On Sunday at Blossom's, I come across a book entitled 'Performance Tradition in India' [National Book Trust, Dehli, 2001]about ritual dance performance in India, which deals with various aspects of: dance, puppetry, martial art and theatre in a concise but serious manner. This should provide a sound overview of the field we are investigating.
The difficulty in focusing on the puppet sequence in the film longer than a few minutes, by some of you, may be explained by the frustration of different expectations.
Unlike in conventional film narrative and popular form of TV coverage, these performances invite us to leave human time to enter the time of myth. This shift is mediated by the text which re-presents the myth for its re-enactment through the ritual of the performance.
In the afternoon we watch a longer film, 'GODS NEVER DIE' (2004), by the Geneva team. Rather than trying to explain what we are looking at the film enables us to WITNESS the events depicted: with no voice-over, but LONG TAKES in which sequences from different PERFORMANCES of TIRAYATTAM (the 'Dance of Splendour') are intercut with sequences from everyday life.
The film ends with a short paragraph of text which, most economically and most effectively, places the diverse elements in the film into context. Everything seems to fall into place; but without closure.
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