TILT PAUSE SHIFT: DANCE ECOLOGIES IN INDIA
Krishna Menon
TILT PAUSE SHIFT: DANCE ECOLOGIES IN INDIA by Anita E. Cherian Tulika Books, 2017, 248 pp., 1950
December 2017, volume 41, No 12

Tilt Pause Shift:Dance Ecologies In In-dia edited by Anita E. Cherian is a remarkable book. It is remarkable for many reasons, in a context where hagio-graphies about dancers, coffee table books on dance with glamorous production values abound—here is a book that is scholarly, incisive and very aware of the politics of bodies in performance. The book began from the very pertinent question of how to write about dance. Dance is ephemeral and creates images in a flash, and then it is gone. A dancer uses his or her body to etch beautiful and forceful images to convey meanings and communicate emotions and feelings. The audience grasps it almost immediately and then it is all over. The ephemeral nature of any dance performance is very difficult to capture and communicate in words and the book sets out to accomplish this task. In addition, there is the question of the culturally embedded nature of the performing arts.

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