Publisher's Synopsis
The photographs you see in this book are the result of an extensive journey that the artist undertook across the length and breadth of India over a period of five years. She visited dance schools and festivals— from the Uttar Kamalabari Satra monastery on the Majuli river-island in the Brahmaputra river in Assam, which teaches Sattriya dance, to the C.V.N. Kalari gurukulam in Calicut, which instructs students in the martial art of Kalaripayattu—to research classical, folk and tribal dances. She also visited weaving villages, documenting the dancers’ costumes and textiles, and how a dancer inhabits textiles and plays with fabric through movement. By highlighting the drapes that are used in dance, Briana shows us how even a single piece of cloth that is used is still relevant in India. Her photographs celebrate textiles as well as the aesthetic of those who wear them.
