To sing and to dance, to think and to fight: an actor's second nervous system

Abstract

This two-part essay is on the erotics of pedagogy or education of the senses through learning how to learn from images and sounds of cinema as manifestations of rhythm. Part one creates a conceptual framework derived from the archives on Neurological Modernity and Theatre Anthropology, so as to develop the concept of a “Second Nervous System” which animates performers in the great Asian and European civilizational traditions of performance. Their relevance to early twentieth century European avant-garde performance and cinema and to contemporary transcultural work in performance provides a mobile, flexible, conceptual framework for thinking with film. Part two activates this network of rhythmic connections so as to explore, observe, analyse and learn from the film Khayal Gatha by Kumar Shahani, which is, among other things, about the conditions of transmissibility of cultural traditions after colonialism and political independence. A question drives this essay in memory of Paul Willemen. In the emerging “Asian Century” will we, the peoples of the Asia-Pacific zones of contact, be able to take cues from the anthropology of theatre to create “a thousand and one” transversal story lines on “a thousand plateaus” across the globe and beyond, with cinema/film as our mentor?

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