Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.33 (511 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0199343543 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-12-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In her historical on-the-ground study, Anna Morcom investigates the emergence of illicit worlds of dance in the shadow of India's official performing arts. Women's roles were often also taken by boys and men, some of whom were simply female impersonators, others transgender. Professional female performers were courtesans and dancing girls who lived beyond the confines of marriage, but were often powerful figures in social and cultural life. She explores over a century of marginalisation of courtesans, dancing girls, bar girls and transgender performers, and de- scribes their lives as they struggle with stigmatisation, derision and loss of livelihood.. Since the late nineteenth century the status, livelihood and identity of these performers have all diminished, with the result that many of them have become involved in sexual transactions and sexualised performances. Until the 1930s no woman could perform in public and retain respectability in India. Meanwhile, upper-class, upper-caste women have taken
Her publications include Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema and Unity and Discord: Music and Politics in Contemporary Tibet. She is a lecturer in the Music Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.. Anna Morcom works on music and dance in India and Tibet from a number of perspectives pertaining to modernity and the contemporary world
Five Stars Unusual for lovers of dance history.
Expertly moving between colonial and postcolonial discourses on these communities, Anna Morcom reveals the ways in which postcolonial nation-building in the name of progress and modernity has excluded a range of non-elite subjectivities and marginalised their role as carriers of embodied culture. Abdi, Gulf News, 2014"Anna Morcom's extensively researched book moves away from the world of classical Indian dances like Bharatanatyam, Kathak associated with religion and sanctioned as acceptable. It deals with those that remain popular in India but are deemed non-classical and whose traditions often do not meet the norms of culture, social, gender and sexual acceptance." -- Sudha G Tilak, Hindustan Times, Mumbai, 2014"A unique addition to the scholarship on performance written in a highly erudite, well-researched, yet extremely readable manner. On all counts, a very welcome and timely scholarly contribution." -- Prabha Kotiswaran, Senior