Gendered Dependence: Non-Binary Notions of Sexuality in Indian Art and Performance:
Going beyond the usual concepts of dependency relationships located within a post-colonial state, this new research project examines in greater depth how Indian conceptions of the body (depicted in art, iconography and in performance) have been impacted by a moral, religious Western perspective imposed before, during and post-colonial rule. My recent focus on gay male dancer Ram Gopal, the subject of a recently published monograph (2024), investigates a fascinating man who worked his way through a complex tangle of critical contemporary problems as a gay Asian male dancer in London and Europe at a time when myriad and relevant cultural shifts were in progress. Tackling issues of gender and coloniality, the book is a critical beginning to the new research.
The ‘moralising projects of colonial and post-colonial modernity’ as Davesh Soneji has termed them remain part of the ‘unfinished pasts’ (2012: 3) of both the place and enactment of performative ritual and performance in India, from the roles of the female temple dancers, the devadāsīs, through to the itinerant folk dance and theatrical performers, and the ‘third gender’ or transgender performers – the hirijas and kothis. In these cases, there is what I call a ‘double dependency’ that emerges firstly from the all-powerful colonial project and secondly, in the India that develops in post-colonial times from the new, fervent nationalism that reinforces in part, a Victorian morality and disgust for bodily performance, recreating the dance forms through a prism of purity and respectability. In complex ways, these systems created cultures of dependency where aspects of inclusion and exclusion were normative ways of behaviour.
In terms of contemporary practice, a number of Indian dancers in India, in the UK and elsewhere are now attempting to re-inscribe and re-create artistic forms connected with traditional Indian forms of gender and sexuality (devadāsīs, hijras, etc.) in a radically different context, such as in performance research, in cross-disciplinary theatrical productions, and in film and creative work. Investigating iconography that depicts certain original philosophic concepts of a balance between male and female (ardhanārīśvara), and particular stories of gender transformation in mythological depictions such as in the epic Mahābhārata text as well as examples of deities worshipped by the trans community (Bahuchara Mata) expose layered understandings of the spectrum of human sexuality. These developments will form part of the new investigation. In this project I investigate aspects of ‘asymmetrical relations of dependence’ (Hegewald, 2023:8) and issues of empowerment as well as erasures of memory brought about by nationalistic agendas.
Ann R David, PhD, Professor of Dance and Cultural Engagement, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Bonn, in the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies. She has recently been a Visiting Professor at King’s College, London in the Culture, Media and Creative Industries (CMCI) department, and holds an Emerita professorial position at the University of Roehampton where she worked for 17 years, including 6 years as Head of the Dance Department. Her research and teaching specialisms are dance anthropology (ritual, migration, diaspora, embodiment) and South Asian classical & popular dance; her dance training includes ballet, contemporary, folk, and the Indian classical styles of bharatanatyam and kathak. She has published widely on this work, as well as on dance in Bollywood and on the ritual dances of Tibetan Buddhism and has completed a monograph of Indian dancer Ram Gopal, (Bloomsbury). Ann has given public talks at the V&A, the British Library, British Museum and National Portrait Gallery and been involved in post-show discussions at Asia House, Nehru Centre, Sadler’s Wells, Southbank and the Bhavan, and has appeared on BBC radio and TV on several occasions. She is passionate about the need for the arts in education, works closely with policy makers, and is on the board of several arts organisations. Her current interests are in creating cultures of (mutual) care in the arts that support an ecological dimension.