shabari rao

Research and Publications

questions that arise from working with the body and that can be investigated through the body

Enabling the Ongoing Life of Therapeutic Theatre: A Case Study of Positively Shameless

Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Volume 36, Number 1, pp. 161-169 (2021)

Positively Shameless is a therapeutic theatre performance (premiered in 2016 and continues to tour) co-created by seven women based in Bangalore, South India. The play took as its starting point aspects of child sexual abuse that endure into adulthood. Most therapeutic theatre processes include an extensive creation and rehearsing period followed by just a single set of performances. Positively Shameless is unique because it has endured and evolved over time. Through this we distill and articulate ongoing relevance and methodological principles that have enabled the ongoing life of this piece of therapeutic theatre.

Empathy and Somatic Practice (2018)

Professor Marin Roper and four dance major students from Brigham Young University (USA) spent 10 days with me and 4 other Bangalore based dancers exploring how somatic work can enable cross cultural empathy. The result of this research was presented at a Somatics Conference and Performance Festival (Geneva, New York, 2018.)

Performance, revelation and resistance: Interweaving the
artistic and the therapeutic in devised theatre (2017)

This article describes the process that led to the creation of Positively Shameless, a devised theatre performance that explores emotional and physical residues of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in five adult women in Bangalore, India. The article touches upon the interplay between the therapeutic and artistic perspectives of theatre making and challenges the widely held dichotomy between applied and pure theatre. It also explains the principles that guided the process, with illustrative examples taken from the devising stage and the final piece. 
 

Bodystorming (2015)

The fundamental idea behind this initiative is to use simple interaction frameworks between dancers to simulate and understand biological processes, drawing from deeply inter-disciplinary roots. Can we reflect, remember, react and talk through our bodies? Bodystorming is an initiative which explores this concept in action, giving people an experiential account of what it means to engage with the body as a medium of thought and communication. While we are quite familiar with brain storming- coming up with ideas rapidly in a group situation, we rarely think of doing the same with our bodies. What happens when we collectively throw ideas together spontaneously using our bodies? 

A Dance for Dance's Case: a performative presenation (2016)

In contemporary India, dance is not a requirement in the context of formal educational, yet it is often seen as adding some peripheral value. The education system in contemporary, urban India still struggles to fully justify, and integrate, dance in the curriculum. Hence it is almost always positioned as optional, and separate from the main business of learning. By re-imagening the purpose of dance in education as an aesthetic, creative and expressive practice that is central to embodied learning, we acknowledge the body as a site of learning. This way of framing dance education makes it indispensable to the larger project of education and thus consolidates its position within institutions of learning. 

Other Writing

Extending Boundaries: Embedding peer feedback in an Indian dance education context (2015)

Some Pedagogical Concerns in Teaching Dance (2014)

Culture and Social Heritage in Teaching Dance in India (2014)

Peaking Duck Diaries (Inaugural Issue, June 2013) 

Peaking Duck Diaries (Second Issue, Dec 2013)

Seeking out a New Role for Dance (2008)