Body, Space & Technology Journal (Jan 2013)
Mudra: Choreography in Hands
Abstract
Mudra is a domain of movement, and it is considered to be a prominent mode of communication in dance and the dramatic arts in India. Mudra, primarily, is understood as an inscriptive form that follows the linguistic parameters, expressing symbolic meaning through systematically codified patterns of the dancer’s hands. Beyond the level of linguistic symbolism, mudra is kinetic energy. It is essentially a form of movement, and the deliverance of its meaning is embedded in the kinetic modalities of the hands. A mudra is a ‘thing’ composed of a number of spatiotemporal properties such as tempo, duration, rhythm, motion trajectories of the hands and eye movements. Mudra is the ‘optical mechanism’ of the hand, so it sees things, narrates events, interprets their meaning and experiences a range of emotions through movements. Mudra connects the subjective and objective worlds in a performance through kinetic properties of the hands. The body remembers and repeats through the embodied thinking of the gestural practice of the hands.
