Celluloid classicism : early Tamil cinema and the making of modern Bharatanāṭyam

**A detailed history of the confluence of two South Indian art forms** __Celluloid Classicism__ provides a rich and detailed history of two important modern South Indian cultural forms: Tamil Cinema and Bharatanatyam dance. It addresses representations of dance in the cinema from an interdisciplinary, critical-historical perspective. The intertwined and symbiotic histories of these forms have never received serious scholarly attention. For the most part, historians of South Indian cinema have noted the presence of song and dance sequences in films, but have not historicized them with reference to the simultaneous revival of dance culture among the middle-class in this region. In a parallel manner, historians of dance have excluded deliberations on the influence of cinema in the making of the "classical" forms of modern India. Although the book primarily focuses on the period between the late 1920s and 1950s, it also addresses the persistence of these mid-twentieth century cultural developments into the present. The book rethinks the history of Bharatanatyam in the twentieth century from an interdisciplinary, transmedia standpoint and features 130 archival images. La 4ème de couverture indique : "This book investigates how two of the most prominent cultural forms of modern South India, Tamil cinema and Bharatanāṭyam dance, share complex and deeply intertwined histories. Celluloid classicism is about the entangled emergence of these two modern art forms from the 1930s to the late 1950s, decades that were marked by distinctly new, interocular modes of cultural production in cosmopolitan Madras. This book unsettles received histories of modern Bharatanāṭyam by arguing that cinema, in all its technological, moral, and visual complexities, bears heavily and irrevocably upon iterations of this 'classical' dance. Bringing over a decade of archival research into conversations with choreographic analysis and ethnography, this work addresses key questions around the fluid and reciprocal exchange of knowledge between screen and stage versions of Bharatanāṭyam in the early decades of the 20th century" "This book investigates how two of the most prominent cultural forms of modern South India, Tamil cinema and Bharatanهaٍtyam dance, share complex and deeply intertwined histories. Celluloid classicism is about the entangled emergence of these two modern art forms from the 1930s to the late 1950s, decades that were marked by distinctly new, interocular modes of cultural production in cosmopolitan Madras. This book unsettles received histories of modern Bharatanهaٍtyam by arguing that cinema, in all its technological, moral, and visual complexities, bears heavily and irrevocably upon iterations of this 'classical' dance. Bringing over a decade of archival research into conversations with choreographic analysis and ethnography, this work addresses key questions around the fluid and reciprocal exchange of knowledge between screen and stage versions of Bharatanهaٍtyam in the early decades of the 20th century"--Back cover "This book investigates how two of the most prominent cultural forms of modern South India, Tamil cinema and Bharatanāṭyam dance, share complex and deeply intertwined histories. Celluloid classicism is about the entangled emergence of these two modern art forms from the 1930s to the late 1950s, decades that were marked by distinctly new, interocular modes of cultural production in cosmopolitan Madras. This book unsettles received histories of modern Bharatanāṭyam by arguing that cinema, in all its technological, moral, and visual complexities, bears heavily and irrevocably upon iterations of this 'classical' dance. Bringing over a decade of archival research into conversations with choreographic analysis and ethnography, this work addresses key questions around the fluid and reciprocal exchange of knowledge between screen and stage versions of Bharatanāṭyam in the early decades of the 20th century"--Back cover