A Reflection on The Inter-Semiotic Transformation of Select Vacanas of Akka Mahadevi into a Music-Dance Production

Abstract

This project was set out to curate dance videos of select vacanas, meaning, religious free verses in Kannada, of Akka Mahadevi, a twelfth century poet from Karnataka, India. Vacanas are religious lyrics in free verse which mean ‘a saying’ or ‘a thing said’. By translating Akka’s vacanas to music and dance the project aimed to transport the essence of her poetry to the viewer. The symbols, images and metaphors used by the poet from discursive fields such as Bhakthi movement (a spiritual reform movement in India), Vedas, Upanishads, Yoga and feminism were re-interpreted through traditional music and dance styles recognized as classical arts by the national government, by a process of, what I theorize, as inter-semiotic transformation. Inter-semiotic transformation is the reinterpretation of symbols from one semiotic system, say, literature into others like music, dance, film or theatre. This paper analyses strategies of bringing poetry into the realm of aesthetic experience of viewers through the performing arts.