AnticasteBharathanatyam on Clubhouse

Description

Bharathanatyam is mired in a problematic past. Beginning in the 1930s, it was reinvented as a nationalist project at the hands of upper-caste elites, and the contours of that reinvention still have implications and resonances today. The key pillars of the “new” Bharathanatyam included the engineered exclusion of hereditary women practitioners, as well as reimagined, highly Sanskritized, and deeply gendered aesthetics and technique. Moreover, these were couched in the idea of dance as a “spiritual pursuit” for upper-caste (or aspirationally upper-caste) amateur practitioners, unlike the professional practice it was for its original performers. Reimagined Bharathanatyam continues to embody all of these problems. Can there be a progressive feminist Bharathanatyam that can be practiced across the barriers of caste, class, and gender?


Discussions on casteism, patriarchy, misogyny, colourism, body shaming , homophobia, transphobia, exclusionary practices within Bharathanatyam spaces