Dear all,
 
  I am looking for guidance regarding the conventions of the Sanskrit theater traditions of Kerala. The question is: What is the content and structure of the semantic gestures in the dance sections between lines of dialogue?
  In one of my courses we will be reading the Little Clay Cart (Mṛcchakaṭika) this academic quarter, and I wanted to show the students a glimpse of the living tradition of performance in Kerala. I luckily found excellent Youtube footage of a kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ performance of a portion of Bhāsa's Abhiṣekanāṭaka at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2008 (link).
  The segment I have examined is the very beginning of Act III, in which the rākṣasa Śaṅkukarṇa arrives to Rāvaṇa's castle to inform him that Hanumat has destroyed the Aśoka garden and has to talk to the doorwoman Vijayā  (text (p. 63); translation)
  The snippet starts with the recited line of Śañkukarṇa, in which every word is signed/gestured with its appropriate semantic hastamudrā:
   
18'54": Ka iha bhoḥ Kāñcanatoraṇadvāram aśūnyaṃ kurute? (Hello! Who here keeps the gate of the Golden Gatehouse unexposed?)

  Then follows a section of dance and gesture:

19'28"

  And after two minutes finally comes the answer of Vijayā, also gestured:
 
21'27": Ayya, ahaṃ Vijaā. Kiṃ karīadu? (Sir, it is I, Vijayā. What is there to be done?)

  My question is, again: What is the content of the gestures in the dance sections between lines of dialogue? Are they somehow drawn from the script or from elsewhere?  Would anyone be able to gloss some or all of the gestures in the section between 19'28" and 21'27"?
  I have been trying to use the repertoire of hastamudrās in G. Venu's The Language of Kathakali, but have not been very successful so far. Any guidance would be sincerely appreciated.
 
  namaskaromi,
 
  Diego 

 

 

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