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1981
Volume 22, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1477-965X
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9533

Abstract

The article explores the digital innovations that are being used in a folk performance in West Bengal, namely the dance. The COVID-19 pandemic the relevance of digital space across disciplines. Being an expression of the collective experience of the people of the Purulia district, dance is commonly associated with fostering and perpetuating folk and mythical beliefs through its extensive use of masks and dance movements steered by the songs. While the common urge to archive the traditional dance-drama form in its ‘authentic’ essence precipitates a digital turn within the performance, the digital contact paradoxically reorients the ‘authentic’ identity of this cultural practice. The present study seeks to use the ‘identity–authenticity’ interplay in the context of globalization as the crux of the article. Within this framework, the article analyses how a folk cultural practice like dance, with its recent innovations in masks and performances mandated by the pandemic, problematizes the debate. It further strives to recognize the implications of the digital presence of the performances as well as the performers, which, for many of the traditionalists, might have jeopardized the ritualistic practices that were considered the ‘essence’ of the performance. The research was conducted through ethnographic methods gathered through fieldwork to gain first-hand knowledge of the ground reality.

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2024-06-06
2026-04-13

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/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00125_1
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The digital turn in Chhau dance of Purulia: Reconfiguring authenticity in a post-pandemic scenario
Technoetic Arts 22, 115 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00125_1
/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00125_1
/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00125_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): authenticity; cultural identity; digital humanities; folk dance; globalization; masked performance; Purulia Chhau

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