Moving towards aṇgasuddhi and saustabham with a conscious bodymind: Embodied imagery, metaphor and sensory awareness in Odissi dance training

Abstract

This article investigates the usage of embodied imagery, metaphor and sensory awareness in the teaching and learning process of Odissi dance, an Indian classical dance from the eastern state of Odisha. It analyses examples of Odissi dance training used by chosen dance institutes and dancers in India. The discussion is undertaken in correlation with the psychophysical performers’, dance scholars’, somatic movement practitioners’, dance anthropologists’ and philosophers’ study of bodymind and embodiment. It proposes a shift from the objectified to a subjective approach to the dancer’s body that empowers students/dancers to reclaim the ownership of their bodies and movements. Altogether, it highlights a missing block in the training process that enables dance students to move towards the socioculturally imagined level of ‘perfection’, however, with a healthy, thinking, feeling, moving and agentive bodymind.