The dance of love
Giridhar Raghunathan
Pronouns: He/him
To me, freedom means creation without confinement and revelation without fear.
The form: Until mid-19th Century the Indian Classical Dance – bharatanatyam (formerly “Sadir”) was practiced exclusively by a community of female dancers called Devadāsi-s. Though Devadāsi-s nurtured Sadir and demonstrated proprietorship of it, the upsurge of colonial elitist ideologies witnessed these dance performances banned, Devadāsi-s reduced to prostitutes and convicted for sexual promiscuity. After India’s independence from the British rule, both male and female students were encouraged to learn the dance. It was renamed as bharatanatyam, was ‘revived’ and re-shaped to a significant extent by middle-class appropriation.
The reflection: Although the puritanical view allowed even men to learn bharatanatyam, I believe that it did not entirely earnestly acknowledge men embodying the passion of a woman pining for her man. As a male bharatanatyam dancer, who focusses on gender inclusion, I queer the performance of femininity through movement, gesture and expression using bharatanatyam with the confidence that the dance can be completely gender inclusive.
The act: “The dance of love” is an original choreography presenting a love poem penned in Tamil language by Subbarama Iyer, a 19th Century poet. In this piece, I perform the angst of a woman who inadvertently discovers her lover being enticed by another woman at the riverbank. She is regretful that her lover is not hers anymore but reminds him of the tender love and courtship between them from the past. The goal of my performance is to perform the female through the male body and to celebrate the fascinating union of different emotions such as anger, jealousy, and sorrow in love.
The form: Until mid-19th Century the Indian Classical Dance – bharatanatyam (formerly “Sadir”) was practiced exclusively by a community of female dancers called Devadāsi-s. Though Devadāsi-s nurtured Sadir and demonstrated proprietorship of it, the upsurge of colonial elitist ideologies witnessed these dance performances banned, Devadāsi-s reduced to prostitutes and convicted for sexual promiscuity. After India’s independence from the British rule, both male and female students were encouraged to learn the dance. It was renamed as bharatanatyam, was ‘revived’ and re-shaped to a significant extent by middle-class appropriation.
The reflection: Although the puritanical view allowed even men to learn bharatanatyam, I believe that it did not entirely earnestly acknowledge men embodying the passion of a woman pining for her man. As a male bharatanatyam dancer, who focusses on gender inclusion, I queer the performance of femininity through movement, gesture and expression using bharatanatyam with the confidence that the dance can be completely gender inclusive.
The act: “The dance of love” is an original choreography presenting a love poem penned in Tamil language by Subbarama Iyer, a 19th Century poet. In this piece, I perform the angst of a woman who inadvertently discovers her lover being enticed by another woman at the riverbank. She is regretful that her lover is not hers anymore but reminds him of the tender love and courtship between them from the past. The goal of my performance is to perform the female through the male body and to celebrate the fascinating union of different emotions such as anger, jealousy, and sorrow in love.