Paper short abstract:

An analysis of in-depth slow ethnography in performance studies, deals with the dancing communities of North India. The question under study is a methodological clash of the parampara conception as a long-term exploration, which produces a “slow knowledge”, vs today’s economical and political challenges.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnographic research of traditional dance and music in India requires personal engagement into the art, at least to some extent. The best model of a performance study includes the ethnographer's education in the art under study. In case of Indian traditional dances like Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi etc. this means to become a part of hereditary teacher-disciple's interconnection (guru-shishya parampara). This demands years of discipline cum observation. My study of traditional Kathak dancers' world turned to be a long-term personal study of the skill under one performing family (khandani), masters of music, dance and acting. At the same time, since late 1990's I conducted a multi-local research (Marcus (1995), Clifford (1997), Hannerz (1998), Wulff (2007) and her "yo-yo fieldwork"), traveling extensively, motivated by the fact that various dancing communities and performance styles in India are related to each other.

In this paper I am going to discuss a methodological clash of Indian conception of long-term and in-depth slow exploration of the subject (parampara) vs contemporary market demands for fast art, aimed at product making. The question is, how do the Indian traditional professional communities (biradari, gharana) respond to today's economical and political challenges by using their own "art of slowing down". The concept of "slow knowledge" will be compared here to that of "fast knowledge" in the case of North Indian traditional dancing performance cultures.