of Hindu nationalism engulfing India's socio-political landscape and set out to explore the experience of creating and performing various iterations of the secular in different global contexts through dance, movement and performance with over 200 collaborators across the world.

Drawing from this far-reaching project, the book offers a range of performative reflections on the subject. In addition to the editor's overview of the scope of The Secular Project, throughout the book are short, curated dialogues with a diverse selection of cultural practitioners, including dancers, choreographers, directors, film-makers and more, who engaged with the project in various capacities.

The form of these dialogues captured here range from WhatsApp messages, email exchanges, photo essays, transcribed conversations, short essays, Q & As and dialogues via multi-modal AI to notes and even doodles.

Overall, the book demonstrates the transformative potential of moving bodies and their ability to galvanise collective action globally and across generations.

Mandeep Raikhy is a dance practitioner with a particular interest in exploring the intersections between dance creation, performance, research and pedagogy. His choreographic work has been preoccupied with exploring the relationship between choreographic practice and political resistance. He has created several dance works, which have travelled across India and internationally over the years including Kampnagel, South Bank Centre and Singapore International Arts Festival. He toured with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, London, between 2005 and 2009; from 2009 to 2019, he was Managing Director at Gati Dance Forum; and between 2018 and 2020, he taught as Assistant Professor at the MA Performance Practice (Dance) at Ambedkar University, Delhi.

Publication Date: 29 April 2027
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN-13: 9781350555532
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 160
Weight (oz): 16.0

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