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La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

Article in Indian Theatre Journal · December 2019

DOI: 10.1386/itj_00002_1

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 itj 3 (1+2) pp. 5–20 Intellect Limited 2019

Indian Theatre Journal

Volume 3 Numbers 1 & 2
© 2019 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/itj_00002_1

UTTARA ASHA COORLAWALA

Barnard College/Columbia University

La Meri, The Mirror of

Gestures and memes

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In revisiting La Meri’s process of assimilating and organizing many cultural dance history
movement techniques the author tracks the way that a movement organization ethnologic dance
system can travel as memes (memory genes) and regenerate in an entirely new memes
context. Current and past writings on La Meri do not acknowledge the extent to memory genes
which La Meri was deeply influenced by the methodologies of teaching what is expressive movement
now known as Indian classical dance forms. This case study is based on her teach- La Meri
ing notes on Coomaraswamy’s translation of a medieval Sanskrit text on dance, Delsarte
the Abhinaya Darpana, as The Mirror of Gesture. I propose that La Meri be
recognized for the depth of her exploration and commitment to ‘ethnic dance’, her
prescient observations on cultural style and for the impact of her classes upon
current practice of performing many dance styles in the same body.

La Meri, aka Russell Meriwether Hughes, dancer and scholar (1899–1988)

processed through her person, a myriad of techniques and styles. Starting in
Texas, La Meri assimilated dances into her repertory as she travelled eastwards
and then performed them locally as she acquired them – a stranger in distant
lands. Then when La Meri returned to the United States before the Second
World War, she underwent a reversal of relational locations: the same dancer
performing the same dances became a translator of and speaker for difference
within her homeland. I revisit La Meri’s encounter with Indian dance forms
and theories, and how they might have influenced her methodologies of

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Uttara Asha Coorlawala

1. Dawkins is identified teaching and organizing her understanding of traditional dances from world
by James Glick of
the Smithsonian
cultures in the midst of modern dance in New York.
magazine (May 2011) This is where my global perspective, shuttling between India and the
as one of the world’s United States, becomes irretrievably entangled within my attempts to construct
foremost evolutionary
biologists and theorists a narrative of La Meri’s journey in dance. La Meri found me on the grass at
of information Jacob’s Pillow (in 1966) when Margaret Craske had expelled me from ballet
technology. For class (I had a hangover that morning). La Meri happened to walk by and sat
Dawkins, the two
disciplines are mutually down beside me – and – well, after that I had a friend! She asked me what it
constitutive because of was like to come from India to the United States to study dance, and if it was
the constant exchange
of information
anything like her own experience of being an American in India (in 1936–37).
between organism and Her career trajectory was well established by then, whereas I was tentatively
environment, such as exploring starter options. Now, many years later, realizing that we have more
transmitting, receiving,
coding and decoding. in common than I could fathom at that time, in this article I reflect upon her
For his description of representations of difference and how her legacy resonates with current prac-
memes see Dawkins tices of dancing Indianness in a global world. To do this, I follow her process
2006.
through her several writings and most especially her notes at New York Public
Library (NYPL), which stimulated me to recollect and pay refreshed interest to
what I had learned in classes I took with her at Cape Cod (in 1966 and 1967)
at Jacob’s Pillow (in 1966–67) and from several discussions with her at her
home/studio. I found an incredible correspondence between her writings on
ethnological dance, and the classifications of dance as nrrta or abstract dance
and abhinaya or techniques of expressing or narrating emotions. La Meri finds
in Delsarte’s system, a way of interpreting and structuring dance that is close
to Indian philosophies of embodiment.
In revisiting La Meri’s process of assimilating many cultural movement
techniques, I begin also to revisit the contradictions inherent in performances
of world dance where movements as vocabulary, and movement practices as
syntax, travel and regenerate themselves across constructions of the nation.
My efforts to track La Meri’s systematic approach to teaching lead to Richard
Dawkins’ notion of memes as procedures or practices such as units of cultural
inheritance. Although Dawkins is a biologist, his theory has particular reso-
nance within Informational Technology, as it speaks to the way that computer
viruses, replicate themselves for several generations but quickly cover up their
origination point. Like biological genes that travel and multiply, the memory
genes (or memes) that survive the pressures of natural selection,1 co-operate
with other memes from the same environment to form memeplexes (Dawkins
2006: 222). I propose that something very similar happens in movements
and movement systems that are visually and kinaesthetically apprehended
– regardless of spoken language differences. In perceiving the connections
between memeplexes and dance techniques, Diana Taylor (2003: 4) in her
discussion of archive and repertory, poses that as long as sources of practices
are identifiable they remain within a repertoire of specific heritages. But what
happens when the sources are obliterated from current circulations of non-
verbal practices and skills, while the practices continue to circulate as perfor-
mance? The practices, the ways of doing things, are relegated to a common
pool of anonymity, and become accessible to and owned by all. The concept
of memes enables thinking about such skills, acts and their dispersion. I argue
that La Meri in this study serves as a key marker of the circulation of the
organization of Indian dance forms, or more specifically, their grammatic
structures. Her approach marks a transition between what Vatsyayan calls the
implicit Natyashastra and the postmodern notion of system-based choreogra-
phy. This is not only because of her chronological location within nationalism

6  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

and modernism, but also because of her active participation in disseminating

such knowledge.
While following the trail laid down by La Meri, I argue that she has not
had the recognition she deserves for the depth of her exploration and commit-
ment to ‘ethnologic dance’ – at least in the specific case of her explorations of
Indian dance and her use of it to construct a framework from which compar-
isons can be made of dance movements, postures and gestures within and
across styles. Hence the focus of this article needs to deal primarily with her
relationship to Indian dance and its historical texts but briefly on her applica-
tion of this same method to her knowledge of multiple dance genres. I am
mindful of Bourdieu’s observation that multiple perspectives organized within
a single map merely reproduce the observer’s own habits of practical thinking.
First, I will briefly summarize La Meri’s adventurous and strange career of
dancing otherness to multiple others. Then I describe La Meri’s methodology
of transmitting her multiple cultural dance movements, within the same class
in two parts. This two-part discussion of her methodology is based upon the
categories by which Indian classical dance performances are organized today.
The section on nrrta deals with cultural distinctions of posture and gesture
and her ways to make these accessible to her students. That is followed by
a section dealing with techniques of expression or abhinaya. Most classical
dance forms in India today will break down performances according to as
they relate to abstract movement (nrrta) or to narrative dance (nrtya) involving
abhinaya or techniques of performing narration. Finally, I ask how much of her
legacy lives on and in what forms.

La Meri – The performer, choreographer and dance researcher

Details and facts about the life of Russell Meriwether Hughes have already
been extensively documented by Nancy Lee Ruyter’s writings. Dancer, teacher
and writer, La Meri was born as Russell Meriwether Hughes in Louisville,
Kentucky, before her family moved to San Antonio where she grew up
riding horses and writing poetry. Smitten by dance, La Meri came to New
York in 1923, ostensibly studying English at Columbia University, while danc-
ing prologues to silent movies! She went on to tour the world from 1926
to 1939. For thirteen years, she travelled with her husband and impresario
Guido Carreras. In each location she avidly studied local dances from herit-
age masters of dance in Hawaii, Spain, Argentina, Ceylon, Madras, Lucknow,
Burma (now Myanmar), Japan and the Philippines (Venkateswaran 2005). In
each place she watched performances, met dancers, studied dances, made
copious notes and acquired costumes. She built her career observing differ-
ence and performing difference. After returning to New York, in 1940 La Meri
founded and taught dance at the School of Natya with Ruth St. Denis in New
York City, where they also presented such guest lecturers as Pearl S. Buck, A.
K. Coomaraswamy, Lin Yutang and Ted Shawn.
As she began to teach and lecture she meticulously organized many skills
that she had worked so hard to acquire into a curriculum. Two years later, the
school became absorbed into the Ethnologic Dance Center, which lasted until
1956, when La Meri retired to Hyannis, Cape Cod, from where she continued
to write fiction, poetry and books about dance and teach as a guest lecturer at
Columbia University, Juilliard, New York University and Connecticut College.
She led an active social life and delighted in the companionship of her two
dogs. Both won many prizes in dog shows. In 1984, La Meri retired again, to

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Uttara Asha Coorlawala

2. Jack Cole referred spend her final years in San Antonio where she had grown up. In 1972, La Meri
to his night club
choreography as ‘Urban
received the Capezio Dance Award and in 1973, a citation by Texas Governor
Folk’. It later came to be Dolph Briscoe for artistic achievement. In 2015, La Meri was inducted into
called ‘Hindu Swing’. Dance Heritage Coalition’s expanded list of America’s Irreplaceable Dance
3. As in the Nautch, Kwan Treasures.
Yin, and Japanese As a performing artist, photographs, reviews and film strips reveal that
and other dances of
Ruth St. Denis and La Meri was elegant and exact in her movements, a characteristic she would
Denishawn. pass on to her students. She must have been a close observer of movement
traits, for it was said that her stage personality would morph each time she
performed a dance from a different geo-cultural area. A London review cited
in her programme noted ‘La Meri is not a woman but twenty. A truly great
artist’ (Hull 1941–42). Her programmes and photographs framed her as an
American (read ‘white’) who had collected dances and reproduced them
assiduously. La Meri was savvy about timing and staging matters. She changed
costumes behind a screen onstage while she talked to the audience about the
cultural characteristics of the dance she was about to do. Doing this, she visi-
bilized rather than concealed the labour of her chameleon transformations.
She educated her audiences into reading cultural identities and universalisms
by situating them within her own body.
My interest in revisiting her work was stimulated when I found that she
was clear and nuanced about many of the distinctions between the ‘authen-
ticity’ of dance forms we still struggle with today despite extensive discussions
on the topic. When non-western dancing in America was lumped into one
category,2 generically referenced as ‘Folk Dance’ (and while Eastern Europe
celebrated its folk dance as a nationalist expression of indigenous local culture)
and situated in contrast to the classical ballet, La Meri introduced ‘ethno-
logic’ to distinguish folk dances from non-western high art dances. Dances of
source cultures that were reproduced in entirety she called ‘traditional dances’
(La Meri 1977). ‘Authentic dances’ were those traditional dances that had been
judiciously edited for non-traditional audiences. Neo-classic dances were
those that had recently been constructed with original movement techniques
but with new costumes, or new music as in Nala Najan’s use of baroque music
to showcase standard Kathak rhythmic patterns. This term ‘neo-classic’ is
currently used by dancers in India, to distinguish their own creative works
within the genres of the traditional forms as Kathak, Odissi etc. La Meri
insisted that neo-classic was not to be confused with dances that creatively
departed from or were inspired by traditional techniques and conventions
such as the Denishawn Nautch, or St. Denis3 ‘Cobra’ or Kwan Yin solos. These
clear distinctions of dance genre within the lumpen category of ‘ethnic dances’
are still currently applicable as descriptive handles that clarify what is at stake
in many discussions on appropriation and authenticity today.
For example, La Meri and Jack Cole both used Bharatanatyam movement
techniques with western music, but La Meri argued that their two approaches
were not comparable. Jack Cole incorporated (today one might use the
word ‘appropriated’) many Bharatanatyam (then called sadir) dance move-
ments – which he learned from La Meri and Uday Shankar – into his own jazz
dances, which he called Hindoo Swing. La Meri argued that the genre of Cole’s
works remained Jazz theatre dance. La Meri incorporated Bharatanatyam,
Kathakali and Raas Leela movements to stage the Tchaikovsky ballet
Swan Lake using a multi-style format comparable to the approach of Uday
Shankar and current Indian dance dramas, which incidentally also came to
be called ‘ballets’ within India (Khokar 1979; Coorlawala 1994; Sarkar Munsi

8  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

2008). Whereas Jack Cole decontextualized Bharatanatyam in his dances, La 4. Here I deploy Susan
Foster’s notion of
Meri recontextualized Swan Lake and situated it as if it might have been an choreography as the
Indian legend. Walter Terry in his book Dance in America noted that La Meri’s writing of dance, and of
use of ‘the classical movements and gestures of Hindu dance to retell the genres of choreography
as danced discourses.
story and reproduce the choreographic form of Swan Lake, a notable and fasci-
nating achievement’ (Terry 1956: 209). By not giving in to vague and sensa- 5. Matteo taught ‘ethnic
dance’ at the NY High
tionalist exotica and by holding to the Indian techniques she had learned, I School of Performing
contend that La Meri separated her version from that of the Orientalists. Her Arts (Board of
intention was not to exoticize but to showcase Indian dance as a discourse Education Certified) for
several years, and the
as sophisticated and versatile as any ballet.4 La Meri is not usually credited main technique taught
for having made these careful distinctions, even though all this was in her was Bharata Natyam.
(Matteo received the
book on ethnological dance. What is not in her book, but which I found in her salary commensurate
manuscripts was a brief critique of how Lincoln Kirstein had mis-represented to a master’s degree
dances of non-western cultures. Dance lore has it, that La Meri, Matteo, Jack because of his years of
study and experience;
Cole and others firmly believed that the structural strengths of Bharatanatyam see letter dated 11
would strengthen the American dance canon and that Bharatanatyam would April 1967.) In addition,
be recognized in universities as its own discipline.5 he taught his ethnic
dance forms at Juilliard
La Meri’s own pupil, Matteo would reverently perform the familiar ‘Lord’s (1962) and in many
Prayer’ as abhinaya. In Matteo’s collection, there is a photograph of him residencies across
the United States that
performing the Lord’s Prayer, in Madras, while an avid, very young Padma were supported in
Subrahmanyam looks on! Interestingly, years later, Padma Subrahmanyam part by the National
would perform her own Bharatanatyam-based choreography Jatayu Moksham Endowment of the
Arts (1971–73 at least).
to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, in Chennai and in the Festival of India in the Matteo Vespucci is
USSR of 1985. The claim that this was the first time Bharatanatyam was being currently also listed
performed to European classical music could well be seen as an appropriation as one of America’s
100 treasures. Dennis
and a justification of La Meri’s breakthrough! Diamond, videographer
In her thesis investigating the complexity of notions of identity, authentic- and his brother,
Matthew had both
ity and cultural appropriation, Heather Strohscheim observes that La Meri’s studied at PA and
Swan Lake could well have initiated a wave of using non-western dance much later Dennis
movement to tell familiar western stories (Strohschein 2007). This makes it corroborated that
this had been one of
even more urgent to discriminate between the initiating works and the imita- the perspectives that
tive works. This is where it is useful to resort to Sylvia Glasser in her thoughts informed his education.
on appropriation in dance in a colonial context, South Africa. Glasser distin- During the 1970s and
1980s Bharatanatyam
guished between the celebration of the other within modern dances and and Odissi were on
appropriative dances where the cultural property of the other is incorporated the curriculum at NYU,
Juilliard, and the High
and transformed without acknowledgement or respect for difference. While School of Performing
many dances imitating La Meri’s choreographic translations might have been Arts. Marriano Parra
appropriations, La Meri herself was always careful to acknowledge and visibi- taught Spanish dance.
lize the difference.

Nrrta and La Meri’s methodology of distinguishing and wearing

dance styles
Ruyter notes that ‘La Meri was the first twentieth century American dancer to
actually pursue the study of foreign dance languages, their movements, chore-
ographic forms, styles, and cultural components’ (Ruyter 2000: 101). In the
following description of La Meri’s method of transmitting ‘ethnologic dance’ I
follow her process through her writings, her notes at NYPL, and on my recol-
lections of classes I took with her at Cape Cod (1966 and 1967), at Jacob’s
Pillow (1966–67) and several discussions with her at her home/studio.
In several passages in her autobiography (La Meri 1977b) charting her
process, and in her last book, Dance in Total Education, (La Meri 1977a), La

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Uttara Asha Coorlawala

6. The dance form Meri acknowledges she had been impacted by her sadir6 teacher Papanasam
now known best as
Bharata Natyam or
Vadivelu Pillai, of the dance lineage (bani) of no less that the esteemed guru
Bharatanatyam was Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai (Venkateswaran 2005: 15; Ruyter 2019: 102.) This
earlier known as sadir. led her to study the translations of the Natyashastra (Ghosh 1956) and The
7. In the book Dance as Mirror of Gesture by A. K. Coomaraswamy (both Sanskrit treatises on dance,
Art (1933) La Meri cites music and drama containing specifics for training the body). Her own book
A. K. Coomarasawamy’s
The Mirror of Gesture Gesture of the Hindu Dance was illustrated by photographs of La Meri taken
before she even by her husband Guido Carreras. The book had been completed very soon
went to India, so she after her tour and Ruyter notes that the photographs were in fact taken to
probably referred to
the earlier version of accompany her notes lest she forgot what she had learned! She visually illus-
his book, in her lecture trated how the hand gestures were to be read within the classical Indian
addressed to the India
Society in 1939.
dance forms, in relation to spatial levels of the whole body and showing
appropriate facial expressions. Very quickly her notes and photographs were
8. Also see
correspondence
published in 1941 by Columbia University Press, with a foreword by no less
between A. K. than Coomaraswamy, then curator of Indian art at the Boston Museum of
Coomaraswamy Fine Arts. Coomaraswamy’s translation of the Abhinaya Darpana had already
and Russell Carreras
(aka La Meri) in the been translated into English in 1917 and revised and reprinted in 1944. This
Collection of the was followed in 1918 by his book of essays, one of which, The Dance of Shiva,
Museum of Fine Arts. would inspire dancers all over the world (from Martha Graham to Mrnalini
It needs to be noted
that a prior document Sarabhai).7 His foreword leaves no doubt as to his endorsement of this book,
from a lecture given which he also edited. In his foreword Coomaraswamy writes: ‘we cannot but
at the India Society
by La Meri in London
congratulate her upon the devoted care and real learning that have gone into
in 1939 and reprinted the making of a book at once attractive and informative’ (Coomaraswamy
from Indian Art and 1941).8
Letters, vol. xiii, No. 1
differs in its details as Considerably later, La Meri’s notes show that she organized her meth-
to the number of head odology of teaching dance across cultures, according to body parts and their
movements, and the performed affects.9 Her (unpublished) notes on her workshops list categories
language with which
La Meri describes the of basic stances and movements of various body parts. Her lists correspond
gesture language. with the organizational style of the NatyaShastra (NS) which lists stances, body
Coomaraswamy
as an editor would
parts and their possible combinations in still poses and in movement patterns.
presumably have When La Meri taught a particular dance form, she similarly categorized basic
revised her notes? In stances, and then movements of various parts of the body, first in isolated
Ghosh’s introduction
to his translation detail, and later in combinations involving the entire body. This organization is
of the 1975 third still in use in practice in Bharatanatyam and other Indian dance forms. In fact,
edition of the AD, O’Shea and Lopez y Royo have both independently noted how the notion
Ghosh marks that
the five manuscripts of ‘technique’ is embedded in contemporary training, and in the NatyaShastra
of AD from which he where vocabulary lists name base postures, poses, gestures of hand, head,
reconstructed his
text ‘do not fully agree
movements and phrases. The conventions of connecting poses, their organi-
with each other […]’, zation or applications (viniyoga) practice and performance, distinguish styles
so perhaps that would from each other. However, whereas the conventions of successive moods (or
explain discrepancies
in the various bhavas) are indicated in the NatyaShastra, the NatyaShastra does not prescribe
translations of La Meri, specific rules governing the sequence of the movements.
Coomaraswamy, Ghosh, La Meri’s classes at Cape Cod (1960s) on ‘ethnic dance’ drew upon and
Vatsyayan et al.
extended the same principles of organization, to compare similar seeming
9. Undated notes by La movements across cultures. For example, in her class we might attend to the
Meri, in Series 1: La
Meri Papers, NYPL, The arms: starting with second position arms in ballet, but followed by the sadir10
Jerome Robbins Dance version of the same arm extension to the side, and then the more bent upper
Division.
arm and elbow version as in Java. Thus, the basic anatomical structure became
10. The position is the frame upon which distinctions of the different styles were ‘tasted’ and
today referenced
as Natyaarambha,
experientially compared by the dancer.
in the dance form A similar progression of comparisons across cultures but based on body
Bharatanatyam. parts, is apparent again from La Meri’s teaching notes, on ‘East Indian Dance’

10  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

11. For example in the

section on arms
she lists suci, akasa
and apavidha arm
positions. Then the
list lays out sadir-
suci, sadir-akasa
and sadir-apavidha
arm positions. From
the descriptions
of the positions
accompanying each
term it would seem
that the word sadir
becomes a qualifier
suggesting that in sadir
dance (old name for
Bharatanatyam); these
same base positions
are aestheticized in
different ways.

Figure 1: La Meri in the costume she might have worn when she performed with
Varalakshmi and Bhanumati at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras, India, 1 and
3 February 1 1937. (Ruyter 2000: 101). Courtesy of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance
Archives.

for they included terms not only from Sanskrit, but also from local words in
Tamil and Hindi.11 To these terms she added terms from dance styles, beyond
the sub-continent, for example, in the generic category of chari (translated as
gaits or walks) she lists Javanese and Japanese walks!
Whereas it might appear that her organization of elements of style reflects
the perspective of modernism, with its tendency to generalize, abstract or
systematize. However, in her studies of Indian dance I argue that La Meri
studied the dance within its own context, which also involved a system. This
way of organizing materials for teaching dance, could seem obvious by hind-
sight, but how did La Meri arrive at this place? Why does it seem obvious?
A similar and better-known organization of movement as smallest units of
movement/kinemes, phrases and patterns, was concurrently being presented
to dance audiences by anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler and Ray Birdwhistell
who also published their linguistics-based system for non-verbal communica-
tions during the 1970s. To retrace the genealogy of linguistics backwards in

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Uttara Asha Coorlawala

12. Some chronological
landmarks that stand
out are: 1786 – Sir
William Jones’ theory
of the proto-Indo-
European languages.
Based on his study of
several languages in
his 1786 presidential
discourse to the Asiatic
Society, he postulated
the common ancestry
of Sanskrit, Latin and
Greek.
The Sanscrit
language, whatever
be its antiquity, is of a
wonderful structure;
more perfect than the
Greek, more copious
than the Latin, and
more exquisitely
refined than either,
yet bearing to both
of them a stronger
affinity, both in
the roots of verbs
and the forms of
time, one discovers that modern linguistics was kindled by Europe’s discov-
ery of Sanskrit12 and in particular via the structuralist approach of Ferdinand
de Saussure (1857–1913) who had studied Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. And
before that philologists had found phonetic commonalities between English,
Sanskrit and Latin.13 Since then explorations of structures of language have
circulated actively. What is interesting is that even as La Meri was exploring
her NatyaShastra-influenced method of deconstructing movement, consider-
able anthropological research on non-verbal communication grammars was
also ongoing. Dances as systems were being researched and constructed by
anthropologists of movement,14 by dancers15 scholars and linguists, based on
comparable taxonomical principles. Dances were being described as sets of
structures. All this happened concurrently and as with memeplexes, sources
were being relegated to preverbal consciousness.
From the lists in her notes, that are available to us, La Meri would juxta-
pose cultural practices for academic comparison in her classes but did not go
so far as to interweave global dance cultures within actual dances. She was
typically very careful to distinguish culture characteristics in movement and
apply them within their own dance contexts. In the instance of Swan Lake
(Hamsa Rani) her sources other than romantic ballet, were intra-Indian forms,
all attributed. This haunting and tantalizingly short clip on the Jacob’s Pillow
website seems to be the only video material we can access now of her dances.

Figure 2: La Meri as Hamsa Rani (Swan Queen) in her production of Swan Lake. Photo by Mario Rosel,
c.1944. Courtesy of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Archives.

12  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

Abhinaya (techniques of narration) and Delsarte techniques of grammar, than could

possibly have been
expression produced by accident;
so strong indeed,
The NatyaShastra goes on to distinguish limbs used in postures and locomotor that no philologer
dance movement as anga and those movements used in abhinaya (expressive could examine
techniques) as upanga. In addressing abhinaya techniques in performance, La them all three,
without believing
Meri resorted to the Delsarte traditions of movement to analyse expression them to have
across dance styles. By the time La Meri was teaching, Delsarte’s ideas about sprung from some
expressive movement had become firmly entrenched in the show business common source,
which, perhaps,
community via the work of producer Steele McKaye, and the dance peda- no longer exists;
gogy of Genevieve Stebbins. Even earlier, between 1870 and 1900 more than there is a similar
reason, though not
400 women artist–teachers were working with Delsartism across the United quite so forcible,
States! (Odom 2004). Still later Ted Shawn was to write a book on Delsarte’s for supposing that
method which he taught at Jacob’s Pillow (Shawn 1954). both the Gothic and
the Celtic, though
La Meri, seems to simply have assumed the prevalence of Delsarte’s theo- blended with a very
ries and practices. Perhaps this is because much of her teaching was within different idiom, had
the context of Ted Shawn’s ballet-modern-ethnic dance forms format and the same origin with
the Sanscrit; and the
because it was convenient. But she was also selective in working with aspects old Persian smight be
of Delsarte’s approach that could be applied productively to dancing identi- added to the same
family.
ties. For example, La Meri states (cited in Jones [1786]
1999: n.pag.)
Ethnic techniques may also be analyzed according to Delsarte’s trinal His publication of
division, which I call the esoteric. Delsarte as a base for his philoso- a translation of
phy of expression, applies three psychological levels – the intellectual or Kalidas’ Shakuntala
in Sacontala; The
spiritual, the emotive and the vital. The anatomy {of the body} and each Fatal Ring: An Indian
part thereof may be into these three. Drama. By Calidas,
(Meri 1977: 80) Calcutta 1789 led to
the staging of the
devadasi as bayadere
In La Meri’s succinct gloss of the practices of Delsartism above, she bypasses in European ballet.
1899 – Monier-
the theological concept of the Trinity assumed here, but she does draw upon Williams’ A Sanskrit–
Delsarte’s method of mapping three-ness as three modes of being – the intel- English Dictionary
lectual/spiritual, the emotive and the vital/sensual. These have been well and publications on
Sanskrit grammar.
documented in Ted Shawn’s book, Every Little Movement. These states are
said to correspond with three major divisions of into head, upper torso and 13. In his introduction
to the first 1872
hands, and lower torso and legs. These parts are subdivided again into three publication of the
parts, and potentially again for further nuancing. Each division and subdi- Monier-Williams’
vision would emanate combinations of three modes of being. For example, A Sanskrit–English
Dictionary, Sir Monier-
the use of fingers would be characterized as partaking of intellectual activity Williams explains that
(with relation to the arm) but within the emotive zone in relation to the whole Sanskrit is ‘a language,
in short, which is the
body. This theory is illustrated in a chart made by Delsarte to show reflec- very key-stone of the
tive ‘Correspondence’ between a trinity of heavenly activities, and their earthy science of comparative
counterparts, human states of being. It shows a hexagram with several upward philology’ (Monier-
Williams 1872: xi).
and downward pointing triangles radiating outwards from a split centre where
(according to the chart) man is located. The split between the upward-point- 14. See JASHM or the
Journal for the
ing and downward-pointing triangles presents the separation between the Anthropological
Divine, in Delsarte’s system and their earthy ‘Correspondences’ as expressed Study of Human
in bodily movement. However, La Meri eschews all references to the theologi- Movement for Drid
Williams’ approach
cal aspects of Delsarte’s theory of gestural expression. and that of her
But, the mapping of three states (physical, emotive, meditative) onto body colleagues regarding
the comparison of
parts was of great interest to La Meri. Delsarte’s three states can be compared Saussurean and other
to Upanishadic and tantric discourses on various states of being analogized as linguistic systems
sharira or bodies within each body.16 However, as practice, these three states with dance and ritual
movement.

www.intellectbooks.com  13
Uttara Asha Coorlawala

15. ‘The ‘Martha Graham are interpreted in innumerable ways! The ethereal state/body – for example –
technique’ and
the ‘Humphrey-Limon
is explained differently by the theosophists, the Shaivites and by other theo-
technique’ had already logical and so-called ‘esoteric’ communities who sought universal principles
been established as in yoga and martial art practices. The notion of sheaths that enveloped the
distinctive in style
if not in vocabulary. bodies or served to distinguish one state from another is found in esoteric
The exploration of Christianity, Sufism and Buddhism. (Sheaths would correlate with ‘veils’ in
classical Indian dance Sufism.) The NatyaShastra takes a considerably more pragmatic approach to
technique and training
systems in relation performing these three states of being in its classification of characters as slow
to linguistic models and sluggish (tamasic) passionate in emotion and action (rajasic) and subtle,
has more recently
been done by Janet
spiritual and nuanced (satvic). This notion of stereotypical characters (and their
O’Shea and Allessandra corresponding acting techniques and roles) still permeates a vast diversity of
Lopez y Royo whose Indian performance, from staged art dances to street shows, and popular seri-
approaches were
influenced by the als on regional language channels. So, this threefold mapping of states onto
writings of Kapila visible bodily action has travelled through many communities, independently
Vatsyayan, and the in Europe, India, North America and no doubt through communities and
practice of Dr Padma
Subrahmanyam on the histories of dance yet to be explored in the English language and in compar-
systematic approach of ative and anthropological studies. We could say that there is an archive of
shastric dance.
memeplexes of bodily psychophysical functions across eastern and southern
16. The subtle physical Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. The dominant understanding that all
(sthula) mental–
emotive, (sukshma)
theories of theological biologies are suspect in current times denies a place in
and karana (literally discourse to alternate belief systems about the body and its psycho-physical
causal) sheaths/ attributions regardless of how long they remain in practice and in circulation.17
bodies are said to
cloak the self-realized When discussing La Meri’s use of Delsarte, I focus on the practices circulated
state of turyatita in her immediate environments, as they impacted La Meri’s thinking about
(also referenced as movement and structures of dance.18 There is already an extensive literature
supracausal body).
on Delsarte’s analysis of expressivity instances but nowhere is there any formal
17. Within dance studies, acknowledgement of the influence of yoga on his process. I propose here, that
Susan Foster has
described movements La Meri might have found compatible resonances in Delsarte’s (unattributed)
as bodily writings approach to expressivity because both systems shared a common inspirational
that affect performer
and viewer and
resource – Sanskrit culture. For La Meri with the limited tools for movement
which modify each analysis at her disposal, Delsarte’s techniques with all its limitations offer
interaction much like a path that she treads with reservation but also resolution.19 La Meri notes
Derrida describes how
meanings of words are firmly in her sixth example of affective aspects of Delsarte’s technique, ‘[i]n
transformed by the the facial expression (mukhaja) of India Delsarte’s philosophy is most appar-
structural contexts ent for every possible tension has been studied and catalogued’ (Meri 1977:
in which they are
placed. The notion 83).20 Later Richard Schechner was intrigued by the codification of expres-
of bodily writings as sivity in Kathakali, where Kathakali performers would deliberately train their
karmic samskaras was
discussed in Kashmir
facial muscles to move in minutely tuned expressions of generic emotions,
Shaivite philosophical the bhavas. Schechner (1990) went on to apply the research of psychologist
texts of the tenth Paul Ekman to refine his own research into NatyaShastra-based performance
or eleventh century.
Cynthia Novack has techniques.
described problems La Meri references as exoteric factors in the study of ethnological dance,
of the mind–body the materials of movement of anthropologists, the spatial, social, aesthetic
separations. The
development of contexts of the dance forms, their myths of origin and their formative histo-
neuroscience which ries. She deems these as exoteric because they are external to the body and
involves several
biological disciplines,
the techniques they inform. La Meri references Noh, Sub-Saharan African
psychology and dance, Kathak and Flamenco to demonstrate that climate, garments, terrain
mathematical and footwear are factors that determine ways of moving. For example, glid-
modelling is itself
an example of how ing motions of the feet along the ground of Noh are enabled by the sock-
attitudes to mind– like tabe. Sub-Saharan African dance and Bharatanatyam are both danced
body–emotion links barefoot, but exhibit different usages of the whole or partial sole of the foot.
have evolved.
The stamping in the cooler terrains of Spanish and European folk dances

14  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

derives its characteristics in part because of the use of boots, etc. She posits, 18. La Meri’s musings
on the artistic and
like any culture-trait anthropologist of her time,21 that environmental, soci- spiritual development
ocultural, religious, historical factors could be read in the characteristic styl- of the performer
ized postures and gestures of the dances.22 As Foster so aptly puts it, for La which she considers
essential for success
Meri, ‘[m]ovement itself is a tangible and observable substance through which are categorized as
the dance presents a representation of the self and world’ (Foster 2009: 113).23 exoteric and esoteric.
For her, dance was not a mechanism for unpacking teleological truths but By esoteric, La Meri
seems to imply the
rather a means to portray social constructions of self and of exposing them as more subtle intuitive
such –as if culturally specific movements could be curated and worn like her performative skills
accumulated over
carefully curated costumes. However, even as audiences could marvel at her many years of
chameleon changes, her performances might also have enabled audiences to performing, rather than
read the other as knowable, visible and fixed. esoteric in the sense
of esoteric theological
With all her lists and notes, La Meri too, like many of her generation beliefs. One would
(e.g. the perrenialists, the universalists, including Coomaraswamy) seemed conclude then she
to be looking for universals, for some singular way of mapping and inte- was using the binary
exoteric–esoteric
grating what she had learned, seen and was teaching. Susan Foster notes within dance to
that in her 1965 book Dance Composition ‘La Meri puts forward the univer- practical knowledge
acquired through
salism of the modernist aesthetic’. By the time La Meri’s book on ethnic performances. By doing
dance was published, Joann Kealiinohomoku had also critiqued the assump- this she steers clear of
tion that ballet could be deemed an art form beyond ethnicities.24 Theatre all the controversies
around the claims of
of Japan, India, Bali, Ceylon among other countries had been researched by Delsarte followers.
ethnomusicologists, and CORD was publishing ‘dance research’. However, In doing this she also
more recently, historiographer Lakshmi Subramaniam (Subramaniam 2006) retraces the path of
the divorce of hatha
argues that the margam, or the format of what we now call Bharatanatyam, (Samkhya) yoga from
was forged in the eighteenth century in the court of Sarfoji II (1787–1832) ritual and its emphasis
on kinaesthetic and
where the ruler Sarfoji (himself educated by a Dutch tutor) was encouraging sensory experience.
his court artists to encounter European ideas of organizing music and dance.
19. In 1978 in a report on
Subramaniam argues that this was the modernizing moment in the history of a CORD conference
Carnatic music. It can be argued that the methodology of teaching sadir, that Fraker observed
La Meri learned in India was already ‘modernized’, that is systematized and that a common
theme reiterated
generalized when she studied with Vadi Velu in the 1930s. What La Meri had throughout the event
learned were already compatible with American modern dance universals of was the absence of
space, time and motion (Coorlawala 1994). Anthropologists were observing methodological and
bibliographical tools
cultures through those lenses, and arriving at essentialist notions of character for writing dance. See
as culture.25 Mary Fraker (1978–79:
74–76).

20. Several extant manuals

La Meri, ‘ethnic dance’ curator on dance compiled well
La Meri and Shawn may have shared a dream of bringing high art dances of after the NatyaShastra
and in different parts
other cultures to the attention of the American, and more specifically the New of India propose
England public, but after 1968 La Meri did not return to Jacob’s Pillow in her their own typical
capacity as an ethnic dance advisor. Ruyter’s deep research of documentation combinations and
variations of hand and
suggested that this was because the ‘ethnic’ programming of performances facial gestures. These
and classes had not been a commercial success (Ruyter, unpublished docu- include the Abhinaya
Darpana (Mirror of
ment). Shawn notes in one of his letters to La Meri, that the box office was Gestures), etc.
abysmal in 1970 but that he would resist resorting to rock concerts like the
21. Ethnomusicologist Alan
neighbouring Tanglewood Festival, which had until then been known for its Lomax (at Columbia
classical music outdoor concerts.26 (He entirely misses reference to the nearby University) linked
Woodstock Festival held in Bethel, NY, in 1969 that may well have changed movement patterns
of work with dance
audience tastes.) Despite her reified writing, La Meri’s actions as a curator movement in his film
indicate that she did not see ‘ethnological dance’ as fixed, simple, depersonal- Dance and Human
ized and unchanging. For example, when curating the Jacob’s Pillow dance History, 1974. The
culture trait approach

www.intellectbooks.com  15
Uttara Asha Coorlawala

is described by Anya programmes, Babatunde Olatunji and Edward Villella in the summer of 1967,
Peterson Royce’s
(1980) historicization
both these performers were given the honour of providing the climactic last
of anthropological act of the programme regardless of their ‘race’.
approaches to dance.

22. Her style of comparing Legacy

essential dichotomous
characteristics of For La Meri, canons of rasa and natyashastric aesthetics were not canons that
varying dance styles were lost and needed recouping or translating, but rather were canons, that
appears similar to
the approach of Curt she rigorously excavated to refine her own performances and teaching meth-
Sachs (her predecessor ods. La Meri’s approach exemplifies the concept of training as a kind of self-
in writing on world
dance). However, it
imposed ‘intellectual labour’ (Giersdorf 2009). Unlike her counterpart today,
differs in that La Meri rarely was she in competition with the ‘native’ performer of the forms she
unlike Sachs had presented, at least so far as South and East Asian dance forms were concerned
actually studied the
dances and saw them because of the immigration laws of the time that ensured that there were
in their own cultural not people from such lands in her neighbourhood (with the exception of
environments. Coomaraswamy whose approbation she sought out) and who could claim
23. La Meri uses Delsarte cultural ownership or who would speak back. While she might have used her
theory as a tool to whiteness to acquire the dances, one has also to respect the labour involved
deconstruct the
affect embedded in placing her body in strange places where malaria, dysentery and polio were
in the techniques risks she would have lived with. There is also the matter of her willingness
produced not just by
Bharatanatyam and
to learn from then socially ostracized dance gurus, and later her generosity
Kathak, but by diverse to and respect for coloured artists invited to Jacob’s Pillow. (This includes her
cultural forms. She kindness to an isolated unaccomplished student from India – myself.)
provides examples
of how the stance Nor did Russell Merriweather Hughes, aka La Meri, make any claims
and characteristic to be anyone other than a woman from Texas.27 In their own performances,
movements of different both La Meri and Matteo would highlight their translational perspective and
dance forms as
Flamenco, Noh, etc. changing locations in respect to the dance forms they collected and presented.
might be decoded They sought to position concepts of embodied art,28 in relationship to ballet
to reflect emotional
states.
and modern dance, the dominant forms in their cultural environment. And in
doing so brought Indian dance into discourse of American dance in academia
24. Kealininohomoku’s
provocative article ‘An
– no small feat in the 1950s and 1960s when Indians were denied entrance
anthropologist looks into the United States. As an educator, she also provoked audiences and
at Ballet as a form of students to actively see and sense a difference in their own bodies – a differ-
ethnic dance’ was first
published in Journal ence that could be acquired by observation, study and practice. At a time
of Anthropology for when Indian dance studies were beginning to relocate somewhere between
the Study of Human shifting national, and postcolonial, disciplinary perspectives, La Meri’s initial
Movement in 1969–70.
contributions to world dance bear re-visibilizing. Figures such as Ram Gopal,
25. See Anthropology Uday Shankar, La Meri and Ragini Devi, who carried cultures across the world
of Dance where
this ‘cultural between the world wars, can be seen today as bodied markers of the transi-
characteristics’ tions between national and global.
approach to dance
ethnology is described
Her writings display an awareness of structural aspects of dance expressed
by Anya Royce who in the academic styles of her anthropological contemporaries: Gertrude Kurath,
also points out that Kaeppler, Coomaraswamy and Birdwhistell, Hall, Padma Subrahmanyam
one of the pitfalls
of this approach is and Drid Williams. Historians of dance such as Faubion Bowers and Kapila
essentialism. Vatsyayan would appreciate her perspective. In fact, Vatsyayan in her capacity
26. Letter dated 1970 as curator for the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts would acquire
from Ted Shawn and many of La Meri’s costumes for a national collection staging the international
addressed to ‘Dickie’ appeals of ‘Indian dance’. With the expansion of claims to initiating dance
which is how La Meri
was addressed by him analysis, body language, pedagogic methodologies and the theorization of
in all his letters. La dancing, I believe that Hughes/La Meri’s foundational contribution to dance
Meri writes in her own
correspondence with
education and to practice-as-research has been blurred. It is very hard to

16  Indian Theatre Journal

 La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes

prove definitively that La Meri’s approach informs present educational inclu- John Christian that she
never needed contracts
sions of African, Indian, Hawaiian and Spanish dance forms within American from Ted Shawn, in
dance studies. We know that as Ted Shawn’s dancers and students began to her letter about him
teach modern dance in educational institutions, La Meri’s work also circulated undated but written
after Ted Shawn passed
for they often taught the same students. Matteo inherited and perpetuated away.
her approach in multiple tours performing in universities on the NEA touring
27. In her personal
programme. Even performers from India such as Amala Shankar (wife of Uday correspondence with
Shankar) and Odissi dancer Ritha Devi would find their way to Jacob’s Pillow friends she identifies as
to watch La Meri teach! Revisiting her papers stimulated memories of my Dickie, in more formal
correspondence with
own education into dance and led me to notice how her method of compar- colleagues as Russell
ing dance techniques was structurally organized. In some way this encounter (Carreras) and in
correspondence with
with La Meri’s vision of dance is an encounter with the way that movement students and dancers
and movement systems are constantly cycling between practice and theoriza- as myself as La Meri.
tions of practice; theorizations travel and are retranslated back from concept 28. This is where her
to technique, with fresh verbal descriptors and movement vocabularies. Thus, method seems to
the new practice based on old principles might be unrecognizable in its new correspond closely
with the NS sections on
avatar. Its origin obliterated, it would be taken as a new strand, a new meme- nrrta, where body parts
plex with its own cultural trajectories. are grouped by their
performative functions
(nrrta, abhinaya) even
Conclusion though the groups are
named anatomically.
In revisiting La Meri’s work of ingesting, digesting and disseminating
29. The author is now
geographically diverse dance styles, I track a few concepts of particular inter- teaching at the same
est to me, as those same concepts are also found in historic texts and the university where La
living archive of practices in what we now call ‘Indian dance’. La Meri’s career Meri herself studied,
taught workshops
of dancing otherness to multiple others is symmetrical parallel to my (much and performed.
later) experience of performing modernism in India, and Indian modernisms What kind of social
in Europe and the United States.29 I am struck with the similarities between patterns generate
correspondences like
her teaching approach and the methods for organizing movements that are this?
deployed in anthropological and body language studies. In following these
wandering threads, I encounter La Meri’s role in forming not merely my own
vision but also, I argue, the memeplexes of our current discourses of ethnic-
ity in dance today. So, this is also an article on how movement ideas, being
non-verbal, can spread and be retranslated into different vocabularies with
La Meri’s teachings as an example. I find that narratives are entangled, dance
knowledge is a palimpsest of personal histories and bodies are temporary
markers of transitions and translations.

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www.intellectbooks.com  17
Uttara Asha Coorlawala

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SUGGESTED CITATION
Asha Coorlawala, U. (2019), ‘La Meri, The Mirror of Gestures and memes’,
Indian Theatre Journal, 3:1&2, pp. 5–20, doi: 10.1386/itj_00002_1

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Uttara Asha Coorlawala currently teaches dance courses at Barnard College/
Columbia University, and formerly at the Alvin Ailey American Dance School
Professional Program. Earlier as a dancer, her solo show brought modern
dance, Bharatanatyam and yoga to stages of India, Europe, East Europe,
Japan and the United States as she uniquely served both the United States
(USIS/NEA) and India (ICCR) as a cultural representative. She served as a
Performing Arts advisor to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the National
Centre of Performing Arts, Mumbai, and currently curates the Erasing Borders
Dance Festival in New York City. Uttara has also served on various global dance
research (CORD) and educational (International Baccalaureate or IB) commit-
tees. Awards received include the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 2010
(India) for pioneering choreography; AHRB Fellowship for South Asian Dance
Research, London (UK); The Graduate Research Award from CORD (USA);

www.intellectbooks.com  19
Uttara Asha Coorlawala

the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, (India); and a Ford Foundation Research Project
(USA) on changing demographies of cultures in the United States. Her articles
have been published in Discourses in Dance, Dance Research Journal, Sruti, Marg,
and anthologies on performance and choreography.
E-mail: uacoorlawala@gmail.com

Uttara Asha Coorlawala has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format
that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

20  Indian Theatre Journal

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