The digital capture of Odissi movement using 3D motion capture technology visualizes as well as analyzes embodied movement. I see myself moving in the 3D environment without my flesh. I see myself in the habitual quirks and ticks, a deflected neck here and a tucked tail bone there. I see my hips isolate from the torso or not. My torso moves in opposition to my neck, a phenomenon that vouches for my technical precision in executing Odissi. The digital representation of my movement hence gives an opportunity to locate exact anatomical positions enabling a clear sense of spatial and axial motion. Yet, the motion in the animation world seems as ephemeral as in the real world, except that here there remains only the skeletal body tracing motion in a 3D space. The markers flicker on and off constantly solving algorithmic problems to determine the best possible approximation of my moves. If the Mahari lurks as a flickering trace within the live Odissi dancing body that strips her away while simultaneously appropriating her emotional persona and ritual aura, I wonder about her whereabouts in the computational domain.
Movement converts to 3D data that pushes the modality of understanding movement. My abstract movement animates a skeletal framework that obscures the skin in its totality leaving only the bony structure bearing traces of my Odissi spirals and twists (unidentified in indigenous language and used as the English word). I can also see my gaits (Bishamasanchara) and sling-shot slips (Chhapaka). Visualization of the Odissi body through this pared down version forefronts the relationships between the hips and the shoulders, the wrist and the base of the neck, the knee and the ankle, and the toe and the spine. In the preceding chapter, while analyzing the skeletal body and extensively evidencing examples, I argue that the Mahari emerges in the bellowing of the sternum as well as in the subtle indirect undulations of the neck. Losing the narrative continuity of its corresponding choreography, the skeletal body pushes the glass-ceiling of meaning-making processes in Odissi by losing the narrative, expressive, and literary context that eventually evolves through the linearity of musical, percussive, and mimetic logic. In standard Pallavis or elaborations of a particular Raga or melodious cycle, the dance follows the linear logic of the corresponding musical progression. Sometimes the rhythmic logic as composed by the percussionist for the piece determines its sequencing alongside setting the time signature of the piece. Lastly, the narrative content expresses the lyrics of a particular text or even branches off from the text to provide contextual information. All three modes are repurposed and refeatured in this new medium since the movement is digitized and has the potential to be viewed backwards or can be fast forwarded or can be broken up into little chunks or repeated in an infinite loop. Linearity is also questioned by the 360 degree view in the 3D space. The skeletal capture thus reorients the focus of the Odissi body from a linear to a non-linear understanding of movement.