Internet Archaeology 10 - Iyer. Footnotes

Footnotes

1. The temples in Central Java are generally older than those in East Java and stylistically different, with a tendency to represent figures and objects in a comparatively more naturalistic fashion than seen in East Java, where the figures bear a resemblance to shadow theatre puppets, giving rise to what is known as the wayang style.

2. The complex is made up of a series of concentric courts, with the central one containing three tall, major structures (candi Siwa, candi Brahma and candi Wisnu) faced by three smaller ones; two temples at the north and one at the southern entrance of the court. There are eight other temples, much smaller in size making sixteen temples in total in the innner court alone.

3. The sequence of reliefs on the inside of the balustrade follows a known narrative, that of the Ramayana and this provides a kind of skeleton around which the rest of the architectural restoration has to fit. The whole temple structure was subject to systematic study and the reconstruction was completed after the formation of the Netherlands Indies Archaeological Commission in 1903. It was the Dutch who evolved the technique of anastylosis (reconstructing the architectural structure by recovering all its stones and putting them together again through the help of keystones) which forms the basis for a rigorous approach to the practice of architectural restoration.

4. All the visual examples of this section refer to the Prambanan dance relief p49, which is analysed in the discussion (section 2.2).

5. LifeForms is of course constantly being improved and has now reached version 3.0.9 which is more user friendly than earlier versions. However non-Western dance movements are still poorly represented in its Mocap gallery.

6. However, from February to April 2000 Cheryl Cowan, one of the most experienced LifeForms students at the University of Surrey worked on two further animations (relief P39 and relief P59) at the record time of 8 hours (4 each), with astonishingly accurate results. It should be emphasised however that by then she could avail herself of all the analytical work already being carried out in connection with this project, with plenty of visual material and video recordings of the dancer.

7. This is almost self-explanatory. What is meant here is the diverse repertoire of daily movements one absorbs from childhood and which has so many different expressive qualities in relation to the cultural context e.g. gestures percieved as threatening by one specific culture and not by another etc.. It should be noted here that I am not saying that a specific movement quality cannot be learnt - this is exactly what one does when one learns specific movements from a dance teacher and thus a new model of behaviour is internalised.

8. This interpretive issue has been further investigated by Labanotation expert Jean Johnson Jones and myself in connection with a Small Creative Project in Performing Arts funded by the AHRB at the University of Surrey during the summer 2000. The project, of only a few months duration, has looked at how karanas (see note 9) are interpreted by an Indian dancer of today (Bharata Natyam dancer Vena Ramphal) responding to textual and visual clues.

9. This is the technical name given to these small sequences of movement in the Natyashastra. The sequence in relief P49 represents a karana (n. 25 in the Natyashastra). Basically, a karana is a dance movement unit made up of movements of the lower and upper limbs using a specific posture or stance and correlated movements of the head, neck and sides of the body.

10. This is not wishful thinking or simply an indication for some future unspecified continuation of the work of which Surrey AHRB pilot project represented only a segment. A new team of researchers is now engaged in turning the initial vision into reality. In May 2000 a Collaborative Research Grant was awarded by the Getty Grant Program for a new project entitled "Dance and the Temple: Interpretation and Construction of Heritage through a Virtual Site". The researchers involved are myself, now based at the University of Oxford Institute of Archaeology, Dr Pinna Indorf of the School of Architecture, National University of Singapore, Dr John N. Miksic, Southeast Asian Program, National University of Singapore and Terence Braun, digital media expert, of Braunarts, London, working together with a number of Indonesian colleagues, in particular Professor Dr Edi Sedyawati, of Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta. The project will run for two years and it is envisaged that the final outcome will comprise one or more CD-ROMs and a website.