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Dancing with Shakti: Bharatanatyam and embodied performativity within the South Asian diaspora

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Dancing with Shakti: Bharatanatyam and embodied performativity within the South Asian diaspora

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Content DANCING WITH SHAKTI:
BHARATANATYAM AND EMBODIED PERFORMATIVITY
WITHIN THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA
by
Anita Kumar
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
August 2005
Copyright 2005 Anita Kumar
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UMI Number: 1435112
Copyright 2005 by
Kumar, Anita
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Dedication
For Viji Aunty —
Thank you for teaching me to just go with my heart.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the staff and faculty of the department of
anthropology at the University of Southern California. In particular, I would
like to express my gratitude to the members of my thesis committee, my
advisor, Nancy Lutkehaus, Gelya Frank, Dorinne Kondo and Priya Jaikumar,
from Critical Studies, School of Cinema-Television for their thoughtful critiques
and intellectual support.
I am profoundly grateful to my immediate as well as extended family
(blood and fictive). These certain people are my brother, Raaj, sister, Lalita,
Leela Aunty, Prakash Uncle, Karishma, Shayona, Heena and Kumar Patel,
Anisha, and Karishma. A special thanks goes to Dawson Baca. I am grateful to
all my friends (who I won't list for fear of leaving someone out) for their love,
encouragement, and gentle reminders to just live a little.
I would not be where I am today, were it not for the invariable love and
nurturance of my parents, Indra and the late Vasanth Kumar. Their own
impeccable work ethic, discipline and determination to achieve their dreams
are what continue to keep me going.
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i v
Last but not least, I am eternally grateful to Viji, the Prakash family, and
the Shakti family. Though I am not a Shakti dancer, the sincerity and warmth in
which each person in this community welcomed me into their lives made me
feel as though I'd been a member of the school for years. It has been such a blast
to hang out with each and every member of this community. For awakening my
South Asian identity within me, I am forever indebted to Shakti.
Finally, I cannot think of a more beautiful and respectable figure to begin
this process of self-identification. I thank Viji Prakash for just being who she is.
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Contents
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract vi
ONE Introduction: The Space Between 1
TWO Choreographing Narratives: 16
Decentering the Eye/I
THREE Mother India: 63
Pieces of Viji's Life History
FOUR Performing Identities: 84
Race, Nation, and Gender
FIVE Embodying Identities: 130
Race, Nation, and Gender
SIX Conclusion: Coming "Home" 169
References 174
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v i
Abstract
This ethnography is a cultural biography of Viji Prakash, a bharatanatyam
dancer, choreographer, and instructor. Viji migrated from Bombay to Los
Angeles in 1975. She and her husband subsequently founded the Shakti Dance
School & Company. The text weaves together the narratives of various Shakti
dancers, shifting in and out of positions of marginality to unravel the notion of
group identity as cohesive, homogenous, and pure. Utilizing Homi Bhabha's
framework of the performative and pedagogical rendering of the nation-state,
the author examines how bharatanatyam demonstrates the performance of race
and nationhood, while simultaneously upholds their essentialization. Finally, it
looks at bharatanatyam's role in the disciplining of the body and self; how are
ethical subjectivities constructed through embodied practices? Incorporating a
phenomenological approach, the author excavates her own troubled
relationship with the dance and her South Asianness, forcing her to confront
her own performance and corporealization of South Asian American identity.
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Anita Kumar Nancy Lutkehaus
ABSTRACT
DANCING WITH SHAKTI:
BHARATANATYAM AND EMBODIED PERFORMATIVITY
WITHIN THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA
This ethnography is a cultural biography of Viji Prakash, a bharatanatyam
dancer, choreographer, and instructor. Viji migrated from Bombay to Los
Angeles in 1975. She and her husband subsequently founded the Shakti Dance
School & Company. The text weaves together the narratives of various Shakti
dancers, shifting in and out of positions of marginality to unravel the notion of
group identity as cohesive, homogenous, and pure. Utilizing Homi Bhabha's
framework of the performative and pedagogical rendering of the nation-state,
the author examines how bharatanatyam demonstrates the performance of race
and nationhood, while simultaneously upholds their essentialization. Finally, it
looks at bharatanatyam's role in the disciplining of the body and self; how are
ethical subjectivities constructed through embodied practices? Incorporating a
phenomenological approach, the author excavates her own troubled
relationship with the dance and her South Asianness, forcing her to confront
her own performance and corporealization of South Asian American identity.
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1
1. Introduction: The Space Between
The faint smell of incense hangs in the air. They stand staggered throughout the
tiny garage space. Karen, Mona, Lakshmi, and Ananya make up the back row,
while Zara and little Shanti in the front1 . They all wear the standard uniform,
the traditional sulvar kamiz, although Lakshmi stands out in her bright orange
and green half-sari. Because she is older than the rest, the dance sari is her
required uniform.
Backs straight. Chins lifted. Eyes wide and looking straight ahead. Knees turned
out. Bodies are poised, ready to do the opening prayer, namaskara, a homage to
Lord Shiva, Creator of the Universe. Six feet are poised, prepared to lift on the
beat, when Jyoti rushes through the door, struggling to undo the laces of her
pink Converse in order to join the group in time. No shoes while dancing is the
first rule engrained in a dancer.
I am taken by surprise. Jyoti is Latina. In that instant, my own naive
constructions of nationhood were laid bare; what Homi Bhabha has referred to
as "the splitting of the national subject" (1994:148). Operating under the
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assumption that the South Asian diaspora use the dance primarily as a cultural
link to the homeland, as a symbol of national identity, I wondered what
significance the dance played for Jyoti? Yes, it was a link to the homeland, but
here 'home' becomes a slippery and contested position, reconfigured as part of
the social imaginary.
Even more striking was my own astonishment at seeing Jyoti, a fellow
"Other", participating in this dance. Why was I more taken aback by Jyoti's
"Latina-ness" as a student of bharatanatyam than if she were Caucasian? As
Marta Savigliano so aptly writes in her research on the tango circuit in Japan,
"...exotics facing other exotics, fascinated by the processes of autoexoticism,
carried away into re-exoticizing the already exotic Other," (1995:179).
Viji Aunty cracks a beat on her wood block, and the students scramble
into posture once again. Namaskara is officially completed once the students
have touched Viji's feet, a sign of giving up one's ego, or humility.
"Okay girls. Let's get ready for leg stretches! L.A. to Bombay!" exclaims
Viji.
* * *
Through the course of the chapters of this thesis and an accompanying
visual ethnography, Dancing with Shakti (2005) I attempt to explore the South
Indian classical dance, bharatanatyam, and its performative rendering of race,
nationhood and gender within a South Asian diasporic community in Los
Angeles. This process has emerged as a direct result of the migration of a South
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Indian woman, Viji Prakash, to Los Angeles from Bombay in 1975, and her and
her husband's subsequent establishment of the Shakti Dance School.
While the dance might constitute a primary vehicle for ethnic
identification (real and imagined) (O'Shea 2001), this narrative will reveal that
the formation of a racialized and ethnic community is anything but cohesive,
homogenous and pure. Rather, group identity is founded upon a discourse of
difference and divergence that is at all times seeking renegotiation based on its
precarious positionings. At times, the stances seem to play towards totalization
and uniformity. Certainly this is one deployment of community (Joseph 2002;
Tsing 1993). Yet, cultural and social signification is never that easy. These are
processes that are derivative of the present; whose very beauty rests in the
fleetingness and unpredictability of the moment and the ephemeral boundaries
of inclusion versus exclusion. As I will discuss in further detail (chapter four),
numerous times members of the Shakti community aggravate and challenge
any normative order, and in doing so, elude the naturalization, the complete
articulation of cultural identity (Bhabha 1994). In other words, "Indianness",
mediated through bharatanatayam, is a cultural signifier, whose meaning and
experience is interpreted in a variety of manners. In relation to the state,
Indianness is configured around the discourse of minority. This is evidenced
when one of Viji's students, Sejal, comments that dance and Shakti give her the
space to speak her mind and build her sense of confidence in a way that she did
not have while attending her local school. However, if the boundaries of group
identity were drawn around the Shakti family, then Indianness shifts from the
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4
margin, into the center. Those members who are not Indo-American, such as
Leila, come to occupy the margin because of her Caucasianness. Thus, this is a
narrative that also speaks to the arbitrariness of marginality. It is a project very
much invested in "the creativity of making difference matter" (Tsing 1 9 9 3 : 15). It
is a dance.
It is quite literally the matter of difference to which I also wish to draw
attention. That is, at the same time that I trace the construction of racialized,
nationalized and gendered bodies through bharatanatyam, my second objective
is to explore the dance's material manifestations of this performance and the
physical shaping of selves. In essence, I am calling for a return to the body, but
more specifically an experiential return. In my arguments for this direction, I
want to highlight that I do not assume "experience" to be foundational or
irreducible, but rather as Joan Scott points out, "a linguistic event" (1991: 793)
that does not exist outside the realm of signification, but instead comes to be and
shared among individuals through discursive acts. However, by bringing
experience to the foreground, I hope to get at how multiple discursive acts are
interpreted and enacted by individuals; how language comes to awaken
memories, stir bodily and psychic sensations, construct subjectivities, and move
people in ways that can be similar, but also quite different, making
"experience" not universal, but contestable and unstable.
While the social and cultural fields have seen a proliferation of studies
focusing on the body since the beginning of the 1970s, the majority of the
research and subsequent theories problematize the body as a text upon which
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5
larger social structures inscribe themselves2 (Csordas 1994; Thomas 2003).
Within contemporary theory, Michel Foucault has been a seminal figure in the
articulation of power, culture, and the body. Nonetheless, a Foucaultian
analysis of the body principally renders it as predominantly a subject of
domination and the representational outcome of multiple discourses that serve
to shape behavior and thought (1977 & 1978). Ironically, the term "body"
becomes abstracted to the level of aggregate power so that larger social
institutions such as the prison, asylum, hospitals and schools become a corpus
of disciplinary action (Turner 1994). My objective in raising such a critique is
not to speak against such theorizations of the body. One of the merits that has
emerged from the semiotic, poststructuralist analysis of the body is a
deconstruction of an essentialized, natural, preordained conceptualization of
self, body and culture. Subsequently, it is the space between, the liminality of
representation and the material, the "performative and pedagogical"(Bhabha
1994) (concepts I will take up shortly), that characterizes the formation of
contemporary identities: identities fraught with partiality, tension and
contradictory movements. Certainly one goal of this thesis is to deconstruct how
bharatanatyam disciplines the South Asian (real and imagined) female body
through particular discourses and regulatory regimes, particularly nationhood.
What I hope to problematize further is the abstraction of the body as a result of
the preeminence given to its social configuration over the material. Turning to
this question of materiality and embodiment allows us to then posit the
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6
question of how in fact processes of signification actualize and serve as
productive forces (Butler 1993 and 1997; Mahmood 2005).
How does a dancer physically feel as she twist her body into the posture
of Lord Shiva, or stand in half-sitting position for ten minutes with back straight
and knees turned out as she stomps a five-count jathi at high speed? What sorts
of emotions and thoughts arise by taking on the personification of baby Krishna
clandestinely stealing butter? From its repeated movements to the larger social
rituals required of a dancer, how does the dancer corporealize particular
constructions of race, nation, and gender through bharatanatyam?
Here, I turn to a phenomenological understanding of cultural practice,
and position myself in accordance with Thomas Csordas' argument for the
juxtaposition of representation with embodiment:
It will not do to identify w hat we are getting at with a negative term, as
something non-representational. We require a term that is complementary as
subject is to object, and for that purpose suggest "being-in-the-world," a
term from the phenomenological tradition that captures precisely the sense
of existential immediacy...This is an immediacy in a double sense: not as a
sy n c h ro n ic m o m e n t of th e e th n o g ra p h ic p re s e n t b u t as
tem porally / historically inform ed sensory presence and engagement; and
not unm ediated in the sense of a precultural universalism...Representation
is fundam entally nominal, and hence we can speak of “a representation."
Being-in-the-world is fundam entally conditional, and hence we m ust speak
of "existence" and "lived experience." (1994: 10).
Csordas does not want "to supplant textuality but to offer it a dialectical
partner"(1994:12). What a phenomenological stance brings to the table is a
greater connection between the body as an object and an individual "self" as
subject, each of which interact in complex ways to actively engage in the world.
After all, we are human bodies. It is through our ability to sense textures, smells,
tastes, sounds, certain responses and emotions are evoked within our selves,
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7
which then get acted out in the external world, from which interactions with
others arise, and social practices and cultural meaning is derived. .it is with
our bodies that we express our feelings and dispositions and actively occupy
the spaces we inhabit" (Lyon & Barbalet 1994: 51).
Similarly, I find Judith Butler's expository excavation of the process of
materiality, particularly in Bodies the M atter (1993), informative precisely for her
examination of how various constructs, particularly sexuality and gender, come
to be embodied in and through the body, play out among bodies, and
ultimately constitute the social and political sphere of everyday life. She asserts
that it is "in conducting a critical genealogy of [materiality's] formulation"
(ibid.: 32) through its repeated figurations, and hence its performance, that the
body and its multiple identities come to seen as "natural" and as a characteristic
innate to the self:
There is no power that acts, but only a reiterated acting that is pow er in
persistence and instability...W hat I w ould propose in place of these
conceptions of construction is a return to the notion of matter, not as site or
surface, but as a process of m aterialization that stabilizes over tim e to
produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call m atter (Butler
1993: 9-10).
Thus, the discursive and the experiential encircle each other in their own dance,
and it is precisely within the encompassing that I attempt a narrative of the
nation-state, of South Asian diasporic identity and collectivity. I want to
emphasize that I do not take the sedimentation of identity to imply that identity
is whole, unified and transparent. Rather, it is my contention at all times that
multiple identities comprise "the self", which at best is fragmentary and
precarious (Butler 1993 and 1999; Hall 1992; Kondo 1990 and 1997).
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8
Reflexive of this stance, two concepts that continually reappear
throughout this work are Homi Bhabha's paradigm of the performative and
pedagogical. In his piece, "Dissemination: Time, narrative and the margins of
the m odem nation" (1994) Bhabha distinguishes the two as such:
It is precisely in reading betw een these borderlines o f the nation-space that we
can see how the concept of the 'people' em erges w ithin a range of
discourses as a double narrative m o vem en t. The people are not simply
historical events or parts of a patriotic body politic. They are also a complex
rhetorical strategy of social reference...W e th en have a contested
conceptual territory where the nation's people m ust be thought in double
time; the people are the historical 'objects' o f a nationalist pedagogy, giving the
discourse an authority th at is based on the pre-given or constituted
historical origin in the p ast; the people are also the 'subjects' o f a process of
signification that m ust erase any prior or originary presence of the nation-
people to dem onstrate the prodigious, living principles of the people as
contemporaneity: as the sign of the present through which national life is
redeemed and iterated as a reproductive process (my emphasis) (ibid: 145).
The pedagogical representation of the nation-state treats 'a people' as a timeless
and essential object. Simultaneously, the nation is conceptualized as a
reiterative process of signification, constantly in flux as it is enacted in the
present—the performative. Herein marks the ambivalence of the modern
nation-state, what Bhabha refers to as the "splitting of the national
subject"(ibid: 145-146). This ambivalence is characterized by a continuous
shuttling back and forth between a time of the past (the pedagogical) and the
present (the performative). And, it is this state of liminality that Bhahba claims
as the narrative space of the contemporary nation-state:
In place of the polarity of a prefigurative self-generating nation 'in-itself'
and extrinsic other nations, the performative introduces a temporality of the
'in-betw een'...The problem is not sim ply the 'selfhood' of the nation as
opposed to the otherness of other nations. We are confronted w ith the nation
split w ithin itself articulating the heterogeneity o f its population. The barred
Nation It/ Self, alienated from its eternal self-generation, becomes a liminal
signifying space that is internally m arked by the discourses of minorities,
the heterogeneous histories of contending peoples, antagonistic authorities
and tense locations of cultural difference, (ibid: 148).
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Time and time again, as is evidenced throughout this text, the circulation of
bharatanatyam and its signification bounces back and forth between the
performative and pedagogical. The performance is most transparent among
students such as Jyoti, a Latina member of the Hari Krishna community, Leila,
Viji's first student who is Caucasian and also an ex-member of the Hari Krishna
community, and finally, her various Islamic students. Blonde and blue-eyed,
Leila stands in stark contrast to the traditional image of the 4,000-year old South
Indian temple dancer with brown, almond-shaped eyes and long, black hair.
Haseem and Samira enact the Ganesha kauthuam, homage to the Elephant God,
and yet Islam proscribes the religious use of ritual figures and choreographed
dancing3 . Through the dance, each of these students maintains a particular
understanding of the narrative of India.
Where the performative operates more subtly is in its role within South
Asian American women, who in fact do constitute the majority of Shakti
dancers. These women, along with myself (though I learned with another dance
instructor, and thus am not a Shakti dancer), are quite emphatic about our
identity as South Asian American females, born and raised in America. How
and to what degree each individual chooses to engage in her "South Asian
ness", "Indian-ness", and "American-ness" varies. For instance, Sejal Patakia
(who will be introduced in more depth in a subsequent chapter), identifies very
much with her "Indianess", is responsible for establishing a bharatanatyam
dance team, and actively engaged in a Hindi (Bollywood) film dance team,
when she was a student at Stanford University. Many weekends are spent
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1 0
watching the latest Bollywood film. Some Sundays, Sejal leads a children's
discussion group at the local balavihar, an Indo-American children's school that
teaches kids about Hinduism and their Indian heritage4 . There are others like
Viji's daughter, Mythili, who although still distinguishes herself as South Asian
American, finds the two labels increasingly blurred as she travels back and
forth between India and the States each year. Finally, there are those such as
myself, also a South Asian American, first generation (bom and raised in
America) like Sejal and Mythili, for whom a sharp demarcation between the
South Asian and American was deeply embedded early on. As a result,
dissociation from the homeland was vigorously sought out and created. These
subjectivities serve to further corroborate that community, in this case ethnic
communities, is by no means necessarily unified and homogenous in its
constitution (Joseph 2002).
The pedagogical treatment of India discloses itself in the actual learning
and practice of the dance. When Viji teaches her students, she propagates an
ideological construct of the dance whose foundation rests upon a master
narrative of India. Though bharatanatyam is originally a South Indian dance,
Gujurati (North Indian), South Indian, Bengali, Pakistani families all engage in
the learning of a classical Indian dance. Bharatanatyam, as well as other classical
Indian dances such as kathakali and odissi, has become one of the quintessential
vehicles within the South Asian diaspora for the inculcation of cultural values,
particularly for girls. Some of these "Indian" values are identified as discipline,
spirituality, focus, respect, and the ability to discern right from wrong. Thus, in
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1 1
the course of fifteen, twenty years, the dance not only serves as a signifying
practice, but also physically disciplines the body into "Indianness". To play
with the title of Paulla Ebron's book, Performing Africa (2002), the students
"perform India". This construct is restorative and ahistorical, assuming a
premodem, romantic narrative of the nation— the pedagogical.
Perhaps within the "nation split within itself", punctuated by
hetereogeneity and multiplicity, an element of the m odem m ust be retained
within the postmodern era. In other words, for those people who are struggling
to claim a voice within the myriad of "global ethnoscapes"(Appadurai 1991), or
for those who have managed to finally attain some kind of footing within the
dominant institutions that manage to find ever more creative and subtle means
of maintaining its hegemony, the "strategic" (Spivak 1988 and 1997) use of the
pedagogical might be necessary, in fact essential to survival. If this is the case,
then hypervigilance must be adopted "to figure home [and identities] not as an
essentialized space of identity, but as an historically, culturally specific
construct inseparable from power relations" (Kondo 1997: 206). Otherwise, it is
all too easy for subjectivities to fall prey to essentialzsm.
ie ie " k
Dancing with Shakti explores the tense dialogue between the performative
and pedagogical, immediate and past, semiotic and experiential not only in
theory, but in its methodology as well. In 2003,1 embarked on a "cultural
biography" (Frank 2000) of Viji Prakash precisely because the life history
method necessitates the meticulous exploration of self in relation to the other.
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1 2
Phenomenology figures centrally in this analysis for the researcher m ust self
consciously mine the discursive production of self, memories and subjectivities
inscribed on and through the body, and which continue to shape experiences of
the present, the immediate, the now.
Like other Indo-American females born and raised in America, my
parents enlisted me in bharatanatyam classes at age six. For me, the experience
was in all honesty, traumatic. Anxious that I would be considered "alien" and
"foreign", I did not engage with the dance at all, but rather made every effort to
consciously and subconsciously distance myself from it. In doing so, my
Indianness was rendered "Other". Thus, my decision to return to the art form
more than twenty years later, and not simply in a passing manner since it was
to serve as the focus of my research for two and a half years, frames the project
from the very beginning. My very observations, dialogues, and interactions
with Viji and students of the Shakti school are shaped by my own childhood
experiences with the dance, as well as my own hybrid identity. My self is the
other; and yet not so. I am forced to confront this in my relationship that
develops with Viji. The video opens with Viji describing the subsequent
formation of her identity as a professional dancer once she came to America. "I
was allowing myself to grow. And the dance was growing with me, within
me..." Similarly, this project allowed me to do the same. Although
bharatanatayam is not a childhood activity that I look back on with affection, it
played a central role in the formation of my Indian identity, a process in which I
was deeply resistant. But why? Why did I struggle so much to learn dance? To
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13
this day, my Tuesday evenings are inscribed with recollections of countless
fights with my mother as I tried to maneuver myself out of dance class.
Moreover, how did such resistance materialize and slowly constitute who I am
today? I realized that I had a deep desire within myself to unpack such
questions. In this manner, it is also my dance with bharatanatyam and my
Indian identity; my dance with Shakti.
If my approach is structured by the phenomenological, then film and
video offer a rich space in which to experiment with other ways of knowing
and communicating. The fervor that envelops Viji such as those moments when
she retraces the history of the Shakti dance school in all its accomplishments
and craziness, or the intensity and focus of the dancer as she carries out a
thirmanum at indescribable speed, is brought to life with the camera's ability to
capture the details of the movement. Furthermore, it does so precisely not
through explication, but through hinting, what Trinh T. Minh-ha calls
"speaking nearby" (Chen 1992).
Here is the productive power of visuality. Narrative takes shape through
the juxtaposition of images and sound; what is said just as much as what is not
said. The latter reveals itself through the sites the filmmaker chooses to direct
her gaze, how she frames her gaze, and how she then locates that frame in
relation to others. The primary goal is to actively engage the camera in a given
space. In doing so, the film is ultimately a narrative of the space created
between the filmmaker, the camera and the subjects—the intersubjective.
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1 4
Bodies move in and out of one another to produce a filmic rendering of these
interactions.
One returns to the dance— movement, flux, exchange, bending, blurring,
erratic. Dance loathes stagnation. It's in the doing, the acting, the experiencing.
Viji is very aware of this. She complicates the pedagogical narrative of the
nation-state by looking for ways to expand the boundaries, not simply who
performs, but also what the dance performs. "The language of bharatanatyam is
not limited. It's not limited to the little bit w e.. .you, you, you know .. .It's just
very vast," she sputters out in one of our afternoon conversations. It's this
philosophy that inspired her to compose the Nutcracker and Cinderella to
bharatanatyam; why her choreography has grown increasingly fast over the
years as she persists in pushing the limits of beats and meters. Thus, it is again
in returning to the body that I am attempting to bring into dialogue what has
been traditionally posed as binaries between m ind/body,
signification/phenomenology, and subject/agent with the goal of collapsing
such dualities. I am arguing that one does not take precedence over the other,
but rather that they work with one another, engrossed in their own dance,
improvising as they go along.
ENDNOTES
1 The names of students, students' family members, and street names have
been changed to preserve confidentiality. The only names that remain the
same are Viji, her husband, their daughter, and son.
2 Both Thomas (2003) and Csordas (1994) provide a succinct and substantial
review of the literature and theories on the body, looking at what seems to
have emerged as a distinction between semiotics versus phenomenology
within social and cultural analysis. As Csordas points out, this binary
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1 5
between semiotics and phenomenology, representation and "being-in-the-
world" finds its basis in the same division as the Cartesian duality of
m ind/body and subject/object (1994: 8-11). Helen Thomas situates dance as a
primary vehicle for collapsing the m ind/body duality, pointing out "an
exploration of how dance as a situated aesthetic embodied practice can be
used as an exemplar, to highlight the notion that 'bodies have histories' (2003:
93).
3 The Whirling Dervishes are an exception because the dancing is not
choreographed, but rather the purpose is to reach a higher spiritual level
through trance.
4 Balavihar would be akin to a Hindu Sunday School. Like the dance, balavihar
serves as a connection to the homeland. It is a primary institution within the
diasporic community for the inculcation of Indian culture, spirituality, and
strong values.
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1 6
2. Choreographing Narratives:
Decentering the Eye/I
Viji was Nina's guru. That's how I knew her. Now, I guess you could call Nina
my best friend, but she's more than that. See, our families are close, close
friends. Our dads did business together; our moms spent hours chatting and
shopping each weekend. So, in many ways Nina and I are like sisters. That's
what I call her now, but back then, I only thought we could be sisters if we
shared the same blood. So, our hope was that w e'd become sisters because
eventually my younger brother, Rish, was going to marry Nina's younger
sister, Karina, who were the same age. This never happened.
One Saturday morning, much to my surprise, Nina's father managed to
convince my mom and dad to let me accompany Nina on her round of
Saturday morning classes. Her dad had this knack for enrolling his daughters
in some extracurricular activity every day of the week. Saturday mornings were
dance, painting and something else—for sure, because I remember we made
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1 7
more than two stops. I was also excited because that meant a trip into Los
Angeles.
My mind is hazy now, but I do recall driving up to a quaint white house,
bordered by a white-picket fence with vines running all over it. It looked so un-
"Indian". We did not go into the house. Instead, we walked into a tiny room in
the back, a converted garage. Four, maybe it was five, girls stood in half-sitting
position, hands taut and straight, in front of their chest. I was staring at their
backs. They-yum. Four feet jump on the first beat; the right hand stretched
downward on the second; the movement precise. Thay-he. Another jump; right
hand swiftly moved back to start position, while the left arm made a downward
cut. Through the bodies, against the far wall, I made out Viji. Just to the right of
her there was this little girl, no more than five, sitting cross-legged on the floor,
pounding the beat on a wooden block.
Nina whispered to me, "That's Mythili, Viji Aunty's daughter. She just
had a baby boy, Aditya. That's whom she's holding right now. She looks tired
and she's not wearing any makeup, but Viji is soooo gorgeous!" It was true. In her
cotton mumu smock, her face still heavy from pregnancy, the image was not
that striking. It was the voice that did something—deep, strong, confident.
They-yum-tha-ha. They-yum-thay-he. Again! Faster. They-yum-tha-ha. They-yum-
thay-he. Again. More sitting, tight fingers! That voice filled every corner of the
garage, its force demanding attention. It stood in such contrast to my own
dance teacher's, whose tone was hushed, even, always under control. Viji's
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1 8
voice carried vulnerability, abandonment, feeling that pushed and prodded the
girls as they struggled with each gesture.
Introductions were exchanged, but I said nothing, not even when Nina
told Viji that I learnt bharatanatyam with Rekha Harenakar. "Oh good! Then
you can dance with us!" I shook my head vehemently— my one and only
gesture of communication. Viji did not push. "Okay, next time. Come Nina, do
namaskara."
You know, if I dig a little more, there was something else about that
scene that struck a chord, even to this day—the students. They weren't all
Indian. Two of them were white and gorgeous, m ind you— their dark brown
hair and blue eyes standing in sharp constrast to the cotton sulvar kamiz they
wore. They blew my mind away; so exotic they looked. So in my mind, Viji's
"coolness" factor jumped exponentially. Nina was lucky to learn from Viji. Los
Angeles is so different from Orange County. In L.A., it's cool to be Indian.
Naive as these assumptions might be, that is what I took away from that
morning—Viji and her students. And, all through high school, while Nina
continued dancing, that was the image that remained of Viji—"cool",
Westernized, non-traditional, different from other bharatanatyam teachers.
Even when I returned to Southern California after college, and Nina and
I ran into Viji and her husband, Prakash (Kikkeri is his first name, however
everyone refers to him as Prakash, which is the name I will be using throughout
the text), at UCLA, before our friends' dance performance, I still found myself
awed by her confident beauty. She came up to me, shocked to see me after so
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1 9
many years. "Oh my gosh, Anita! You have lost so much weight! You used to
be quite heavy. How did you do it?" I laughed, tongue-tied. I mustered some
passing remark, eager for Nina to chime in, eager for the bell to announce that
the dancers were ready, eager to find my seat —something. See, the underlying
fear was that if a conversation were to pick up, the issue of dance was sure to
come up. Anita, you took dance. Yes, but I hated it. Why? Oh, the reasons are too
many and too complex to get into now. I'm a "coconut"— brown on the
outside, but white on the inside. (Laughter would presumably follow from both
parties.) But how long did you learn for? Eight years. Did you have your
arangetram1 ? No, Aunty. Can you believe that? Eight years of learning, and no
arangetram.
No — too much guilt; too much shame. Surfaces are always easier.
R e f l e c t io n s
It was not until a year after that encounter, when the time arrived to
figure out a community to work with for my thesis that Viji popped into my
head again. Well, maybe "pop" is a bit misleading, for the idea for the project
was not that seamless. Deciding to work with the South Asian diasporic
community was an enormous challenge to me because of my own marginal
status (by choice). In fact, at that time, I could not call myself a member since
my only engagement with it was through default— my skin, my blood.
Otherwise, I had no contact whatsoever with the community. So then, I thought
to myself, why the need to confine my research to the South Asian American
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20
community? For that matter, why should race and ethnicity factor into my
decision at all? So deep ran my resistance, that I managed to channel it into a
political statement. While the trend is certainly changing, the majority of
Western, Caucasian anthropologists do not study their own communities at
home. Moreover, they have an array of ethnic and racial "others" to choose
from because of their perceived lack of otherness. Why can I not have the same
opportunity, the same "blank slate"? But I knew this wasn't right, not the
socially appropriate "right". No, it was the "this-doesn't-/eel-right". There was
no escaping working with the South Asian diaspora because somehow I knew
that this was going to help me tackle my own issues of identity, of being a
female, Indian and American. Now was as good a time as ever. Secondly, it was
only by "decolonizing myself" (Savigliano 1995: 5) that I was going to move one
step closer to decolonizing India, where I eventually planned to do my doctoral
research.
This profound need to "unmask" myself was expedited after reading
Gelya Frank's book, Venus on Wheels (2000), a cultural biography of Diane
Devries, a woman with congenital quadrilateral limb deficiency. Required
reading for the seminar I was taking at the time, Ethnographic Methods and
Practice, to say the least, the book changed the way I looked at the potential of
anthropological research and the ethnographic text. I do not think it
coincidental that its reading came at a time when I was profoundly uncertain as
to whether or not academia was the most suitable environment in which to
pursue my passion for writing, documentary and activism, particularly
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2 1
anthropology given its entrenched roots in racist and colonial discourses. And
yet, it is precisely because Frank takes the primary focus of the project to be the
relationship between herself and Diane DeVries that the book carries its power:
Here I tell a story based on m y observations while participating in Diane's life
for m ore than tw o decades...how I came to understand Diane, how
working w ith her transform ed my understanding of her life, and how our
collaboration m ay have influenced the life story Diane has to tell (my
emphasis) (2000: 2).
It is through inter subjectivity2 , a conscious exploration of Frank's own
fascinations with Diane, that Frank expands her understanding of Diane, and
thus, disability culture and its changes within American culture (ibid.: 23).
What I find to be most significant about the above statement is where she places
herself in relation to Diane. Frank is not the distanced observer, or simply the
engaged and self-reflexive ethnographer. In addition to her role as
ethnographer, Frank recognizes that she is another person that Diane has invited
into her social milieu, and as a result, Frank's own ways of knowing and
understanding another person are revised. Frank complicates the power
dynamics between ethnographer and informant, rendering the latter an active
human agent, whose life history is important enough to share. Diane has a life
that Frank wants to engage in.
Simultaneously, there is a humbling of the ethnographer's role as she
learns "how to listen" (ibid.: 17). What are the images and events that an
informant chooses to include and omit from his or her life history? Which
events are passing, which are significant and why? What were the political,
social, and cultural circumstances, that shape the narratives? And finally, how
do the very power relations between the ethnographer and informant influence
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what narratives are told, how they are transmitted, and how they are received?
"How much is left to our imagination, and how accurate are the links that our
imagination provides" (Langness and Frank 1981: 89). Thus, life history
methods necessitate reflexivity. However, in the cultural biography, reflexivity is
not simply a literary technique that an ethnographer incorporates once they
have concluded fieldwork, returned "home", and begun the arduous task of
"writing up". Rather, reflexivity is a methodological tool that guides the research
from its very inception:
I define cultural biography as a cultural analysis focusing on a biographical
subject that makes use of ethnographic m ethods...and that critically reflects
on its m ethodology in action as a source of prim ary data, including the
effects of pow er and personal factors such as the m irror phenom enon3. The
purpose of a cultural biography is to examine not only how an individual's
experiences and consciousness are shaped in a particular cultural milieu
over tim e b u t also how the biographical self contributes to cultural
processes and transformations. I refer to the biographical self rather than
the individual because it may be that images of the individual, more than
the concrete person, have the more profound cultural significance (Frank
2000: 22).
This is what makes Frank's text stand out from other anthropologists who have
employed the life history method (Behar 1993; Brown 1991; Shostak 1981;
Crapanzano 1980; Myerhoff 1978; Mintz 1974; Lewis 1964 and 1961)4 . Texts such
as Mintz's, Worker in the Cane (1974) and Lewis's Pedro Martinez: A Mexican
Peasant and his Family (1964) offer incredible insights into the power of narrative
to actively construct a sense of selfhood, community, and the multiple,
overlapping and contradictory power relations that shape identities4 . Certainly
such works were ahead of their time in focusing on one individual as a rich
cultural resource, when the discipline called for the examination of larger
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structures and their signifying practices. Instead, larger issues such as family,
gender, sexuality, economics and labor, politics are humanized through the
particular stories relayed by the informants themselves, later to be transcribed
by the ethnographer. This is explicit in the opening passage of Oscar Lewis's
life history, Pedro Martinez:
In this tape-recorded story of a Mexican peasant family as told by three of
its m em bers—Pedro Martinez, the father; Esperanza, his wife; and Felipe,
the eldest son— I hope to convey to the reader w hat it m eans to be a
peasant in a nation undergoing rapid cultural change: how peasants feel,
how they think, and how they express themselves (1964: xxiv)
In doing so, Lewis claims to give voice to Pedro and his family. And yet, can
this really be? Can we ever directly know another person? If asymmetrical
relations of power characterize translation (Asad 1986), are not Pedro and his
families' words mediated through Lewis himself? By "highlighting] the
subject's own narrative, they [the anthropologist] attempt to diminish the
power of the ethnographer as author and as authority" (Frank 2000:15). And
yet, this is where the problematic rests. An objective distance is retained, so that
there is not a diminishing of power that occurs, but a "masking". I do not wish
to trivialize the deep bond of friendship that Lewis and Martinez surely
established in the twenty-year collaboration, however like any friendship, it is a
process, uneven and by no means, transparent, particularly given the power
dynamics that structure the friendship. It is the development of the friendship
that matters in the life history, for the shifts and growth through the years, the
choreography between researcher and informant, that directly influence the life
stories told by Martinez, and subsequently, how Lewis interprets these
accounts and draws his larger conclusions. Thus, partiality m ust always be
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2 4
considered. Lewis himself alludes to this bias, but then recuperates the linear,
logical narrative immediately:
Pedro was pleased when I asked him to tell me the story of his life, and he
readily launched into an account of his activities as a Zapatista and political
leader. He could reminisce at length about these past events, but w hen I
pressed for m ore personal details of his life, of his relations w ith the people
who were close to him, of his emotional experiences and early childhood, his
memory failed and he became uncomfortable and alm ost speechless. If took
patience and prodding to get a more or less coherent account o f this aspect o f his life
(my emphasis) (Lewis 1964: xxxiv).
We are given no indication as to how such "prodding" played out, or how
much of Lewis's own interpretive imagination came into making Martinez's
personal account "coherent"5 . At what point in the collaboration did Lewis
introduce the personal questions? With time and by trusting Lewis, would
Martinez be more apt to disclose the personal parts of his life?
While such questions are uncritically treated in Lewis's monograph,
Shostak's, Nisa: The Life and Words of a IKung Woman (1981) provides some
insight into these matters in its introduction. Shostak reveals the challenges to
ensuring accurate information, and finding the "right" informant who is a
"correct fit". She expresses her intense dissatisfaction at not reaching the
desired intimacy that she had hoped for with the women she interviewed, and
more importantly posits reasons for why a deeper connection could not be
established such as, money and gifts as the basis of the exchange, and Shostak's
wealth and foreign status as a researcher. Shostak is not afraid to divulge her
intense distress and frustration in finding an informant, and recognizes that
these very feelings were adding fuel to the fire:
Had I allowed the interviews with Kxaru to take three times as long as the
other w om en's did...she w ould have been willing. But I was not; worn
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2 5
dow n and impatient, I was no longer as sensitive an interviewer as I might
otherw ise h av e been. I w a n te d im m ediate rap p o rt, immediate
understanding, imm ediate confidences. I was lonely and no longer capable
of exerting the necessary effort to gain acceptance (1981: 36-37).
While there is little self-analysis provided after Shostak decides on Nisa as her
informant, by sharing her vulnerabilities in her role as ethnographer, Shostak
implies that power is not simply in the hands of the researcher, but rather is an
intricate dance, actively engaged by both informant and ethnographer.
Tuhami: A Portrait of a Moroccan (1980) pushes us a step further in
exploring the relationship between the ethnographer and their informant
within the life history method. Vincent Crapanzo comes to realize all too well
the strong influence he exerts in the articulation of his Moroccan informant,
Tuhami's narratives. In fact, the researcher eventually discovers that the only
thing consistent with the tales recounted by Tuhami are their inconsistency,
throwing into question the very epistemological basis of life history, reality and
truth. Crapanzano might question the validity of these stories. However, they
are all quite "real" to Tuhami himself, thus forcing the ethnographer to revise
his own notion of reality and expand his framework for different ways of
knowing. Crapanzano is quite aware of the active role he plays in the
tilemaker's construction of himself; that the life history is not only a narrative
about Tuhami, but also "the author's desire for recognition by this essentially
complex Other" (ibid.: 10). Thus, the ethnographic encounter is a dialectical
process, mutually constitutive, and as much a probing of the Other as it is the
Self. Crapanzano discovers this as his relationship with Tuhami progresses and
deepens. In fact, the ethnographer writes:
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...Tuham i and I negotiated our exchange into a therapeutic one. Tuhami
provided me (and I feel the consequence of this even now, as I write) with
the possibility for maneuver, manipulation, and cure, with the occasion for
a vicarious participation that was perhaps not so vicarious after all (ibid.:
133).
The assumption of the role of "curer" by Crapanzano is problematic. I believe
Crapanzano also understands this. However, where he falls short is a deeper
probing of such an urge. The reader gets a sense of Tuhami's transferences onto
Crapanzano; the expectations, roles, and significations the informant develops
for the researcher. However, we are not privy to Crapanzano's own projections
and identifications; what images and moments resounded strongly for
Crapanzano and why? Subsequently, distance persists in the relationship that
the ethnographer himself acknowledges:
As I look over my notes, and as I attem pt to recall my m eetings with
Tuhami some ten years ago, I am im m ediately struck by the impoverished
quality of my emotional response. My questions seem frequently cold,
unemotional, and detached (ibid.: 139).
Given the myriad of groups, networks and social institutions that the
anthropologist can choose to work with, what draws us to a particular people
or community? This question becomes particularly pertinent when employing
the life history method since it is an individual bond that requires to some
extent a "good fit" (this does not imply that the researcher must like the
individual). There must be some initial attraction that compels the
ethnographer to want to work with a person in an intense manner for a long
period of time. Like knitting a quilt, the cultural biography ever so carefully
stitches in piecemeal fashion the individual's biographical image as they impart
their life stories. And yet, this weaving brings together another narrative, "the
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2 7
biography in the shadow" (Frank 2000: 83)—the researcher's Autobiographical
image.
Judith Okely points out that self-reflective analysis has been criticized as
narcissistic and self-exhibitionist (1992)6 . Certainly there are autobiographical
texts within anthropology that run this risk. However, in a discipline where
"fieldwork practice is always concerned with relationships" (Okely 1992: 2), the
investigator in relation to the people with whom they work with is the defining
relationship that structures the very construction of those people. The
anthropologist does not exist in a cultural vacuum. As such, when treated as a
rigorous technique throughout the entirety of the fieldwork process, just like any
other methodological tool utilized by the discipline, self-reflexivity has
tremendous power for bringing people together in ways otherwise
unimaginable:
...those on the m argins may first learn through an alternative personal
experience their lack of fit w ith the dom inant system ...O ut of their
experience have arisen alternative forms on the margin. Autobiographies
from the m arginalized and the pow erless—those of a subordinate race,
religion, sex and class—have n o t inevitably been a celebration of
uniqueness, let alone public achievement, but a record of questions and
subversion. The m ost personal, seemingly idiosyncratic, hitherto unwritten
or unspoken, has paradoxically found resonance w ith others in a similar
position. A solidarity is found through w hat seem ed only an individual's
experience (ibid.: 7).
Personal narratives might open the possibility for unexpected
connections. At the same time, it might not. It is precisely from the margins that
Ruth Behar constructs the life history of Esperanza, an Indian food vendor
living in a Central Mexican town, and of herself in Translated Women: Crossing
the Border with Esperanza's Story (1993). While both individuals are women of
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2 8
color (Behar is a Cuban Jew), marginality crisscrosses along axis of race, class
and nationality, forcing Behar to confront her privileged status as a Western
researcher from an educated, middle-class background, whose own academic
glory is an outcome of Behar's "crossing the border" with Esperanza's story.
Therefore, can common ground be established? In some ways, this seems to
thwart the possibility of solidarity within the margins. This is made painfully
clear when Behar returns to Mexiquitic, Esperanza's hometown, excited to hand
Esperanza a copy of her published book, only to have the woman give it back.
Instead, it is the Sony television that her husband and Behar bring to Esperanza
that evokes delight (Behar 1995).
Thus, life histories and cultural biographies may not necessarily generate
solidarity or a positive understanding. Behar's decision to place herself as a
central character throughout the narrative, forcing her to continuously probe
her privileged positionalities in relation to those of Esperanza make this
evident. Her continuous self-critique also bring noteworthy insights into the
immensely complex, deeply asymmetrical, power-laden discourses that
surround Mexicanness, Indianness, Americaness, womanhood and indigenous
identity. And yet, despite her recognition of these deeply asymmetrical
constructs that shape their relationship, as well as her struggles with finding "a
way to mix Esperanza's narrative and [her] narrative in the same pot" (ibid.:
332), Behar still feels the need to forge a connection, tenuous as it might be,
ultimately making her "biography in the shadow" problematic7 . That is, Behar
forges a metaphorical link with Esperanza through coraje, or rage. While
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Esperanza's coraje results from the physical inscription of violence on her body,
Behar's is psychic in nature, an outcome of her privileged, yet ambivalent,
position in academia and her father's destruction of her writings. I do not wish
to take away from Behar's rage, an emotion that is certainly valid. Yet it is guilt
that colors her interactions with Esperanza as well as the pages of the narrative:
After becoming the wom an w ho couldn't translate herself, I had suddenly
become the w om an who translated herself too well. And in the m idst of it
all, I was planning to turn the tales of a Mexican street peddler into a book
that w ould be read within the same academy that had toyed with my most
intimate sense of identity and then, with even less compunction, bought me
out. Fresh from the horror of being a translated woman, I w ould now turn
around and translate another w om an for consum ption on this side of the
border (ibid.: 335).
It is this profound sense of guilt that beckons further probing. How does it
frame her interactions and interpretations of Esperanza? How did her own
family's history of street peddling shape her expectations, identifications, and
interactions with Esperanza? In other words, the potential for greater
understanding within a life history emerges from the systematic uncovering of
the investigator's self, "a search for the self through the detour of the other"
(Frank 2000: 88), through a delving into the unconscious. This does not
necessarily mean that the outcome of such an inquiry will result in a greater
closeness between the two individuals. Rather, there might be insurmountable
differences such as those that shaped Behar and Esperanza's relationship.
Rather than attempt to seek commonalities within the differences, such
disparities need to be recognized for their irreconcilability. Furthermore, those
feelings and emotions stimulated from this irreconcilability need to be
investigated.
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Phenomenology is the epistemological basis from which Frank turns to
in uncovering her own unconscious expectations and projections of Diane
DeVries, all of which influenced her initial attraction and final construction of
Diane's cultural biography8 . As a result, regardless of whether the emotional
content is positive or negative, difference is reconfigured through a greater
understanding of the other person:
As a m ethod, em pathy cannot be m erely talked about; it m ust be
practiced—tried and tried again— to be com prehended, for it involves an
act. The capacity to grasp em pathy arises through a circle of experience,
introspection, and clarification. The im m ediate objective of clarifying one's
em pathy is n o t only catharsis, w hich m ay result, b u t the critical
understanding of one's initial interests, attitudes, and expectations about
the other. The final objective is to understand the other (Frank 1985: 199).
The act of empathy brings Karen McCarthy Brown (1991) closer to her
informant, Alourdes a Haitian immigrant living in Brooklyn and practitioner of
the religion, vodou. In fact, it is only once Brown embodies the performance of
vodou, actively engages in its ceremonies and "serves the spirits" (ibid.: 8), that
the writer comes to veritably grasp Alourdes's personhood and vodou's import
within the Haitian culture:
As A lourdes and I becam e friends, I found it increasingly difficult to
m aintain an uncluttered image of myself as scholar and researcher in her
presence. This difficulty brought about a change in the research I was
doing. As I got closer to Alourdes, I got closer to Vodou. The Vodou
Alourdes practices is intim ate and intense, and I soon found that I could
not claim a place in her V odou family and rem ain a detached observer,
(ibid.: 9).
Here, the act of listening plays a critical role for storytelling never unwinds in a
linear and coherent fashion. "To listen, it is necessary to relax with the rhythm
and to trust that it will eventually bring her [Alourdes] around to fill in the
gaps" (ibid.: 17). There is a letting go of authority; a recognition by the
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3 1
investigator of her limits of power. This subsequently informs Brown's writing.
".. .the real story cannot be written dow n.. .The real story exists only for the
transitory period in which the family takes pleasure and finds meaning
together in bringing their past alive" (ibid.: 18).
Adopting a phenomenological approach towards the project, Brown
finds the need to present Alourdes and vodou in a manner that awakens their
character, and ultimately enlivens her larger theoretical concerns around
family, gender and social change. She intersperses fictionalized short stories
about the Haitian spirits that make up Alourdes's family history with longer
chapters that relay how these very spirits inform the priestess' enactment of
vodou. These latter chapters function within the more traditional ethnographic
framework. The narrative's continuous shuttling between past and present
presents history in a more circulatory and performative manner; reminding the
reader how the past still infuses the present:
In M am a Lola, I am m ost interested in telling rich, textured stories that bring
Alourdes and her religion alive. Rather than simply trying to refute the negative
stereotypes often associated w ith Vodou, I have chosen to enter the public
discussion of Vodou by another route: constructing a portrait of this religion
as it is lived by Alourdes and the people closest to her. My aim is to create an
intimate portrait of three-dim ensional people w ho are not stand-ins for an
abstraction such as "the H aitian people" but rather are deeply religious
individuals with particular histories and rich interior lives, individuals who
do not live out their religion in unreflective, formulaic w ays but instead
struggle w ith it, becom e confused, an d som etim es even contradict
themselves. In other w ords, m y aim is to create a p ortrait of V odou
embedded in the vicissitudes o f particular lives (ibid.: 14-15).
Thus, disciplined introspection has the potential for not only strengthening the
relationship between the ethnographer and their informant, but the production
of the ethnographic text as well. How can we render human the people we
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interact with on a daily basis for extended periods of time? If writing thwarts
the ability to "capture" the "now", since the very act marks the moment as one
in the past, then how can ethnographies successfully get at the ephemeral
nature of life?
It is in moving towards the specific, the particular that the ethnographic
text moves closer to accomplishing such a task. It is in the details that universal
connections can be made, whether these are positive or negative. And precisely
because such a task can never be fully achieved, it is a performative practice
that must continually be repeated, refined in each attempt through new
techniques, styles and formats. Working within the particular also forces the
author and the reader to confront the partiality of any account. Each story is
highly contextual, and the more details employed to construct its time and
place, the more human become the people that the ethnographer sets out to
represent (Abu-Lughod 1993). Culture as an abstraction transitions into culture
as a lived, everyday practice; it is ceaselessly embodied in the choreographic
play of selves. Consequently, Kondo argues practice becomes theory:
To begin evocatively highlights the complexity and richness of experience.
And to examine that complexity and richness in its specificity leads tow ard a
strategy that expands notions of w hat can count as theory, where experience
and evocation can become theory, where the binary between "empirical" and
"theoretical" is displaced and loses its force (Kondo 1990: 8).
Abu-Lughod's Writing Women's Worlds (1993) does precisely this,
deconstructing larger anthropological terminology such as patrilineality,
polygyny, and patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage. While each chapter is titled by
one of these grand constructs, the power of her ethnography lies in their
glaringly contradictory juxtaposition with "the stories [which are] meant to
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undo the titles" (ibid.: xvii). Like Brown, Abu-Lughod does not overtly treat
larger theoretical issues, but hopes that such insights emerge through the
detailed recounting of various individuals' joys, struggles, experiences and
histories. While she does use one or two women as the focal point of each
chapter, Abu-Lughod does not explicitly use the life history method9 . Her aim
of focusing on one or two individual figures primarily functions as a literary
technique, to arouse "familiarity rather than distance and...to break down
'otherness'" (ibid.: 29)1 0 .
In my visual and written ethnography, it is my intention to utilize life
history and self-analysis as methodological and narrative tools. Within the
structure of the text, I scatter lyrical vignettes throughout the more rigorous
academic analysis. The decision to infuse the lyrical with the academic came
about because I found that that was the only way I could initiate the writing
process. Any other way of approaching it resulted in either hours of anxious
exasperation as I sat dumbfounded at the blank screen, or the conjuring up of a
million other "urgent" tasks to be completed. Writing only came when I let
myself "dance" with it. These more poetic pieces are all events that did occur.
However the richness and embellishment of details is to instill texture and
sensuality within the text itself and to promote the idea that the intellectual and
experiential, mind and body, public and private, dance in and out. My
theoretical arguments reflect this blurring as well, in the juxtaposition of the
performative and pedagogical treatment of bharatanatyam within the diaspora;
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3 4
in the materiality of discourses around Indianness, womanhood and middle-
class values through the disciplined practice of the dance.
Finally, while life history and cultural biography might serve as
tremendous potential for empathic understanding, I find that their limitations
rest in their tendency to present an image of the coherent and unified self.
While it recognizes temporality and context, the overall life history retains this
notion that there is a fixed self "which can be distilled from the specificities of
the situations in which people enact themselves" (Kondo 1990: 42-43).
Certainly, in recounting their lives and excavating the memories and events of
the past, the informant perceives a "core" self that remains stable throughout
the course of their history. Reciprocally, in attempting to piece together the
whole, the cultural biographer looks for unifying themes. However, each of us
embodies numerous roles, each shaped by a set of discursive practices that are
constantly shifting according to particular relations of power (Kondo 1990;
Haraway 1988). Thus, selfhood is never fixed and stable, but always partial, de
centered and multiple. There is not one self, but selvesn .
I saw Viji in numerous roles— as a dancer, a teacher, an artist, a wife, a
mother, a daughter in-law. She negotiates locality depending on the situation.
When dialoguing with Western institutions such as the Lincoln Center or the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), she is a South Asian immigrant,
an Indian who performs an Indian classical dance. Within the South Asian
diasporic community, whose members are more acquainted with the regional
nuances of India, Viji teaches a South Indian dance tradition in the Tanjavure
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3 5
style. Getting married and having babies was a must for Viji. However, she
hates to cook. Her husband, Prakash, soft-spoken and calm, functions as the
constant figure in the house, driving the kids to and from school and
extracurricular activities, making sure they've eaten, are studying and
practicing their dance and music daily. He does not manage the company and
school from a nearby office, but from the study inside their house. Meanwhile,
Viji rushes in and out of the house, choreographing time between group classes,
individual classes, UCLA, rehearsals, dress rehearsals, check-ins with the
costume and set designers, concerned parents, interviews with journalists and
researchers (myself included), and meetings with potential collaborators. The
family is accustomed to Viji coming home at 10 or 11 o'clock in the night. The
public and private blur into one another.
Each of these situations, depending on who are the participating actors
in the scene, requires a different configuration of self. As a loosely structured
organization that prides itself as the Shakti "family", Viji and Prakash are
caught in many contradictory positions. On one hand, the couple cultivates
deep friendships with the students' parents as their daughter or son slowly
immerses themselves in the Shakti community, attending classes, recitals, and
dance camps, as well as performing in the productions. Leila's mom, Melissa,
who lives just three miles away from Viji, will pick up Aditya from school if Viji
is caught in dance class. One summer, when one student, Indra, was practicing
for her arangetram, her mother would bring dinner for Viji, knowing that Viji
had been working all day, and most likely, would not be returning home until
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3 6
midnight. And yet, friendship uncomfortably resides with business. When a
parent hasn't paid for a session of classes or a set of dance costumes, Viji and
Prakash reinstate the professional boundaries, however discomforting it may
be.
One July night I arrive at the Dudley house1 2 to work on a mailing list
with Viji. It is ten o'clock. Everything— classes, rehearsals, camp—they are all
done for the day. Now, Viji can sit down without any interruptions. I am
pulling up to the curb when Viji comes running up. “Anita, don't park the car.
Do you mind quickly taking me to the Aaron House? I was in the middle of so
many things that I just left my entire bag there. It has the mailing lists and
everything!" Of course, I agreed. The Aaron House was only a block away. It
was one of their rental properties. In the back was a small room where she held
classes and rehearsals.
Viji jumps into the car. “Where are your sandals, Aunty?" I ask.
“You know, I even left my chappals over there! I was so deep in thought
that I just took off. Maybe I should go in and get some other slippers. Oh, it
doesn't matter! It's right there." Viji is distraught. Rehearsal for Meera just
wrapped up. The check for the Lincoln Center airfare was due that day, and as
usual, most of the dancers forgot to bring their payment. Prakash, in turn, got
very upset.
I start my car again. W ithout a pause, Viji continues talking. “You know,
it is a very tough position to be in. I hate asking for money, but what can I do!
The parents know that this is how we survive. This is how we make a living. I
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3 7
shouldn't have to keep on them, to make sure they make their payments. And
Prakash gets mad at me. He thinks I am too lenient on the kids and the parents.
He says that I need to put my foot down. But how can I do that? I am just not
that type of person!"
I am not sure what to say, hoping that my momentary silence would
convey my sympathy for her position. I concur, understating the stress that
comes with mixing business with friendship. It is inevitable; a tension built into
the Shakti family, like any other tight-knit community. Surely, all cannot be
harmonious? And yet, the parents understand that the Prakash household lives
and breathes dance; that Viji gives all of herself in the development of their
children, not just as dancers, but also as strong, confident individuals.
In her group classes, Viji's motherliness co-mingles with her role as the
disciplinary guru and as a friend who is "just one of them". This latter role is
where, I believe, Viji derives her greatest strength as a teacher. She is very
aware of the larger framework in which her students are learning
bharatanatyam. That is, within the context of American mainstream society,
where her discursive practice competes with those of Western pop stars such as
Britney Spears and Eminem, Viji is aware that the movements, the language,
the tales enacted within bharatanatyam are cast as other for the youth,
particularly those who are South Asian. Thus, she makes every effort to de-
exoticize the dance by reframing it within the language and knowledge
structures of the current pop trends. As Viji asserts in a conversation, "I'm
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3 8
something extra. I'm a smart, intelligent, talented human being with an extra
zing I have which is my Indianness."
This is epitomized in her decision to produce the Nutcracker in
bharatanatyam:
I think, w hen I did Nutcracker, that was, that was sort of groundbreaking for
the children w ho were doing dance because w hen they w ould tell their
friends that they were doing Nutcracker, and they w ould say, "In ballet?".
They'd say, "No, in Bharatanatyam ." And for them it was a proud moment.
You know, they're doing an American, an "American" story now, but
um ...doing the story of the Nutcracker, and it, it's in Bharatanatyam. And
then we had other characters that were a part of our culture here—you
know, Pow er Rangers, and chocolate chip cookies, and um , you know
different things that were a part of our life here, that were incorporated into
the story of the Nutcracker. So it sort of opened the eyes of the community,
as the L.A. Times called it, "H indu Nutcracker."
Difference is reconfigured not as a lack of, but as a positive and unique aspect of
one's self. Additionally, there is awareness that one is not just Indian living in
America, but that there is "Indianness" that shares space with " Americanness"
within the same individual, and these selves do not necessarily have to be kept
distinct. In fact, by recognizing and engaging these various selves, one becomes
a stronger person comfortable with just being who they are regardless of the
situation in which they find themselves.
Similarly, Viji understands that her teaching and her school are
constituted differently because the school is situated in America:
I give them [dancers, particularly senior dancers] the freedom to speak.
And we, we talk. We discuss. And I think that is also im portant to keep
lines of comm unication [open]. You know, if you just have— I am guru,
you are teacher, and you jolly well listen to me, and you don't ask me any
questions— it just makes learning and teaching a very difficult experience.
And you can't, you can't do that here in America. It's different from doing
that in India. We never asked questions. That's w hat I always tell them
[students]. I never asked my teacher a question. I just assum ed, or I looked
at the other girls, or I just justified in my own mind that, "Oh yeah! This is
w hat [proceeds to perform a facial expression and hand gesture] means." I
was doing this for so long. Even as a child, you know —kissing. I didn't
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3 9
know w hat it w as. W hen you're a child, you d o n 't know . You just
[performs the expression]—you follow, you mimic the teacher. And then
you ask a friend, ''H ey, w hat is that?" Yeah, okay. A nd then you, or you
just, "O h yeah! That looks like som ething,"...Y ou grow older. But you
generally don't ask.
But here, "Oh! W hat is that?!" Before you even start dancing. You know,
we, we, we danced and then we thought about it. Here you don't think.
You ask and then m aybe you do, and hopefully you think, later. So, the
concept of asking, talking, keeping communication lines open. Um, having
"fun" in the experience. Um, I think all that in a way is good. I think it's
good because it opens the channels of communication.
* * *
I am observing the little kids in class. Their faces are impassive and eyes vacant
as Viji Aunty explains the aura of excitement that should imbue their
movements as they stomp their feet, while also maintaining tight fingers.
Imagine you're eating ice cream. Stares soften with amusement. Giggles ripple
through the group. I smile—just the tiniest smile. W hat if, when I was a little
girl, I didn't think Indian dance was so bizarre? How different would I be today
if I thought of my Indianness as that "extra zing"? W hat if bharatanatyam was
stripped of its Indianness and just became a movement that came from within?
Do not categorize in your mind. This is beyond that. Viji Aunty urges her students.
And yet my mind keeps getting in the way. Another day, another class,
but this time I sit and watch the senior dancers, feet pounding in rapid
succession as they enact a padam. The facial expressions, abinaya, always got me.
I could never do them; never let go enough to just feel the emotions. My mind
was too powerful. What do they feel when they dance? What makes them feel it
so strongly? Is it automatic joy and pride for their culture? Could I pose such a
question during an interview? I immediately find myself editing my thoughts.
Of course it's love and pride for their culture. How obvious. And yet, is this not
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4 0
a huge presumption on my part? While practicing bharatanatyam might build a
strong sense of cultural identity for some of the dancers, it is not necessarily the
case for all. For some dancers, it might be a reason, but not the primary one, as
will be evident in the ensuing chapters.
My own response to such a question is not straightforward by any
means. My own selves compete with one another, and the ones that affected me
most profoundly during this project are the ones having to do with my
hybridity—my Indianness and Americanness. Like when I accompanied the
dance company up to Bakersfield, one weekend, where they performed the
Bhagavad Gita. It was my first time on tour with them. As a South Asian
American who does not engage in the social activities of the South Asian
diasporic community at all, whose friends are primarily not South Asian, I was
quite nervous. Will it be like the other times I hung out with South Asian
groups—standing around, nothing much to say, or silently frustrated because I
could not relate to the discussion at hand. Would I feel awkward and alone like
I did many times when I was a little girl, attending dance class and rehearsals
for huge productions?
To my relief, it was nothing like that. I got along with the girls quite well,
sharing in the jokes and stories that circulated constantly throughout the group.
While they filled me in on who they were dating, I too, let them in on my life.
Divya met her boyfriend at the time, while hanging out and surfing in Hawaii
for several months. I was able to empathize because my boyfriend at the time
was also not Indian. We instantly launched into a discussion of the complexities
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4 1
of such a relationship given our hybrid identities. Usha empathized with why I
dropped out of the Indian clique my sophomore year in college. She did the
same. "Too much drama and gossip," she affirmed. Hanging out with the girls
felt so comfortable, so "homey" (Korido 1997:195)1 3 . In other words, certain
actions, gestures, words, smells, etc. were so familiar that they didn't need to be
explained or weren't exoticized. Instead, their import rested in the "less
spectacular, but infinitely more resonant, small truths of everyday life..."
(ibid.). W hatDorinne Kondo defines as "the truths of home" (ibid.) Otherness
was unraveling for me. It was only when the Indianness was not defined, not
highlighted or singled out, that I was okay with my Indianness. Do not categorize
in your mind.
But after that weekend, I did not return to the dance for at least another
month. I was overwhelmed; deluged with footage, with notes, with
observations, with dance and of course—Indianness. My m ind was getting in
the way. Every weekend found me doing something dance-related. What if I
got so caught up in it all that I lost my identity as researcher? I would be
participant, but w hat about observer? I enjoyed my time with the girls so much,
what would become of my American identity? I needed some distance. I
needed to gather my thoughts. I needed to recuperate my Americanness.
My split between Americanness and Indianness is reminiscent of
Kondo's own loss of self in the first nine months of fieldwork in Japan (1990),
although perhaps not as acute. This was primarily because "home" and
fieldwork were the same for me. While an afternoon, night or weekend might
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4 2
have been spent hanging out with Viji, her students, and her family, at the end
of the day, I always drove back to the other side of Los Angeles, to my one-
bedroom apartment in Echo Park. I still worked as a teaching assistant at the
University of Southern California (USC). My weekends were still spent hanging
out with my non-South Asian friends.
Why then the collapse? Throughout my whole life, I have always been
aware of my hybrid identity. Yet, up until this point, I have minimized my
construction of Indianness to the point where it became nominal. Now, I was
actively asserting my Indian self, de-exoticizing it in order to rewrite my
identity and include it as part of my self, However, it is not only who I am.
Thus, the tug-of-war between my Indianness and Americanness, my self
and my (de)colonized other, mind and body, exotic and de-exotic. The anxiety
from such friction might have subsided, but it has not stopped. Can it ever? Do
I want it to? The very contradictions, juxtapositions, tensions are what I am. Just
like Viji—somewhere in the interstices of her selves, as well as my selves, we
come together, tenuous and partial as it may be. Within the framework of the
ethnographic project our relationship is such that of researcher and informant,
observer and observed, filmmaker and filmed. However, this is so obvious, so
surface.
I believe that the primary relationship that defines Viji and me is that of
teacher and student; she is not Viji, but Viji Aunty. Deference shapes our
relationship. Thus, any authorial clout I carried was diffused through Viji's own
status as an authority figure. She is the surrogate mother of the Shakti family,
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4 3
home of approximately two hundred students. Yes, Indianness rears its head
again, with its attention to authority and utmost respect for one's elders.
Twenty years stand between Viji and me. But, again this is surface, for my deep
respect for her principally stems from seeing her as a role model. Viji is an
incredibly beautiful and independent woman who commands a presence
anywhere she goes. She knows what she wants, and goes for it with an
unwavering passion. I do something because it's very close to my heart. It's
something that is important to me.
When I first heard this remark by Viji, my heart gave way, as though it
was finally able to breath. My heart had finally come home. A dull aching
settled within. Even now, as I read back those words, the throbbing returns,
filling my chest. My throat constricts, and breathing quickens ever so slightly.
And so, just like that— Viji teaches me. Through the biographical images she
presents to me, she teaches me how bharatanatyam and fun can share the same
space. She teaches me about what it means to be a South Asian living in
America. She teaches me about "India", but not the abstract, antique India, but
rather the "homey" India, that doesn't need to be talked about. And finally, the
hardest lesson of all, she teaches me to let go and just feel. Just do what your heart
tells you. I think I'll always be working on this one.
(R e)v i s i o n s
If the aim of this ethnographic production is to move towards a more
experiential understanding of culture as it plays out in the everyday, then film
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4 4
and video provide an exemplary medium to attempt such a task. Rather than
center culture, ethnographic film suggests through imagery. Lucien Taylor
contrasts this to textual ethnography:
...w hereas w ritten anthropology has tended to foreground culture,
ethnographic film, w ith its evocation of the particular, its orientation to the
individual, and its affinity for narrative, has not. This it shares, of course,
w ith life itself, where the coloration that culture provides to experience
rarely rises explicitly to the fore as a subject for reflection in its own right
(1998: 21).
It is precisely because of its ability to "speak next to" culture, to paraphrase
Trinh T. Min-ha, ethnographic film has drawn its most disparagement (Moore
1988; Parry 1988). Such criticism disputes film's building of narrative through
"figuration" (MacDougall quoting Barthes 1998: 73) rather than explication,
opening a space of too many interpretations, too many readings all of which
can be equally correct or equally wrong, and thus, ultimately having no
meaning at all. Add to this the power of the aesthetic in film and photography,
and ethnographic film can easily slip into the realm of art as opposed to science,
a foundation in which the discipline still grounds itself, albeit diminished with
the introduction of transnational, poststructuralist critiques.
Where this rationalization delineates its limitations is in its literal
transposition of an ethnographic textual discourse onto a filmic discourse.
However, each mode of representation derives its strength for narrative
construction from different perceptual configurations, and as such, provides
different systems of knowledge (MacDougall 1998). Film's high indexicality in
relation to the text constructs meaning through primary data. Take for example,
Horace Miner's article, "Body Rituals of the Nacirema" (1998). Miner reverses
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the ethnographic gaze (Nacirema is American spelt backwards), but never
reveals this as such. Parodying the classical anthropological text, Miner
continues to describe the various rituals of the people as though they were a
group located on a remote island, and in the process renders the group as exotic
and alien. Miner's underlying objective was to raise the issue of the textual
politics inherent in cultural representation. However, such an endeavor would
be futile as a visual ethnography for the imagery would immediately reveal the
irony that the written text specifically revolves around.
I do not wish to suggest that the visual cannot adopt an ironic stance in
its examination of the politics of representation1 4 . However, visual
ethnographies have the ability to convey those kinds of information that can
only be expressed nonverbally— affective and embodied knowledge (MacDougall
1998). Through visualizing movements, facial expressions, emotions, spatial
configuration—in general, the myriad of ways in which larger social structures
are creatively enacted— the viewer can forge multiple identifications (good and
bad) with the filmic characters, evidenced by the viewer's own bodily and
psychic sensations.
It is precisely the refusal of critics such as Parry and Moore to view
ethnographic film within its own discourse (which engages in a larger
discourse of film and documentary) and visuality's own systems of knowledge
that it is deprived of its productive potential. This denial occurs on the level of
film's content and structure. In other words, if a film highlights its affective
knowledge, explicating through imagery rather than overt exposition, it is
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4 6
admonished. Similarly, if an ethnographic film skillfully exhibits technical craft
through beautifully composed images and proficient editing, thereby engaging
the viewer on a sensorial level, the film runs the risk of being too artistic and
"self-indulgent" (Moore 1988: 3). A parallel response can be found in written
texts, as was discussed in the preceding section. For some reason, to receive
pleasure in the viewing or reading of a text that employs poetic techniques
implies a lack of theory. More fundamentally, this denial again lapses into the
distinction between mind and body, discursive and phenomenological, subject
and object— a binary that reveals itself throughout this text and the film.
This project seeks to bridge such distinctions both, methodologically as
well as theoretically.
Thus, I wholeheartedly agree with David MacDougall's assertion that
"In the end, visual anthropology may need to define itself not at all in terms of
written anthropology but as an alternative to it, as a quite different way of
knowing related phenomena" (ibid.: 63). In fact, I would argue that the "may
need" be transplanted by a must for only then will ethnographic film and video,
photography and digital media be treated critically.
And yet, MacDougall's posing of visual anthropology as an alternative
does not relinquish its intimate, though largely unrecognized, link to textual
anthropology (Lutkehaus and Cool 1999; Marks 1995)1 5 . In fact, anthropology's
experimental turn in the recent decades has heralded an array of new
ethnographies that are "characterized by a rejection of the anthropological
paradigm that posited the omnipotent authority of the ethnographic observer
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47
vis-a-vis his or her distanced object of representation" (Lutkehaus and Cool
1999:118). The use of film and video as part of this experimentation presents a
whole range of discourses and m ultitude of practices that expands the very
definitions of ethnography and experimental. As Catherine Russell contends:
...once the terms "experimental" and "ethnography" are brought together,
both term s undergo a transform ation. In any m edium , experimental
ethnography refers to a rethinking of both aesthetics and cultural
representation...In the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, ethnography
is a m eans of renew ing the avant-gardism of "experim ental" film, of
m obilizing its play w ith language and form for historical ends.
"Ethnography" likewise becomes an expansive term in which "culture" is
represented from m any different, fragmented, and m ediated perspectives.
For different reasons, both experimental and ethnographic film practices
have been declared dead in postm odern and postcolonial culture, and yet
in their ghostly convergence, they survive as a site of radical praxis at the
end of the twentieth century (1999: xi-xii).
Ethnographic film and its construction of the other can provide valuable
lessons for anthropological writers. While questions of voice, subjectivity,
authority and reflexivity are now crucial for ethnographers to consider in
writing accounts, David MacDougall points out that these were concerns
ethnographic filmmakers were grappling with well before the "crisis in
representation":
The challenging of authorial certainties, of received stylistic conventions,
the introduction of self-reflexivity, the moves tow ard subtitling indigenous
speech (allowing the inclusion of indigenous texts) all appear to have
em erged from ethical and epistemological questions that documentary
filmmakers began asking themselves thirty years ago. It is probably true to
say that ethnographic filmmakers became sensitive to some of these textual
implications independently of ethnographic writers (1998: 155).
Similarly, Lutkehaus and Cool's (1999) discussion of ethnographic films such as
the MacDougalls's trilogy, Turkana Conversations (1973-1974), Barbara
Myerhoff's Number Our Days (1977), and the films of Jean Rouch, all explicitly
deal with voice, reflexivity and authorial power prior to when textual
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4 8
ethnography concerned itself with such issues. In fact, by the time James
Clifford and George Marcus published their seminal text, W riting Culture: The
Poetics and Politics of Ethnography in 1986, ethnographic filmmakers had moved
away from an observational style of filming to a more participatory cinema,
where "the filmmaker acknowledges his or her entry upon the world of the
subjects" (MacDougall 1998:134), and which ultimately results in a much more
complex exploration of the filmed encounter.
In Dancing with Shakti, shot over the period of two summers (2003 and
2004), I found that the observational style was more conducive to my goal of
getting at the particular. Its emphasis on just letting the camera roll, and its use
of long, slow and steady takes with minimal direction, allowed me to pick up
on the nuanced behavior and emotions of social interactions, as they would
unfold in real time. The slight tapping of her foot as Viji sits in trance, listening
to a song. The trembling of Haseem's foot as she tries to hold the Lord Shiva
pose tor just a minute longer. Gautam's hand as it delicately traces the braid
that runs down Leila's back, curious as to how his mother's blonde, shoulder-
length hair became long and jet-black. Such details add texture to the narrative,
ultimately creating a more intimate connection with the characters. And while
this approach has been criticized for its voyeuristic gaze and shroud of secrecy
assumed by the filmmaker, there are moments in the film where the seams
unravel. Haseem and Samira's parents counteract my question of how the girls
reconcile differences by commenting that the very question is incriminating.
Caught off guard, I quickly stutter, "I, I, I understand w hat you're saying...But
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4 9
if we don't talk about it [identity] then the beauty of such an opportunity gets
passed, too." A moment of silence follows as they process my rejoinder. It
works. They are reassured. Oh, okay. If you want to highlight from that perspective
that, you know, that I would agree. But you know, we shouldn't be justifying it.
In another frame, Samira returns the camera's gaze as she walks by.
Preethi looks up in surprise at the mirror to find me filming her. Each of these
"slips" disrupts the realist narrative, revealing that I too, as a filmmaker, am
participating in the events as they unfold. However, these are carefully
choreographed moments, shaped in the editing. Thus, observational cinema
becomes participatory at the point where the filmmaker sees these moments not
as "errors", but as part of the complex encounter between the filmmaker and
filmed. "The camera is there" (MacDougall 1998:133).
While these breaks certainly point to the construction of narrative, the
more subtle movements and framings of the camera in relentless observation are
what MacDougall terms, "deep reflexivity" (1998: 89). In other words, the
filmmaker "quietly" inscribes herself throughout the work—every frame, every
angle, sequence, and juxtaposition of sight and sound, along with what is not
said or included, present the filmmaker's positions:
The author is no longer to be sought outside the work, for the work m ust be
understood as induding the author. Subject and object define one another
through the work, and the "author" is in fact in m any ways an artifact of
the w ork (1998: 89).
This notion seems to parallel Gelya Frank's phenomenological approach to the
life history. In other words, it is not enough to simply situate oneself as the
researcher or filmmaker. Reflexivity m ust probe deeper, functioning as a
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5 0
methodological tool throughout the course of the project. Thus, when MacDougall
calls the final work "an artifact of the author", is this not Frank's biography in
the shadow?
Similarly, Bill Nichols argues in Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning
in Contemporary Culture (1994) that ethnographic representation, more
specifically ethnographic film, in its fallen state can be revived through a
conscientious probing of the experiential dimensions. Nichols identifies this as
"ethnotopia":
...an ethnotopia would disperse experience and knowledge far beyond the
binary, realist, canonic narratives of the classic ethnographer's tale. Rather
th an dism issing ethnographic film for failing to fulfill (generally
unspecified) criteria of anthropological validation based on a conception of
anthropology as science and professional discipline, w e m ight push
forw ard... to ward an ethnotopia that will not abolish experience, the body,
and knowledge from the belly but affirm it (1994: 75).
Analogous to Frank, Nichols calls for a "phenomenological film aesthetic"
(ibid.: 81) that shifts the focus to the body—subjects' bodies in relation to one
another, the filmmaker's body in relation to their subjects, as well as the "body"
of the cinematic text in relation to the viewer's body—in other words, "a
politics and epistemology of experience spoken from body to body" (ibid.: 82).
Here I confess that my textual analysis presents a much stronger case for
the phenomenological understanding of culture—the inter subjective space
between Viji and me, as well as the materialization of disciplined selves
through the embodiment of bharatanatyam. However, I do not think that I
explore the phenomenological framework sufficiently in the filmic counterpart.
While I might weave various dancers' narratives throughout the piece, the film
for the most part follows a linear trajectory that takes after the classical Western
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5 1
story form1 6 .1 also do not provide much information as to the visceral or
embodied feelings generated while a dancer is performing or practicing; a sense
of the immediate. Like any other process, time and more experience will allow
me to refine and experiment within such a framework in subsequent projects.
Nevertheless, film provides a unique means of channeling a sense of the
immediate. This trajectory flows from the gaze of the filmmaker, into the image
itself, the narrative as a whole, and ultimately in its most ideal form, to the
viewer. In other words, where, what and how the filmmaker chooses to point
the gaze, frame the shot, at the expense of excluding other events transpiring
simultaneously, depends very much on the feelings and visceral response of the
filmmaker to the scene unfolding before her. How many times I was captivated
by Viji's complete focus and absorption while in dance class or rehearsal.
It is an afternoon in August. Viji is in rehearsal with Haseem and Samira
for their arangetram. Viji is trying to choreograph a dance to a song composed
by Nusrat Fateh A li Khan. At the moment, she sits on the sofa, listening to the
song, lightly tapping her right foot to the beat. Slowly, her eyes close and her
head begins to lightly sway back and forth. Soon, the swaying increases in
intensity, eventually incorporating her whole body. Her eyes are shut tight,
eyebrows active. One second they are furrowed, while the next second finds
them moving up, only to jump right back down the following second—a mind
immersed in thought, but also in deep conversation with the body and its
movements. I watch transfixed, my camera slowly zooming into her face. How
aware is she of the camera directed at her? How does this awareness shape her
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5 2
trance? At the same time, my own enthrallment prevents me from getting
Haseem and Samira's reaction to this movement, who stand watching, as well.
Are they just as fascinated as I am? If so, do they channel this energy, Viji's
excitement and abandonment, back into their practice?
These are the gaps that film leaves open, and that the viewer must fill in
(MacDougall 1998). The film narrative simultaneously uncovers "the invisible
through the visible", to paraphrase Merleau-Ponty (1968). The meaning of the
text is also constituted in the silences; what is left unsaid. However, whereas in
written ethnographies, the author fills in the gaps, in film the viewer takes the
writer's place. It necessitates a more active engagement on the part of the
viewer. The filmmaker entrusts her to critically read the cinematic narrative.
"The author is present, often very strongly, but only by inference.. .It is the
viewer who discovers connections within a network of possibilities structured
by the author. The viewer might make other discoveries too..." (MacDougall
1998: 70).
This last statement that MacDougall makes—the viewer might make
other discoveries too— I would like to take further, integrating it with Rey
Chow's discussion of cultural translatability (1995). Chow attempts to redefine
ethnography by "focusing on visuality" (ibid.: 179) which she sees as "the first
step toward a dismantling of the classic epistemological foundations of
anthropology and ethnography" (ibid.).
Working from Benjamin's essay, "The Task of the Translator", and
taking to task Paul DeMan's deconstructivist analysis of translation and the
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5 3
"original", Chow compellingly demonstrates how for Benjamin, translation and
original reside in complementarity. In other words, translation is liberatory in
that there is always an excess that cannot be expressed; this is original's
intention, and it is the task of the translator to attempt to communicate this
excess by adding to the original in its translation, regardless of whether it comes
off as a loss. . .translation is a process that in which the 'native' should let the
foreign affect, or infect, itself, and vice versa" (ibid.: 189). And so, "original"
and "translation" stand in reciprocal relation, or mutual exchange. "Origin" is
problematized for there is no originary space or "native" point of reference
since both transform one another. From this position, Chow argues for a move
beyond intralingual translation, to include the translation of culture through
other media such as film, radio, music, television, the Internet, and so forth:
This notion of the other—not as the idealized lost origin to be rediscovered
or resurrected but as our contem porary—allows for a context of cultural
translation in which these "other" cultures are equally engaged in the
contradictions of m odernity...The coevalness of cultures, in other words, is
not sim ply a peaceful co-existence am ong plural societies b u t the co-
temporality of power structures...the co-temporal exchange and contention
between different social groups deploying different sign systems that may
not be synthesizable to one particular m odel of language or representation
(ibid.: 196-197).
Recontextualizing Chow's theory of cultural translation within MacDougall's
discussion of reading film, the viewer then assumes the role of cultural
translator. In fact, any work, whether it is a textual or cinematic narrative,
circumscribes this relationship where the viewer or reader engages in a letting
of the self infuse with the other. Because the translation then adds to the
"original", the very stability of an "original" text collapses. The construction of
the film is exposed.
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While the role of cultural translator places much more responsibility on
the part of the viewer, it seems that we might be at a point where ethnographic
filmmakers need to dig deeper to come up with more creative ways to deal
with reflexivity, ways that highlight the productive power of film— its ability
to suggest or hint, its "inarticulacy" (Mermin quoting Thomas Waugh 1997: 43).
As Elisabeth Mermin points out, "The general point of reflexive ethnographic
films, that films are constructions, has now been made, and some critics are
starting to find the obvious motions of reflexivity as annoying and
inconsiderate as others found the obscurity of verite" (1997: 43)1 7 .
Similarly, working off Chow's discussion of cultural translation, I add to
the narrative and infuse the other with myself through my questioning of my
own troubled relationship with dance and Indian identity when I was growing
up. These queries are interjected at strategic points within chapter four.
Cinematically, the two short vignettes serve to frame the piece, anchoring my
"biography in the shadow". The first piece opens the video. My voiceover
recounts a traumatic childhood memory—my first time giving a performance at
a local community center, while playing over dancing bodies. They are blurred
and in slow motion to evoke a sense of the past and the ambiguity of memory,
particularly that of trauma.
The second piece follows the same pattern—my voiceover narration laid
on top of similar shots of blurred dancing bodies, slowed down in motion.
However, this time the story jumps forward in time to a recent event that took
place while sitting in on Viji's UCLA class. A South Asian American woman
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5 5
needs help putting on her dance practice sari. I, myself, cannot help her because
I do not know how to wear a sari. Instead, two Caucasian students proceed to
instruct her. The vignette drips with painful irony— painful because I am left
pondering my own guilt as a South Asian, completely disengaged from my
own ethnic identity.
In a way, the two scenes can be loosely viewed in a causal manner (Here,
I want to empathically underline "loosely"). In other word, in its most
simplistic rendering, the second event serves as the future consequence of the
first event. The first memory results in a psychological "othering" that sets in
after I was teased for wearing my dance outfit and all the m akeup and jewelry
that accompanies the dance costume. Vivian Sobchack, in her analysis of Audre
Lorde's autobiographical essay, "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger"
(1984), where Lorde describes the hatred in the woman's eyes who she takes a
seat next to on the subway. The woman pulls her coat closer to her, and Lorde
soon discovers her reason being that the woman does not w ant her coat to
touch Lorde. Sobchack writes of this moment:
...subjectively perceiving and re-cognizing w hat was once the wholeness of
her lived body as now split in tw o— on one side her conscious sense of
herself, on the other her body, the latter now some distanced, objective, and
terrible "thing" (1999: 53).
Similarly, for me, the process of self-objectification of my body as alien or
inferiorly different sets in at that moment that I recognize that I am the butt of
the couple's joke. The subsequent materialization of this self-inflicted
"othering" from the South Asian diasporic community manifests itself through
a number of embodied practices over the years. Two decades later, when I am
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5 6
twenty-seven, I am confronted with this "othering" through an event such as
w hat transpired that afternoon in Studio #304.
Finally, the third autobiographical moment is situated towards the end
of the video, and is principally to prevent myself from serving as a free-floating,
disembodied voice in the piece. This is a factor I particularly want to avoid
since my principal theoretical and methodological arguments stress a more
phenomenological approach. In this scene, Viji and I are in dialogue with one
another, and in a moment of subversion, Viji assumes the role of interviewer
while I am the interviewee. My vulnerabilities are open for exposure; the
camera's gaze is on me.
Certainly these scenes serve to rupture the coherent, realist narrative. By
overtly inserting myself in the film as a central character in the video, I play
with traditional authorial structures and draw attention to the constructedness
of the narrative. However, I want to emphasize that these are not my primary
reasons for placing myself in the film. Instead, the autobiographical functions
alongside Viji's biography, to perhaps provoke unconsidered associations
between identity, self and the community, as well as larger social, political and
historical formations. These vignettes dislodge the homogeneous and romantic
rendering of community, particularly endemic to depictions of ethnic and racial
minorities. In this way, I wish to align the treatment of autobiography within
this film closer to Catherine Russell's definition of autoethnography:
A utobiography becomes ethnographic at the point w here the film- or
videom aker understands his or her personal history to be im plicated in
larger social form ations and historical processes. Identity is no longer a
transcendental or essential self th at is revealed, b u t a "staging of
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5 7
s u b je c tiv ity " — a r e p r e s e n ta tio n o f th e self as a
perform ance...A utoethnography is a vehicle and a strategy for challenging
im posed form s of identity and exploring the discursive possibilities of
inauthentic subjectivities (1999: 276).
Similarly, As an "extension of autobiography" (1999:153), Michael ReMv has
suggested a new sub-genre, domestic ethnography, to characterize a particular
group of films and videos recently produced by independent film- and
videomakers. In the domestic ethnography, self-examination and self-
awareness occurs by making family members the other, or "people with whom
the maker has maintained long-standing everyday relations and thus has
achieved a level of casual intimacy," (Renov 1999:141). Here, I reconfigure the
notion of domestic and family within the sphere of the transnational. Family
does not necessarily adhere to bloodlines, but takes the form of fictive kin as a
result of migration and resettlement. For Viji, Shakti is a family. This family is
comprised of her husband, Prakash, her mother in-law, her daughter, Mythili,
and son, Aditya. But the family also encompasses the dancers and their
families, Amith Basandi, Viji's dance collaborator based in Malaysia, and the
orchestra and their families. For myself, Viji is Viji Aunty. Prakash is Prakash
Uncle. The level of familiarity is implicated within linguistic terminology. And
so, by inserting myself in the film, this serves as a "supplementary
autobiographical practice" (ibid.) where "[djesire for the Other is, at every
moment, embroiled with the question of self-knowledge; it is the all-too-
familiar rather than the exotic that holds sway" (ibid.: 142). And it is precisely
the tension between the familiar and exotic that I situate myself. It is only
through the constant struggle to de-exoticize the dance form and the
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5 8
pedagogical "India" into the mundane and everyday, performative "India" that
I find my other. "If translation is a form of betrayal" (Chow 1995: 202), in that it
can never faithfully render the original in its exact replication, then my
autobiography supplements the biographical to ultimately bring "India" home.
ENDNOTES
1 Arangetram is the first solo performance by a dancer, typically lasting about
three hours. Under the devadasi system, the arangetram established the
devadasi as a professional dancer, and officially initiated her into the ritual
service and performance. Now in contrast, the arangetram has come to
signal the termination of a young girl's or woman's dancing career. It is
more to exhibit the many years of rigorous training (O'Shea 2001:187). For
the South Asian female in the diaspora, the arangetram has in many ways
come to be looked at as her rite-of-passage into the community, her
exemplification of traditional Indian culture.
2 Frank identifies intersubjectivity as "how individuals understand and share
an experience of the world"(2000:108). She discusses the possibilities and
limitations of what it means to really know just one other person. How
valid are individual differences in relation to the larger cultural forces?
3 The mirror phenomenon is similar to what Frank identifies as empathy. It is a
conscientious and methodical exploration of the self in relation to another
person so as to uncover the self-conscious identifications that underlie
one's attraction to the other. As Frank asserts, the m irror phenomena has
the potential for reconfiguring difference not as alien, but as productive.
4 For a strong, though of course not exhaustive, review of the use of life
history in anthropology and of other disciplines, as well as a discussion of
biography and autobiography refer to Langness and Frank (1981). The
authors root the life history method in American as opposed to British
anthropology due to American researchers' interest in personalities.
Additionally, life history grew out of scholars' interest in American
Indians, and the need to "salvage" whatever material and data possible
before the culture completely died out.
5 Behar parallels this argument when she writes, "I noticed that male
anthropologists working with Latin American male subjects provided neat
chronologies in their life history texts, showing the intersection of
individual, local and national events" (1993: 269). This statement hints at an
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5 9
essentialization of gendered representations and approaches towards the
life history method. Nonetheless, it remains noteworthy.
6 See Okely (1992) for her discussion of the reception of self-reflexivity and
autobiography in the discipline. When self-disclosure is accepted, such as
Rousseau's, Confessions, the genre remains structured by western,
Eurocentric traditions, what Okely aptly labels—"the Great White Man
tradition" (ibib.: 7). Autobiographical texts such as these maintain a strict
distinction between the public and private persona, and claim a more
rigorous and rational analysis of the self. As such, women's memoirs,
confessionals and autobiographies have been marginalized since they are
not considered "exacting" enough in their personal scrutiny.
7 For a review of Translated Women as well as the reactions from journalists
and anthropologists to her controversial last chapter, refer to Frank (1995). I
do wish to give Behar the benefit of the doubt since it is clear that she
means to provide a thoughtful probing of her relationship with Esperanza,
a relationship that is far from innocent. Unfortunately, I find that ultimately
the book is a disservice to Esperanza. First, the placement of Behar's own
biograhy as the last chapter is problematic. If this book is to be about
Esperanza, or at least the relationship between the two women, then it
needs to conclude in some way with this relationship, and not just in the
metaphorical manner of connecting the two women's coraje, or rage.
Secondly and more importantly, I believe that Behar ends up recuperating
all the anxieties that she had about the vast discrepancies in class and
nationhood, as well as the social and material capital from the production
of the text. I certainly believe that tackling issues of fellowships, tenureship,
and offers from multiple universities are valid anxiety-provoking issues,
particularly for a woman of color trying to deal with the corporatism of the
academic world. However, I believe that Gelya Frank hits the mark when
she writes:
The well-heeled are entitled to be discontented and neurotic, but only
the truly oppressed are entitled to rage. I think Behar also believes this.
This belief may partly explain why her biography in the shadow seems
a bit weak (1995: 359).
By phenomenologically working through these conflictual feelings, then
Behar would have had more empathy for Esperanza, strengthening her
insights about her and her life history. Subsequently, Behar's biography in
the shadow would not have come off as contrived. However, this should
not deter the production of life histories and cultural biographies. Rather,
Behar's attempt should be seen as a springboard for further refinements of
life histories and the cultural biography (Frank 1995).
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6 0
8 Frank specifically employs the methodologies set out by Edmund Husserl,
founder of the phenomenological movement. Such practices are guided by
a disciplined study of intuition rather than logical reasoning.
9 Abu-Lughod attributes her apprehension of the life history method to its
potential for creating a sense of the isolated individual rather than that
individual embedded in a whole network of intersecting relationships. She
writes:
Representing three generations in one extended family, these women
live in a dose comm unity m ade up of relatives and in-laws m ost of
whom they see almost daily. Each chapter therefore centers on certain
types of relationships between the key individual and others, and it is
my hope that these w om en's continued reappearance in different
chapters will bring the reader a sense of the networks and the closeness
of family relations that are at work (Abu-Lughod 1993: 31).
Abu-Lughod argues that perhaps the "new ethnography" needs to adopt a
"tactical humanism" (1993: 29) in its approach to cultural representations.
That is, given poststructuralists' criticism of humanism with its universalist
proclivities and neglect of socially discursive powers that shape
individuals, Abu-Lughod is careful not to wholeheartedly embrace
humanism. However, for political mobility, she suggests that
ethnographers might take a calculated risk in seeking the usefulness of
humanism. This seems to parallel Spivak's notion of "strategic
essentialism" (1997), where she argues that in order for political efficacy,
the position of essentialism as a strategy might be necessary. And thus, one
sees the "unavoidable usefulness of something that is dangerous" (Spivak
& Rooney 1997: 359).
10 This becomes strikingly clear for Kondo while conducting two years of
fieldwork and living in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo, Japan. A comment
made by her landlady one afternoon during a conversation, astounded
Kondo for the statement revealed a radical shift in the concept of selfhood
in the Japanese context. That is, "You are not an T untouched by context,
rather you are defined by the context" (1990: 29). This argument is further
illustrated in the Japanese language, "...it is utterly impossible to form a
sentence without also commenting on the relationship between onself and
one's interlocuter" (ibid.: 31).
11 David MacDougall (1998) cites as an example the reactions to Robert
Gardner's Forest of Bliss (1985). The film does not verbally explicate, but
rather elucidates its message through the careful juxtaposition of image and
sounds that do not overtly reference one another. In other words, the film
utilizes cinematic montage. As such, it garnered strongly opposed reactions
(as well as positive) by various members of the anthropological
community, citing the film as not "scientific" enough, and leaving too
much room for personal interpretation since the viewer m ust draw their
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6 1
own conclusions to the meaning of the juxtapositions. As MacDougall
points out, ironically "the film is simultaneously accused of having no
meaning and the wrong meaning" (1998: 72).
12 Dudley house refers to the location of Prakash and Viji's house, specifically
the name of the street. Similarly, Patricia house, where Viji holds many of
her classes, refers to the name of the street where this site is located.
13 I want to emphasize here that I do not assume the notion of home in
regards to racial and ethnic subjectivities to be unproblematic. In other
words, home does not necessarily imply safety, comfort and positivity. In
fact, the intersection of home with race and ethnicity is often laden with
exclusion, violence, struggle and the suppression of differences. See Kondo
(1997) for a discussion of the construction of home and community for the
Japanese American subjectivity, whose history is marked by events such as
World War II, the subsequent internment of Japanese Americans in
concentration camps, and Japan-bashing.
Similary, Vivian Sobchack (1999) localizes home to the site of the body,
specifically examining what it feels like to be in one's body and how a sense
of self is intricately tied to one's body. She explicates how in certain
contexts, in fact "unhappily familiar" (ibid.: 54) due to its frequency, the
social body is not experienced as lived, but instead is alienated and
dissociated from its consciousness. It is not a place of residence, but "some
distanced, objective and terrible 'thing' " (ibid.: 53).
14 Coco Fusco and Paula Fleredia's video, Couple in the Cage, sets out to
accomplish a task similar to Miner's. That is, the piece is a satirical look at
the politics of representation, in particular visuality. Two actors, Coco
Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena, claim to be representatives of the
Gautineau tribe, off the coast of Gulf of Mexico. Fusco and Gomez-Pena
place themselves in a cage, and perform various activities from the more
"modem" ritual of learning what a television is, to the more esoteric
religious rituals that purportedly constitute Gautinau culture and
traditions. In doing so, the actor and actress become objects of display for
crowds of onlookers, many who believe that the couple are in fact from this
remote island. The performance piece is a meta-commentary on the
historical objectification, exoticization, and commodification of indigenous
and non-Westem groups through Western institutions, such as the
museum and traveling fair, as well as academic disciplines such as
anthropology. Additionally, the video and performance piece are a critique
of the production of knowledge and narratives of history constructed
through visuality and ways of seeing.
15 See Chow (1995); although this is a tangential argument, Chow cogently
argues the inextricable and mutual links between literature and film in its
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6 2
construction of Chinese modernity. This process is structured by what she
calls "primitivism" where a change in communication with the
introduction of film in China instigated Chinese intellectuals to construct
an "origin" whose commonplace objects such as the subaltern and women
are then taken as primitive objects of the lost past that need to be salvaged
while at the same time modernized. Chow identifies film as an ideal space
for the material enactment of primitivism. Additionally, the introduction of
film also contributed to the romanticization and elevation of print media
and literature as the signifier of traditional China, "a reaffirmation of
culture as literary culture" (ibid.: 14).
16 See Nichols (1994) where he characterizes the canonical Western cinematic
narrative as an introduction of setting and principal characters, the buildup
of some tension or contradiction, that eventually concludes with the
resolution of the problem (72).
17 MacDougall also cites the usual disclaimer provided by the filmmaker to be
superfluous. "Ethnographic films no longer require the ritualized
reminders that they are constructions" (1998: 90). Moreover, he argues that
overt statements of self-reflexivity only reinforce nineteenth century
positivism.
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6 3
3. Mother India:
Pieces of Viji's Life History
Like many narratives of immigrant and diasporic individuals, my version of
Viji Prakash's life history begins when she moved to America. In fact, in all
honesty her life here in Los Angeles comprised the bulk of our conversations.
Thus, my story unfortunately recuperates those familiar racial markers
common to ethnic minority and non-Western subjectivities. That is, as Kondo
points out in her expose on the appearance of Japanese avant-garde fashion
designers on the international scene, "for racialized, non-Western subjects,
existence commences from the time of introduction to the West, (1997:127).
Similarly, however problematic it is, this life story roots the emergence of Viji's
identity in her arrival to America. And like other immigrants' arrival stories,
Viji's "setting trope" most likely has a ring of familiarity to it.
The following is a more or less linear narrative of Viji's life history pieced
together through excerpts of numerous conversations we shared. At some
points, this is supplemented by an interview I conducted with her husband,
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6 4
Prakash. Some of the conversations are edited transcriptions of what Viji
recounted, while other times I paraphrase from informal conversations and
comments said in passing. Of course, through the course of Viji's story, my own
life history silhouettes her own. I do not inscribe my own dance and diasporic
history since these are already revealed in the various vignettes scattered
throughout the work. However, my hope is that through the active engagement
with Viji's biography that my "biography in the shadow" reveals itself in my
pick of questions and responses, which students I selected to follow as
representative of Shakti, and how I chose to frame these various students as
well as Viji and her family. Certainly, where I begin Viji's life history is telling
in and of itself.
■ k k *
V: I came to America to be w ith m y husband. That w as it! Prakash, he w ent
to school here at UCLA, and he w as here. And, just the rom ance of the
m om ent, I never really th o u g h t...I said, "Oh, yes! I'm leaving India. But
it never really hit m e that I m ay not be dancing anym ore. You know ,
that's not a thought th at goes through your head w hen you're dizzy w ith
your new ly found, you know, m arriage and love and rom ance. A nd of
course, w hen he had come, he had m et m y guru. A nd, m y guru had
asked m e to dance for him . A nd Prakash knew I doted on m y gu ru and
his wife. M y guru h ad also just said, "Oh! Such a w onderful m an, and he
loves dance and m usic, and he'll encourage you." (V iji sighs.)
I d o n 't know w hy I'm talking about that, b u t um ...Y eah, I never gave it a
thought w hen I w as getting m arried because m y concentration w as on
the w edding. But as soon as we got m arried, he h ad to get back to work,
and I stayed back, and continued to dance 'cause I h ad a few
perform ances. A nd then, I w as just w aiting for m y visas to come in. And,
I w as going to come here. But I never thought, "O h m y God! I w ant
to...I'm just leaving India." I just...it, it, it w as not such a devastating
idea w hen I w as there. I guess only w hen I used to come, w hen I came
back, w hen I came here, and I started, I used to practice and hear m y
dance m usic.
A: You never thought you w ere going to leave India.
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6 5
V: I never thought I w as going to leave India, so...I left India, I came here,
and even then, everything w as fine. I sort...I think I settled dow n. You
know , the readjusting w as not difficult. The only tim es I had nostalgia
and heartbreak w as w hen I w ould play m y dance m usic, and I w ould just
break d ow n because I could never practice. I w ould hear m y g u ru 's voice,
I w ould hear the m usic, and I w ould just be devastated. I just couldn't do
it. A nd that w as silly because the best w ay for m e to, to get strong w ith
the dance w as to practice it. But I guess that's one of those things. A nd
that's w hen I felt, 'O h m y goodness, for a few m om ents, um occasionally I
w ould think, initially very initially, I w ould think— Am I not going to be
able to dance anym ore?'
But then, Prakash is so caring. H e had, he had looked into the entire
picture and the possibilities and the potential of me pursuing
bharatanatyam as a perform er. I d o n 't think it w as so m uch of as a teacher
because m y passion at that tim e w as perform ing—still is, I guess. But uh,
he explored all the possible avenues. So in the, after those first initial days
of hom esickness or uh, heartbreak about not dancing, h e'd laid the
ground for m e to m eet people, to practice, to give the first perform ance in
Septem ber or October, I d o n 't rem em ber—a few m onths after I'd come.
So, sort of he had laid the, paved the w ay for m e to continue to dance
because I rem em ber very clearly he said, 'Even though I told y o u ...,' And
he did tell m e in India, he said, 'I really w orry because you do this art
form, and you've been practicing it, and it's such an im portant part of
your life. A nd y o u 're going to come to America and there m ay not be
avenues for you. So...is that okay?' A nd, of course! I w as young, bright
and I never rationalized it in any way. I just said, 'Yes, I'm sure
everything will be fine.' A nd, I'm glad I did say that, you know .
But then, Prakash cam e back here and he said, "She spends so m uch tim e
doing som ething, and she loves it so m uch. There has to be som e w ay that
she can p ursue it."
A: So m arriage kind of took you by surprise then?
V: Yes. You know , now w hen I reflect back on it, I'm thinking, 'W ow! W ithin
three or four m onths I just, m y w hole life changed.' B u t.. .1.. .I'd n ev er...1
loved it. A nd even though I tell m y 22-year old daughter you're not ready
for m arriage, you know , everyone is too young for such things here, b u t I
was, I ju s t tu rn ed tw enty w hen I got m arried. But I did not feel like I was
young or im m ature. I um , it just seem ed, it all just seem ed to happen like
it had to be, you know .
A: But that step. That w as such a huge step.
V: Yeah, at that point, I did not think it w as such a big deal. I said, "Wow!
Okay. A nd it ju s t... "(Shrugs shoidders) I think that's how I pretty m uch do
m ost of the things— I just feel intuitively, even m y dance and my,
w hatever. I just p u t in a prayer and say, "So be it!" But it's...I think, I
think, I think w ith m y heart. A nd um , if I'm driven to do som ething, I just
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6 6
do it. I d o n 't th in k this w as just som e w istful thing. (Snaps her fingers)
'Okay, here he is. Shall I get m arried? Shall I not? Okay, let's get m arried.'
It w asn 't like a toss of a coin, playing and gam bling. But I think it w as just
an instinct w ithin me, and hopefully w ithin him th at felt like this had to
happen. A nd gosh, w e've been m arried now thirty years...thir,
thirty?...Y eah. A n d you know , I think w e're doing quite well.
A: But, you came to Am erica to sort of just... to be a wife.
V: M m -huh. (V iji's tone is one o f incredulity b u t also surrender. 1 am laughing in
the background) If you rationalize it now, and you try to tear dow n the
picture, and you think, 'O h, how could I have done that? W hat w ould I
have done?' But you know , it's one of those things w here you just
surrender and you say, 'T hat w hich God has w illed has happened.' You
know . It was, you can't rati o n ...I did not rationalize, contem plate, fight,
argue...nah, I just...I think that, that surrender into the m om ent was
p ro bably.. .It w as good. It w as good. I have no regrets at all.
However, it was not as though everything fell into place so easily. Viji and
Prakash knew of each other ever since they were kids. Their families are
distantly related. Viji was sixteen at the time when the seed was planted by her
parents with the hopes that marriage would not happen immediately but in the
next three, four years. Initially, Viji thwarted such plans. "When my mother
broached it very gingerly, just the initial thought that— Here I am, a city-bred,
emancipated woman, and my parents are trying to set me up with somebody,
and that too, somebody I've known — you know, all these thoughts sort of just
went through my head. I told them not to talk to me about it. I was dealing
with my own uh, philosophy that I do not want an arranged marriage. And I
want to., .you know, the love story where you want to fall in love, or whatever.
I don't know. That was important."
And yet, Prakash, on a trip back home (he was already a graduate
student, living in the States), paid a visit to Viji's family in Bombay. It was
during that stay that Viji realized that she in fact did like him, and within three
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or four months the two were wed in Bangalore. Viji had just graduated from
college. She was taking a course in communication and working in television.
However, dance was still a focus. Though Viji was not "professionally"
dancing, she was performing and touring here and there. However, as Prakash
states, "Viji's career developed in America. And, I provided 100% support. I
looked for opportunities, and helped her develop into a dancer and the dance
institution."
In the 1970s, such a task was difficult to accomplish in Los Angeles since
there was not much in the way of Indian arts and culture. That time period
marked the second wave of South Asian immigrants1 . Primarily highly
educated, highly skilled, urban professionals trained as scientists and health
professionals, most South Asian immigrants were busy settling into their new
identity as an ethnic minority as well as bourgeois lifestyle. Simultaneously, the
influx of South Asians (as well as other ethnic communities) to Los Angeles was
transforming the city landscape. In the wake of the civil rights movements of
the sixties that resulted in the establishment of an array of "ethnic minority"
studies (i.e. African America and Asian American) within the universities in the
seventies, Western institutions jumped at the chance to see an ancient, mystical
dance bom from the temples of India. Viji asserts, "The community was more
concerned about, the Indian community, about doing what they need to do,
making their own progress in terms of their profession and whatever else. And,
now, all that is there. It's established, and that outreach into the culture is far
more intense I think, than it was then." Consequently, Viji's first performances
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6 8
were not for the South Asian community, but for mainstream American
audiences.
V: W hen I first came to Los Angeles, you know , bharatanatyam ,
perform ance, Indian dance, w as not as p o p u lar as it is now . It was not a
household w ord. And, there w ere very few bharatanatyam dancers.
There w as M edha, a dear friend of m ine at UCLA, and V asanthi— a few
here and there. A nd um , teaching w as really not m y, teaching was not
really w hat I h ad in m ind. I w as really not looking to connect w ith these
dance instructors everyw here. I w as interested in perform ing. I did not
even think I need to find venues to perform . I need to netw ork. All I
thought w as I m issed m y dance. H ow can I perform here? I w ant to
perform . A nd I w anted to practice.
But luckily, after w e got m arried and I w as in India perform ing, Prakash
had investigated the entire scenario, had contacted people, contacted
organizations to see if they w ere interested in doing som ething w ith
bharatanatyam . It w as not that bharatanatyam w as unknow n thanks to
Balaswarasati, teaching at UCLA. People did know about
bharatanaytam , b u t.. .1 d o n 't know . W hen I think back n o w .. .gosh, I did
perform . I perform ed a lot. I practiced a lot. A nd w hen I did it, it w as
new . It w as som ething different. I w as able to reach out to audiences
that had never seen it before. It w as som ething that people liked.
So, w ithin the first few m onths that I came, or w ithin the year that I was
here, I w as perform ing at Loyola M arym ount, at G allaudet College in
W ashington D.C. for the deaf, for the im paired in hearing. The
organizations that I had w orked for w hen I first came w ere not Indian
organizations. I did w ork for an open house at the H ollyw ood Bowl. I
w as at Loyola M arym ount College doing a perform ance. I w as at um ,
u m ...I w as in the Los Angeles Unified School D istrict doing
perform ances for children living in South Central Los Angeles. I w as
w ith M usic Tree. I w as doing w orkshops for teachers. These w ere all
organizations that w orked w ith non-Indians, w ith school children in the
com m unity. It was not for Indian audiences.
A nd m aybe there was som ething about the w ay that I presented it that
did not m ake bharatanatyam just like, 'Eew! T hat's som ething esoteric
from the tem ples of India, you know .' It's just like som ething exciting
for tw o m inutes, and som e thing from another land, like Indian spices?
I think m aybe in com m unicating and explaining and doing it, m aybe I
m ade it m ore accessible. A nd they understood m ore, and th at's w hy the
children could relate to the story of K rishna stealing butter. A nd the
older audience could see that the w om an w ho w as angry w ith her lover
could be anyone because he com m itted adultery. It could be Krishna,
b ut w ho cares. For them it w as not K rishna. It w as the guy next door
w ho had done the same. So, w hen bharatanatyam becam e not just the
tem ple art form, but w hen they could see bharatanatyam as som ething
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that w as a p a rt of the h um an spirit, a spirit that is universal, then they
start identifying w ith it. A nd I think it becom es a lot m ore enjoyable. So,
in that context, yeah I w orked w ith non-Indian groups. But you know
really, I d o n 't do, I do not have recollection of those earlier years, (looks
dow n in deep thought) Actually, (another pause) I'm n ot good w ith
rem em bering dates and tim es and things.
A: W hat about um , the Tom Bradley event?
V: Is that 1985? Oh, som ew here along, I did som ething for...w as there a
G overnor Brown w ho w as here? Yeah, there w as a G overnor Brown.
A nd there w as a fundraiser w here I d id bharatanatyam for him . I think
w hat h appened was, I think the H ari K rishnas w ho w ere at that tim e, lot
of m ovie stars and lot of these well to-do non-Indians w ere involved
w ith them , including George H arrison and so forth. A nd um , in order to
proselytize and in order to do K rishna-consciousness in com m unities
non-Indian, they w ould present you know , have m e come and do dance
as a representation of the culture th at they are trying to em ulate or they
are trying to popularize. So, in that context, there w ere a lot of um , non-
Indian audiences that I danced for.
A: W hat do you m ake of this statem ent, "Viji's career basically developed
in Am erica."
V: (quiet fo r a m om ent to th in k )...Yeah. I m ean, I think—it's true! I've spent
m ost of m y tim e living in Am erica th an I've lived in India. I w as very
young w hen I came here. I just started dancing. I had not intended to
dance in India as a "career." It w as a love. And, I w as perform ing. But
(long pause) I think...but, I think the intensity, the dedication, the
passion w ith w hich I w as able to p u rsu e it after I came here because I
w as alone, because I w as introspective, because I h a d ...I loved it so
much! A nd I w as allow ing m yself to grow . A nd the dance w as grow ing
w ith m e, w ithin me. I had a great, supportive husband. I w as able to
m ake a profession in som ething I loved. A n d ...it's true. My
contribution to bharatanatyam has all been in America.
Analogously, it was not the South Asian community, but the Hari Krishna
community that initiated Viji to start teaching. Furthermore, her first truly
dedicated and disciplined students were not Indian, but Caucasian—Leila
Campten and Rani Krammenson. Through their persistence, Prakash and Vij
eventually established the Shakti School of Bharatanatyam in 1977.
V: I w as dancing in the H ari K rishna tem ple in 1977 for Jainmashtami, and
that's the first time, I think, Leila saw m e dance. A nd, I m et her and her
family. A nd u h ...I can't recall, b u t she says she w as really enthralled
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7 0
w ith w hat I did. A nd I do rem em ber seeing her looking at m e. I
rem em ber. That im age is in m y m ind of her looking u p at me. A nd after
that, her father used to call me, several tim es telling m e how enthralled
his daughter w as w ith the dance, and how he really w ants her to learn.
A nd that's how I m et Leila in 1977. A nd that's how the relationship has
grow n.
A nd that's w hen I really, the seed of teaching w as sow n in m y head at
that tim e. O therw ise, I w as not really looking to teach. I w anted to
practice, and practice and practice...and perform and perform . And,
m aybe later on some tim e...m y g u ru did m ention to m e in India,
though. He said, "Teaching is a good w ay to be in touch w ith the art.
Because w hen you teach, you practice. W hen you practice, teach and
practice, you learn a lot m ore and you grow ."
So, I did talk to him and asked him w hat I should do. A nd Prakash kind
of left it to me. H e said, 'G ive it a shot, and see w hat happens.' A nd so,
they recruited a few children from the H ari K rishna tem ple. Leila's
affiliation w ith India actually came through that. It seem s so long ago. I
think that's how I got sta rte d ...(pauses fo r some thought)— through Leila,
through Leila I started teaching. Because of Leila's persistence, I started
teaching.
You know, w hen you start som ething new, there's alw ays a lot of
interest— a lot of the H ari K rishna children started learning, elderly
people, older w om en, I m ean it w as just as like a fad. But then, they also
disappear. A nd a few of them continued, and one of them stayed on,
and that w as Leila. A nd then there w as Rani w ho is another Am erican
girl w ho started.
A nd then I d id a perform ance. Um, other than the H ari K rishna tem ple,
I d id a perform ance for the Indian com m unity. It's called the Karnataka
C ultural Association. A nd th at w as sort of m y debut here. It w as w ith the
K unhiras w ho came from N orthern California and did Kathakali [another
Indian classical dance form]. The Indian com m unity sat u p and said,
'O hhhh, good, talented. She's teaching.' (Says this in a sarcastic tone)
Som e of them joined. But, it w as Leila and Rani w ho w ere sort of the
steady dancers. A nd everybody else came in and out. A nd there was
M eena, Alaka Roshekar w ho came a little bit later. But Leila and Rani
w ere sort of the initial students an d you know , they w ere there. Leila was
there. A nd they d id n 't flit in and out. Actually, some tim e in '80 or '8 1 ,1
had to travel. I decided I w an t to travel and dance. So, I w as going to uh
France, and I w ent to India. Then I w ent to Europe, and I w ent to India.
So, there w as a lot of traveling that I w as doing.
A nd I told the girls that I really d o n 't w ant to teach at that tim e. I did
n o t w an t it to be a situation w here I w as gone for m onths on end. So,
w hen I did come back, they did not learn w ith anybody else. They
stayed on and w hen I came back, I think Leila called and said, "I w ant to
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7 1
dance." A nd so, I thought it w as better th at I just— teach. That's really
w hat happened.
The fact that Viji's first "real" students are Caucasian intrigues me as well as her
numerous workshops that she would conduct with inner-city schools. Of
course, she didn't drive at that time. So, she would take the various buses
necessary to get her downtown and to South Central Los Angeles—clad in her
dance half-sari, accompanied by her numerous tapes and tape player.
One morning in March, in the beginning of the project, I had the
opportunity to film a workshop Viji led at Harvard-Westlake Middle School,
located in Brentwood, an upper class neighborhood1 . Several of the girls in her
school attended the private school. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.
The company was touring Bhagavad Gita, so the orchestra was visiting from
India for a couple of weeks. No DVD player was needed. The students were to
get the full experience.
V: That's w hat I did in the '70s and '80s— a lot of w ork w ith the L.A. school
district, inner school children, connecting them w ith India, an m aking
them realize I am not an A m erican Indian. Oh, they loved it! They loved
m y jewelry. I I'd go dressed just like I w ould do for a regular recital. I'd
tell them stories about Krishna. I'd have them come u p on the stage and
dance w ith m e...(p a u se s in thought) It's kind of fulfilling to know that I
have touched the lives of so m any children w ho probably w ould not visit
outside the walls of their com m unity. It's .. .(pause as she th in k s).. .you
know ...different schools, thousands of schools— elem entary schools,
high school, m ostly elem entary, H ispanic schools. I couldn't speak
Spanish. They did not u nderstand. But yet, there w as dance, and we
com m unicated.
I w ish I could show you som e of those letters, if I can find them . The little
kids w ould write, "O h you, you dance better than Shirley Tem ple." I
rem em ber that one. A nd then one of them said, "Um , you're like Bionic
W omen. Look at the w ay your feet m ove." (breaks out in a sm ile). A nd
these are little children w h o ...it ju st came from their heart, you know.
And I think that connection, th at contribution is very fulfilling.
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7 2
Then I did w ork w ith the L.A. Philharm onic w here the M usic Center
took perform ances out to the schools. A nd they asked m e if I could
choreograph to the m usic of Peer G yn t. I said yes! A nd I sat w ith Sidney
H earth, and I said, 'O h, I heard the m usic, but can you just extend it a
little bit here.' Because th at's w hat you're used to. You know , you hear
Indian m usic, and you can, you can choreograph w hatever. A nd he
looked at me, and he laughed. He said, 'U m , you know I d id n 't w rite the
music. So I cannot change anything. Everything has to stay.' So w e did
m any program s. I can't rem em ber the num bers. I choreographed a story
of the A rabian dance. I did w ork at the K ennedy Center in W ashington
D.C. It w as all for young children, and it w as all bharatanatyam .
A: H ow does that w ork— You[r] going to W ashington D.C.
V: You know , all these m ajor centers have these residencies or program s for
young children. It's im portant for them because they have to do things
for the com m unity, I guess. The W ashington K ennedy Center had that,
too. So, w hen m y h usband w as at W ashington in '77, he w as on loan to
the D epartm ent of Defense. So at th at tim e I did som e perform ances
there. They liked it, so w e did som e program s for schools in th at area,
too. But in the '90s I, I kind of got very involved w ith m y ow n...school,
m y ow n dance school.
If the late 70's was all about workshops in the community, the 1980's was
production time for Shakti, training girls and choreographing group dances.
The first big production was in 1985 when Viji and Prakash organized a huge
fundraiser for the Union Carbide tragedy of Bhopal India. It was huge success
that raised $25,000. Viji recounts the event with growing animation. "I brought
all these young children together. We did the story of Rama. We took over the
Excelsior auditorium. Parents were enthusiastic. Community was enthusiastic.
They had never seen something so big. I did not even dance, but it was, it was
like— production time, you know."
With the momentum so strong, Viji choreographed production after
production with the whole Shakti family alive with community spirit. They
gave a sold out performance of Dance of the Immortals at the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion, Dashavataram where Viji performed, seven months pregnant with her
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7 3
second child. There was Meera, Shyama and Purandara Dasa. At the same time,
Viji did not limit herself to just South Asian stories, choreographing
bharatanatyam to Western narratives such as, The Nutcracker and Cinderella, in
addition to collaborating with flamenco dancers, Japanese taiko drummers, and
other Indian classical dance traditions.
While it's interesting to hear Viji run through all the numerous
productions and collaborations, what is equally engaging is the performance
transpiring before the camera. Her eyes dart back and forth, excitement
enlivens her talk, causing words to trip over themselves, to stop midway only
to reappear a sentence later when she recalls yet another production that takes
her down another sequence of memories. She makes an effort to present a linear
chronology, but there's always something else that disrupts the order. "My
God! When I look back now there were lot of productions that went on. There
was a school. There were productions, there was my own performance, I was, I
started touring India."
A: It seems that, and correct m e if I'm w rong, b u t it seem s that earlier on,
w hen there w ere all these things happening, and you still have, you still
create m ajor productions. But there w as a certain kind of...you w ere out
there in the com m unity. But there w as a different energy back then. I
can't describe it, obviously, because I w asn 't there. But it seem s that there
w as som ething, I d o n 't know . I m ean, you w ere really out there in the
dance com m unity, also. I d o n 't know . I'm not explaining m yself
correctly. I th in k ...
V: I d o n 't think I w as in the dance com m unity as in m ainstream dance.
A: Yeah. No! I m ean, you w ere being, you w ere out there, I m ean the L A
Times w as doing articles on you. A nd um , there w as you know , D orothy
Chandler, things like that. Just, kinda trying to get a sense of m aybe w hat
those tim es w ere like in the '80s. I guess sort of, I guess this change in
perception of bharatanatyam , I suppose. I d o n 't...
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74
V: Look, in the '80s, I w as the m ain dancer. M y students w ere all fairly raw .
But yet, in the '80s, I took the challenge of presenting these w onderful
extravaganzas based on m y abilities to dance. A nd these dancers w orked
around me.
A: I also feel like you're the m ost, and you continue to be, the m ost um ,
publicized Indian dancer in Southern California. [She m akes facial
expression like are you sure about that?!] I m ean, there's lots now! There's
lots...
V: Oh, there's a lot. Yeah, I think w hat happened at that tim e— I was one of
the few w ho w as quite com m unicative, w ho w as quite articulate about
m y art form . Tw enty-five years ago or w hatever, m aybe w e had m ore
energy. Prakash w as a great um , m otivator in term s of you know, he
used to tell me, 'Y ou're good! A nd I think people should see it.' So he did
w hatever he could to m ake it happen. Um, I danced for UCLA in the
Festival of India. I did som ething, w hen my, m y guru and the m usicians
came in 1981 at Philadelphia. I...w h en you look back, it was, I think it
w as the beginning, and alw ays the beginning is som ething that comes as
an explosion.
You know , now it's, 'O h yes. The m usicians come. The arangetram s
happen.' The seed becom es an explosion initially, and then the sense of
smell and beauty just continues to last. A nd I think th at's w hat
happened. So w hen I first came, and danced, people w ere excited. A nd
then I danced w ith m y gu ru and the orchestra. A nd I w ould go to India
to dance, and the review s w ould be good. A nd people saw m e dance in
India, and came and told people in the U.S. Stella K ram hersch was told
by her friend saying, 'Y ou m u st see this dancer w ho danced for the
Sangeet N atak A cadem y in N ew Delhi. You m ust bring her to your
Philadelphia M useum .' So th at's how I danced fo r M anifestations o f Shiva.
I just loved to dance and I had a husband w ho loved to see m e dance.
And I think th at's how the explosion of it all happened. A nd then
m aybe.. .1 think w hen I look back, m aybe w e got really am bitious and
thought, 'L et's m ake this like a global art form! You know , it's not just
about Viji and her students. It's about this w hole big foundation w hich
encom passes the ability to bring other artists.' A nd w e did! In the '80s
and '90s, w e presented the D hananjayans from India w ith the idea that
Shakti w ould expose this art, not just because I w ould do it, b u t through
some of the m ost brilliant artists that ever existed in the w orld of
bharatanatyam . W e also h ad Father Barboza, a m ale dancer, w ho did
C hristian them es. W e w ere the forum for so m any dancers. We took on
challenging events like bringing in different dance form s together,
putting H in d u sta n i m usic and Karnatic m usic together. A nd it's all
because I love trying to do these things.
A: It w as new . [V: It w as new.] There w as a freshness to it.
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7 5
V: Yes. A nd I think it w as different. W e had a program w here I brought the
m usicians out from u n d er the stage. It w as Purindera Dosa. W e did it in
conjunction w ith an organization. A nd they rose up, and they came up
onto the stage, singing and playing the song. A nd, I just kind of thought
it w as all unique. It w as just like, 'W ow! This is happening to Indian
dance w hich is usually kind of done in little, little things.' It w as like an
explosion of, you know , of com ing into the m ainstream . W e're not yet
there, m ind you.
Coming into the mainstream. Viji and Prakash were ready to take on the challenge
of defining bharatanatyam not solely as a symbol of ethnic identity in the
diasporic community, but an art form in its own right. This meant not only
showcasing the dance at local Indian community affairs, such as the annual
Indian Independence Festival, what Viji refers to as "little, little things".
Instead, she and Prakash diligently strove to professionalize the dance in Los
Angeles— connecting with renowned theatre venues, creating elaborate set
designs and costumes, using proper lighting and visual affects.
One of the most important steps towards this process was bringing
musicians over from India so that bharatanatyam would be accompanied by
live music. In 1981, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art invited Viji to
participate in their exhibition, Manifestations of Shiva, Prakash suggested
bringing Viji's guru and musicians over to participate. Till then, dancers
performed off of tapes. With a live orchestra, it elevated the productions to a
whole other level. There was no going back. Since 1981, Viji and Prakash have
continued to bring over various musicians to the States, staying three to four
months at a time.
In 1997, another member was added to the Shakti family. While on tour
in India, she unintentionally met Amith Basandi, a South Indian living in
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7 6
Malyasia. "Mythili and I, we were performing and we visited the Dhananjayans.
I saw this little dancer, sweating away, doing Ambakamakshi over and over and
over. And, there was this sense of exhilaration when he danced. I didn't know
who this was. I had no clue. But, I was completely enamored by his sense of
complete surrender to the dance, complete involvement with the dance. And
that7 s it." That same year, Viji was in the process of planning Shyama, and
needed two male dancers. Amith immediately popped into her mind. He
agreed to participate in the production, and since then has been coming to Los
Angeles every summer, collaborating on choreography, performing and
leading dance camps.
Somehow in the midst of choreographing productions, solo tours and
leading the school, Viji realized that it was time to have a child. Unlike most
recently wed South Asian couples, Viji and Prakash did not have children until
six years into the marriage. In 1982, Mythili was bom, and six years later, their
son, Aditya followed.
A: Um, turning to M ythili and A ditya—you w ere in the m iddle of
perform ing, and m iddle of touring and teaching, and th en ...I don't
know . I think for a d an c er.. .1 d o n 't know . For me, I can't even im agine
because I'm not a dancer, b u t I'm so career-oriented. A nd you're so
career-oriented, plus you're a dancer. Your body is so im portant to you.
Um, can you talk about having M ythili and then A ditya? I m ean, w as
having kids, not having kids, an option?
V: Ohhhh no! N ot having kids, having k id s...N o! It w as, it w as just so
natural to think that w hen you're m arried you will have children. I
think th at's the given norm . But, w e um , w hen you have those children
sort of...because I w as dancing so m uch and we, w e both thought we
w ere young. So, we both thought having a child w as im portant to do
w henever I w anted to. A nd, after aw hile you get so w rap p ed up w ith
w hat y o u 're doing, you start getting so com fortable. But then, it really
hits you, and I said, 'Yeah, b u t w hat about the kids, you know? I've
been, w e'v e been m arried. I've been dancing five, six years. I'm having
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7 7
a good tim e.' A nd then som ething pinches you. I d o n 't know w hether
it's being a w om an, w hether it's out of guilt, or w hether it's being
um ...introspective. It is im portant, I think. And, you see the
im portance of that w hen you give b irth to that child, you know. A nd
you see...and you d o n 't see life w ithout it once you h ad that child. I
really d o n 't think it, it changes your career potential or ability or
anything. You just have to as a w om an decide; you have to give
yourself the tim e to be w ith a child.
A: H ow old w ere you w hen you had M ythili?
V: I w as tw enty-five or twenty-six. I d o n 't rem em ber. W ell see, w hen we
decided to have a child, I w as dancing a lot. (pause) B ut w hen she w as
bom , M ythili, m y daughter, it w as n ot like, 'O h, here's a big stum bling
block to m y dance.' It w as not like th at at all. I continued to dance, I
continued to tour. N ine m onths after she w as born and even w hen she
w as one and a half, I w as gone on to u r to Europe and C anada and
India. I think I had three tours w here M ythili stayed w ith m y sister in
law, or m y brother in-law in D enver, or w ith m y m other in India w hen
I w as touring, or w ith m y parents in-law . I used to leave her w ith
babysitters so I, so I could go w ork o u t or practice. Or, I'd leave her
w ith m y m other in-law. ..yes.
But then after I finished the tour in '83 or '8 4 ,1 can't rem em ber, I w as a
lot m ore grounded. A nd, the school and teaching started taking
em phasis over touring. The school aspect started developing on its
ow n. M ythili used to w atch m e teach. M ythili used to be in the
environm ent. M ythili used to be w ith grandparents, aunts, uncles, and
the m usicians. A nd so, she just sort of grew u p just thinking this is, this
is life. And, and I think, it w as not so stressful. M aybe she'll say
som ething different. It w as not so difficult because I had family to help,
great fam ily. Everyone took care of her. It w as a very loving, nurturing
situation.
A nd six years later, A ditya came in '88. A nd it sort of w as increasingly
com m ittal because, you know, there w as M ythili and the school had
grow n. I really don't know . I think w e just took it all in stride. A nd of
course in that Prakash helped me.
With a family and the school well underway, in the early 90's, the Prakash
household encountered their biggest decision they were to make yet. At the
time, Prakash was working in high-level management for the company, KORE.
He was offered a position in Dallas, Texas. However, at that point, the Shakti
school and dance company were well established. Viji had created a name for
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7 8
herself and the school within Southern California. If the family were to relocate,
it would be too difficult to build up the momentum once again, and the support
of the community. Either way, a huge sacrifice would have to be made.
V: Really, it w as n o t the intention of either of us that Prakash w ould leave
everything and you know, join Shakti. W hether he form ally did it or
not, he w as alm ost sort of the backbone, the guide and the counselor.
H e m ade the financial suggestions or decisions. He w as always m y
advisor. But, w hen his com pany m oved to Texas, and I really can't
rem em ber w hen, by that tim e, m y school w as really w ell established. I
h a d m any students. I w as teaching at different centers. The students
w ere doing well. We had brought in a couple resident m usicians from
India w ho accom panied the program s. A nd then w e had to m ake the
decision about m oving to Texas. A nd th at's w hen I think, it w as a very
noble gesture on Prakash's part. H e said, 'Y ou know , you've
established such a w onderful institution here. A nd I just feel that it
w ould be unfair for us to just, to not give Shakti the love and respect
th at's due to the art form, and just w alk aw ay. I think I'll do som ething
here in L.A. W e w on't m ove.'
A nd it's very, it was, I think it's difficult w hen you have an excellent
job, you know , and you try to kind of find one on the sam e par. A nd
then, you have all this stuff going on w ith the school and m y work. All
this is very tim e-consum ing. So, w e both just decided that Prakash will
just help m e w ith building program s and taking care of things in term s
of the school, the perform ance com pany, m anaging bookings. So, I
think it w as in the early '90s w hen that happened. A nd that's the w ay
it's been since.
A: H ow did you um , I m ean that's incredible to...
V: It w as not easy to m ake that decision. A nd um , w e h ad som e rough
m om ents, too. Everything w as okay for m e because I w as doing the
sam e thing. But for him to accom m odate this for a m an w ho had a
career w hich w as well and am azing and very good, in every aspect of
the w o rd ...y o u know , to live w ith a w him sical kind of um ,
tem peram ental lifestyle w as hard. It w as very difficult.
A: I m ean that w as a huge risk you guys w ere taking, no?
V: (nods her head in agreement) M m -huh. N ow w hen I look back, I respect
him all the m ore. I'm really aw ed even m ore because if you ask me
now , w ould I have given u p m y dance school and m oved to Dallas—
yes, as a dutiful wife, I should have. But I think I w ould have p u t up
great resistance, especially since the school w as going so well. So, in the
sam e token, he w eighed the pros and cons, and he let go. A nd I think, I
think that's rem arkable. That's really rem arkable. A nd I hope, my
children at som e point see the value of w h at a big sacrifice their father
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7 9
m ade. A nd he still, he still does. I m ean, w e both decided that our son
should take a sabbatical from school, and go study m usic in India
because he's good at it. And, the school agreed. M y husband w ent and
stayed for six m onths w ith m y son. A nd w hen m y daughter toured
India recently, he stayed for five m onths w ith her. So, it's not easy.
It's not "successful", b u t it's som ething that is close to o u r hearts. The
picture that we, I think w e are painting is not so m uch how lucrative
som ething is, or how "correct" it is in term s of the w ay ...I don't know.
I'm n ot saying this correctly (pause to think). I think w hen w e look back
and say, 'W hat have w e done, you know ?' I think we are, w e are very
satisfied w ith the decisions w e have m ade because w e've done things
that have been close to our heart, and w e have allow ed our children to
grow in a w ay th at's dear to them w ithout putting im pedim ents,
restrictions or dem ands in term s of being anything b u t w hat they w ant
to be.
A: H ow did you guys negotiate raising the kids?
V: M y schedules took m e out in the night or in the evening. And, it w as
his firm belief that you can't have both the parents out, coming hom e
late. Som eone had to sacrifice som ething. A nd, he felt it w as just as fine
if he stayed hom e and took care of the children w hen I w as gone in the
evening, so that there w as a paren t there for both of them . We never
thought am iss of that, even though it m ay have changed the regular
infrastructure as is understood as m om being hom e and dad going out.
A: Do, do you think you u m ...k in d of, u m ...d efy stereotypes?
V: I d o n 't know if it's a stereotype now adays. You hear so m any stories,
stories of the like of us w here um , the w ives are going out and w orking
and the husbands have jobs that are flexible or they take care of the
fam ily side or they help the wives. But w hen w e did it, it
w as—different, especially in term s of our society— it w as different. This
w as our choice. I, I d o n 't think it w as a w rong choice. W e both agreed
on it. I think that w as im portant. Som etim es it w ould cause anxieties in
term s of things being a bit lop-sided. But really in term s of the bigger
picture, I'm glad w e just do the things w e do. I know the family
benefited. I know m y children, even though they m ay have had some
apprehension—'W hoa, m y m om 's w orking and m y d a d 's hom e.' This
m ay have been the case w hen they w ere younger because kids have a
certain vision. But I think as they get older they really see the
generosity of their father, and how m uch, how m uch he and the fam ily
have ju st.. .1 w o uldn't call it a sacrifice because I think that's a w ord
that sort of court m arshals love, you know . But I think it's just, to give
unconditionally, I, I think you realize that as you get older. A nd a lot, a
lot of the bigger things I do—M eera, Buddha, Bhagavad G ita—you know,
he's sort of instrum ental in pro d d in g m e to follow that instinct and do
it because if you don't have that support, and if you d o n 't have that
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8 0
enthusiasm from your partner, it's quite dam pening. It's quite easy to
just say, 'U gh, w hatever!'
From that point on, The Shakti School and Dance Company became the sole
source of subsistence for the Prakash household. Viji became the primary
financial provider. Given the erratic schedule of an artist, Viji was not at home a
lot of times, or was at home at odd hours. As a result, Prakash was the primary
parent at home, taking care of the kids. It is by complementing one another that
Viji and Prakash are able to successfully run Shakti, tour all over the country
and India, and support themselves and two children, Mythili and Aditya.
Prakash does not see their decision to stay in Los Angeles as a sacrifice,
but rather what just ended up being the best move for the family, the school
and company. "When you're married to somebody, it's a joint decision. It's not
like one is sacrificing for the other, or any such thing. You know, you do what's
best for the entire family." Instinctively, he knew that such a move would be
too traumatic for Viji and himself, particularly as Los Angeles was so different
from Texas. They would have had to completely uproot themselves. But more
than this, Prakash knew how important the school and the dance was to Viji.
Dance is her life. Given that there were still so many dreams and goals to
achieve with the school and the company, Prakash decided that they would
never happen while both were working full-time, demanding jobs. As a result
of becoming manager of Shakti, Prakash was able to dedicate the time and
energy necessary to take the institution to the next level.
A: T hat's really hard. I d o n 't see it as easy at all. Um, how ...in negotiating
family, how did you guys d ecid e.. .how to do this? W ith Viji A unty
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8 1
perform ing a lot, or teaching a lot, or going traveling a lot, both you
guys w ere traveling a lot, how did raising a fam ily come into this?
P: Well, first[ly] w e d o n 't negotiate. W e just do w hatever is necessary for
som ething to get done, w hether I do it, or Viji does it, it doesn't m atter
w ho does it. It doesn't m atter w ho does it. T hat's the philosophy that
w e have.
A: Um, do you feel that you have gone against the grain in any aspects?
P: No, I d o n 't feel th at w e have gone against the grain. You know, w e
shouldn't be looking at lives as a career, and w e sh o u ld n 't be looking at
ourselves as m erely m achines to go and accom plish, you know, a
m onetary goal. That's not how w e're born. That's not w hat w e're
supposed to do. W e're supposed to p u rsu e activities that bring us
happiness; that we enjoy doing. A nd so naturally, w hat Viji and I did
w as do things that w e love to do; that w e enjoy doing.
So um , if you are asking m e a question you know, w hether it w as
against the grain for m e not to take u p the position in Texas, no it
w asn't against the grain because um , you know we had m ade a
com m itm ent to the dance school. A nd at th at point, the com m itm ent to
the dance school w as very im portant. A nd so I think w h at w e did w as
very natural. W e w ere pursuing our dream , our passion, and w h at we
w anted to do. W hatever w e do is done in a joint way. It's not that
som ething is hers, and this thing is m ine, you know . We do things
together.
Thus, for Viji and Prakash, the boundaries between "mother" and "father", wife
and husband, public and private are quite porous. To say that there is one
person who takes care of the house and children while the other partner goes
out and makes money is futile. What needs to get done at a particular time will
be taken care of by one of the two. Viji might run the classes and choreograph
the productions, but it is Prakash who books the venues and manages the
finances. If Viji happens to be home at three o'clock and Prakash is busy
working on a flyer, or on the phone with a contact, then she'll pick Aditya up
from school. If she's in the middle of class or rehearsal, then Prakash will make
sure Aditya is picked up, gets some food to eat and is studying and practicing
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8 2
his music. Many times, Prakash is the calm presence, able to placate Viji during
one of her crazy outbreaks. With Viji's abundant energy and intense drive that
keeps her working for extended periods of time, and late into the night, Prakash
is the one who will tell her to slow down or too much work is not good for
one's health. With Viji's love for trying new things and testing the limits,
Prakash is the one who brings her down to earth, letting her know if an idea is
just not feasible. The two engage in a finely choreographed dance. In this way
the couple is Shakti.
V: Shakti m eans energy, in the loose term . But Shakti is also the
personification of the universal female energy, the energy of m ale and
female, the tw o -purushakrathi—that is there, inherent in the universe.
There's a saying w hich says, 'Lord Shiva's shakti is dorm ant until
Shakti— goddess, Parvathi— wills his energy to come to play.' In
essence, he cannot do his w onderful dance until she w ills for it to
happen. So it is her pervading pow er that inspires or pushes Lord
Shiva. So th at female, th at concept of the fem ale pow er—you know , all
these term inologies get taken and throw n out of context now adays.
Pow er is a very liberating w ord. If you're endow ed w ith the pow er,
you're endow ed w ith the energy to do w hat you w ant. It is not vain or
self-gratifying; it's not a concept of ego. But, pow er is being endow ed
w ith the energy to create w h at you feel w ithin you, and w hich you can
share w ith the universe. A nd that feeling of pow er that the w om an is
endow ed w ith, it has no boundaries. It's explosive, ready to be tapped,
alw ays there, ready to be nurtured, ready to explode. T hat's w hat
Shakti is.
This is not to say that harmony reigns at the Dudley house. With Viji's fiery
personality and iron determination, the Prakash household is never boring.
Because there are no concrete roles, no steadfast rules, they are as idiosyncratic
and erratic as can be. One minute could find Mythili and Viji screaming at one
another, only to be reviewing a dance jathi five minutes later. Viji will shout at
Prakash for calling her in the middle of dance class. And yet, this is what makes
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8 3
them, and the Shakti family, so homey. Anything goes. There is no right or
wrong, successful or unsuccessful, way of doing things.
V: I do rem em ber there w ere people in the com m unity in '85 w ho said,
'W hy does she have to look for H industani m usic? W hy can't she just
use Karnatic m usic? Isn 't she satisfied?' You know , it's ju st.. .different
things. I think if I d o n 't have th at daredevil streak in me, it's not
possible, that, 'C 'm on, let's try this and see how it w orks.' But,
anything I try is, it comes from m y heart. A nd I think that's really
im portant. You just do w hat your heart tells you. You have to listen to
th at voice inside and say, 'O kay, if you're m aking the m istake, you're
m aking the m istake. A nd you have to deal w ith this— w ith God above.
D on't fret on it.' If y ou're doing som ething good, everybody benefits.
A nd you still have to deal w ith that— w ith G od above. So, the God
w ithin you, or the voice w ithin you keeps telling you do it. A nd I think,
I'm able to do things because no w people believe in me. They believe
in m y m adness, you know . But I think Prakash also believes in me.
ENDNOTES
1 The location of this event is a telling marker in the shift in class that occurs
over the twenty or so years of the Shakti school's history. Where in the
beginning, Viji was taking buses by herself downtown to hold workshops
at inner-city schools, Viji is now holding workshops in a school situated in
very upscale, upper-class neighborhood.
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8 4
4. Performing Identity:
Race, Nation, and Gender
Sako Ninna Sneha
This piece portrays a woman that has been betrayed by her lover. She tells him that she
knows all that he has been doing and that she does not w ant any more o f his sweet words.
She asks him to leave her and laments over her own misfortune.
Sako Ninna Sneha is a padam or a piece of drama enacted in bharatanatyam. It is
a common portrayal—the forlorn mistress misled by her lover. Most of the
padams characterize the female devoted to one of the gods, or waiting
helplessly for her lover to return. Two thousand years ago, such dramas were
enacted by the devadasis, which literally means, "a servant of God". Initially,
they performed in the Hindu temples and courts of South India, specifically in
the state of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Up until the 1920s, dancing was almost
the exclusive preserve of the devadasis. As a temple dancer, the devadasi's
foremost duty was to entertain the Gods before the temple deities. She was
literally— a servant of God. Devadasi life was that of the temple. By puberty
the devadasi was formally married to a temple deity or ritual object, kalyanam,
allowing her to dance as part of temple ceremonies and celebrations. Because
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8 5
the Lord was her husband, the devadasi was a symbol of good fortune, often
called upon to perform at marriages and other important village events:
The devadasi way of life was an entire was of life...They danced for the
deity as an artistic extension of the elaborate worship by the priests...They
danced for god inside the temple and outside too, and again for him when
he w ent outside in procession and at festivals (R. N agasw am y quoted in
Gaston 1996: 39).
In addition to playing an integral role in temple life, devadasis were just
as important within the secular sphere, performing for the kings and royal
courts. In fact, the earliest references to dance and dancers in the Rg Veda and
other legal texts abstain from establishing a direct link between dance and the
temples1 . Thus, "rooting" the dance and the dancer becomes problematic. Does
her "origin" situate her initially as a servant of the royal courts or the temple? It
is important to note that within traditional Indian society, religion and the
secular were inextricably linked, and dance permeated all parts of society.
Dance served as a metaphor for Hindu thought, which in turn formed the basis
for Indian society. Through dance Lord Shiva Nataraja created the Universe,
itself the constant rhythmical movement of cosmic energy:
In his u pper right hand Shiva holds a small hourglass-shaped drum to
symbolize the prim al sound of creation, the upper left bears a tongue of
flame, the elem ent of destruction. The way the tw o hands are balanced
points to the dynamic balance of creation and destruction in the world,
underlined by the Dancer's calm and detached face in the center of the two
hands. It is the face of one who has dissolved and transcended the polarity
of creation. The lower right hand is raised in Abhay M udra, the sign that
denotes "do not fear", symbolizing m aintenance, protection and peace
while the lower left-hand points dow n to the uplifted foot, symbolic of the
release from the spell of m aya. The god is visualized as dancing on the
body of a demon, the symbol of hum an ignorance, avidya, which has to be
conquered before liberation can be attained (Singh quoted in Ananda
Coomaraswamy 2000: 8).
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8 6
Temple and courts informed one another, the kings assuming godlike
power, and empowering them to "transfer devadasis to religious duties or call
devadasis for secular activities" (Gaston 1996: 28). As a result, dance was quite
widespread, and dancers held a respectable position in society. The height of
the devadasi's glory was reached during the Chola dynasty, in the ninth
through twelfth centuries. She was considered the jewel of the courts and
temples. And yet, her perpetual dance between the two institutions—the
secular and the religious was to also mark her eventual downfall.
A devadasi was expected to be physically attractive, with long dark hair,
beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, and a voluptuous, hourglass figure. Contrary to
most South Indian women in that time period, she was expected to be well
educated and well-versed in the arts.
Considered outside of the traditional caste system, devadasis enjoyed an
unprecedented amount of economic and social agency, unlike most married
women in South India at that time. They were financially independent, and
made all the major decisions in the household. One had to be related to a
devadasi in order to become one. Thus recruitment was largely through
adoption, since most devadasis did not marry. It is noted that devadasis were
the only class of women who, under Hindu law, administered by the British
courts, were allowed to adopt girls to themselves (Thurston 1909). Accordingly,
inheritance in devadasi families passed through the female line (Gaston 1996:
50). The devadasi in many ways, served as a node of "rupture" within the
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8 7
larger economic and social structure. She challenged the dominant patriarchal
discourse around marriage, family and labor, destabilizing their construction.
However, her very security rested on serving as courtesan to the royalty
and upper class, posing a substantial limit to individual agency. It was common
for single and married men to be associated with a devadasi as this enhanced
his status and wealth in society. Simultaneously, it was essential that the
devadasis maintained her status by serving as a courtesan for affluent men,
sometimes limiting themselves to brahmins. A devadasi's patron entered into a
relationship with her for a specific period of time, sometimes it was for life.
While the patron's wife did treat such a relationship too favorably, such stories
of tension and jealousy often served as the backdrop for the devadasi's dance
repertoire (Gaston 1996: 42).
By 1920, her dance between royalty and the courts was becoming too
tenuous. Indian society officially banned the devadasi tradition, calling the
system a form of prostitution and the dancer corrupt. The abolition remained in
place until 1947, although Ann-Marie Gaston notes that there still remained a
large group of women who continued to be trained as a devadasi "...at the
same time, other girls from the non-hereditary communities were also being
trained. The inspiration for the non-hereditary group was, at least partly, a way
of demonstrating their families' nationalism and adherence to 'Indian' culture
and values" (ibid: 64-65).
It is this latter group, the non-hereditary community, that was to play a
crucial role in constituting the dance form in its present form. Eventually, this
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8 8
group took over the practice and teaching of the art, while the devadasi system
slowly died out. Today, very few devadasis still exist.
In 1930, the dance went through a major revival, spearheaded by E.
Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi. Their primarily goal was to dissociate the
dance from the temple and the devadasi, thus marking the beginning of its
secularization. The most evident move in this direction occurred in 1932-33
when the new version of the dance became known as bharatanatyam. The dance
was banned from the temples, and moved to the proscenium stage.
Additionally, the dance was transferred from the villages of rural South India to
the metropolitan city, Chennai, (Madras) where it now operates as the leading
authority on South Indian classical dance and music.
The revival project was primarily led by Rukmini Devi, who sought
legitimization of the dance by rendering it as a symbol of national identity. To
accomplish this task, Devi needed to "spiritualize" the dance form, and make it
representative of "core Indian values". She felt that in order to accomplish this,
she needed to transfer the dance form to 'women of quality', and to align it with
the unique genius of an ancient, pan-Indian Sanskrit tradition (O'Shea 2001:
107). Thus, nation is unproblematically treated as an essentialized identity, a
pedagogical vehicle. Devi proceeded to institutionalize the dance, adopting the
Kalakshetra tradition of bharatanatyam.
And yet, this revitalization necessarily demanded a realignment of the
dance form from its specific Tamil roots to an idealized abstraction of the
nation, highlighting the performative conceptualization of the nation-state:
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8 9
Kalakshetra provided a standardized system of dance training, which
legitim ized its practice for m iddle-class Indians from a variety of
regions...A s such, Devi m ade it possible for young dancers to leave their
im m ediate environm ent, even traveling a long distance, by providing the
assurance that students w ould not comprom ise their education...Likewise,
Devi's agenda...although not inherently nationalist, initiated a shift from
the production of immediate communities in pedagogy to the production of
imagined ones. By delocalizing the practice of Bharatanatyam, Devi opened
it up to the dancers w ithout any im m ediate or regional link to the form
(ibid. 112).
With bharatanatyam "cleaned up", its primary audience was now the
educated upper and middle-class. Where once the dance carried a social stigma,
now training in bharatanatyam signified a great social accomplishment for a
girl in Indian society, as Gaston writes, "improving a girl's marriage potential
through affirming her adherence to Indian culture" (1996: 72). This
respectability has transferred abroad in its migration out of India. In her study
of bharatanatyam's movement from local to the global, Janet O'Shea points out,
"For many Indian emigrants, bharatanatyam expresses middle-class femininity,
Sanskrit traditions, and pan-Indian Hindu religious themes as much as it does a
South Indian cultural identity" (2001: 39).
And yet, what about those such as Jyoti who are not of South Indian
descent, or Ananya and Mona, who do not practice Hinduism, but Islam?
Bharatanatyam's global migration has marked the rewriting of nation,
emerging from a space that plays on the very tension between the pedagogical
and performative. Where once its rebirth rested on the story of nation as a social
totality, its expression within the diaspora calls into question this very unity. In
addition to undermining the hegemonic apparatus of the state by transferring
some of the citizen's commitment to the state to that of an ethnic community,
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bharatanatyam's national discourse and cultural practice traverses the
boundaries of the traditional nation-state.
Simultaneously, those emigrants who do come from India, regardless of
religion or particular region, have a renewed sense of nationalist identity,
instigated by nostalgia for home and belonging. "The nation fills the void left in
the uprooting of communities and kin, and turns the loss into the language of
metaphor" (Bhabha 1994:139). Spreading its roots, bharatanatyam serves as this
signifying practice. Here is where I pick up the narrative thread of the nation
state.
R e(m e m b e r )i n g In d i a
One Tuesday in the middle of class, Viji Aunty has each of her students
say a prayer in their native language. Zara, Ananya and Mona recite a Muslim
prayer in Urdu; Karen, a Zoroastrian prayer in Avista. Jyoti delivers a Hindu
saying in Hindi, not in Spanish. Finally, Shanti, the only South Indian, sings a
verse of Karnatic (South Indian dialect) music. Again, I am fascinated and yet,
utterly perplexed that Viji Aunty has Muslim students learning bharatanatyam,
a South Indian classical dance based on Hindu philosophy that reenacts the
mythology of the Hindu gods. The politics in nationhood's performance rises.
What about the million people massacred during the Hindu-Muslim
riots of the 1947 Partition? What of the indescribable violence and hatred, rapes
and pillage that ravage India to this day, such as in 1992 when Hindus attacked
a 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, killing more than 3,000? Or ten years
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9 1
later, in 2002, when Hindus expressed a desire to build a temple in the same
space as the mosque, Muslims retaliated by lighting a train on fire, killing fifty
Hindu activists?
At a subsequent meeting one afternoon with Viji, I broach the subject.
V: Dance is a universal form th at transcends one's cultural identity,
religious identity, etc. Just because it comes from one geographical
region doesn't m ean that it m ust be passed on to those from the same
region. For example, Parvathi—do you know who Parvathi is?
It's a rhetorical question and so I remain silent.
...Because you are Hindu, do you know anymore than another person
who is not Hindu? Parvathi takes on whomever, whatever you want her
to be.
There is something quite beautiful in this response, one of the more
positive possibilities of the transnational space and the migratory experience.
Ironically, its re-imagining of nation, community and solidarity reflects a
prominent slogan of the Indian nationalist movement, "Unity in Diversity,"
(Pandey 1992: 28). However, this reconstruction is based on a necessary
forgetting of national history, of "the violence involved in establishing the
nation's writ," (Bhabha 1994:160). As Gyanendra Pandey points out, the
justifications for forgetting or silencing are not hard to find. Why open up old
wounds? How does one even begin to describe, to bring justice to the profound
violence and tragedy?
...there is no consensus among us about the nature of Partition. We have no
means of representing such tragic loss, nor of pinning dow n—or rather,
ow ning—responsibility for it. As a consequence, o u r nationalist
historiography, journalism , and film m aking have tended to generate
something like a collective amnesia (1992:33).
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9 2
From this process of travel and resettlement, emerges a tension between
the desire for belonging and longing, memory and the now, sameness and
difference, constitutive of the transnational ethnic identity:
In general, the m igratory experience can lead to m ore embracing
identifications on the m argin of the host society: Those who do not think
of themselves as Indians before m igration become Indians in the diaspora.
The elem ent of rom anticization which is present in every nationalism is
even stronger among nostalgic m igrants, who often form a rosy picture
of the country they have left and are able to imagine the nation where it
did not exist before (my emphasis) (van der Veer 1995: 7).
Here, the activity of becoming Indian at once highlights the performativity of
nationhood and ethnicity. Simultaneously, it reveals the self-objectification of
identity necessary when an individual moves into a larger structure where
constructs such as race, ethnicity and nationality are threatened. Becoming
Indian is constituted by the larger hegemonic practice of becoming American
(here, of course, I am assuming the migratory destination to be the United
States). The state apparatus concurrently enforces this dialectic. It is essential to
its own survival. Its power structures operate in enforcing the construction of
the immigrant and ethnic minority as just that—a minority, perpetually
incomplete, member of an inassimilable ethnic culture, a construction,
".. .imposed from the outside and encountered by ethnic subjects in the
transition from the community into dominant culture," (Lloyd 1994: 229).
Difference is perceived as a threat, yet necessary for the maintenance of a
regime of power. At the same time, the state generates institutions and policies
predicated on the molding of the minority subject into a generic, homogenous
citizen (Rosaldo 1994: 241-242). A successful outcome is the continual and
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9 3
incomplete transfer of the minority's primary identification with their
particular community to that of the dominant culture2 .
Thus, there is a double formation, contradictory and fluctuating, in the
constitution of the ethnic minority (and therefore of the state), a plural
belonging, "...of becoming American while staying somehow diasporic"
(Appadurai 1996:170). Questions of allegiance arise as the commitment to the
country of origins and the country of settlement becomes a tension that
continually defines the immigrant and ethnic minority. The diasporic
community undermines the spatially and temporally bounded nation as it
remains in constant dialogue with its homeland, whether through the real and
imagined traveling back and forth or in the channeling of finances, resources,
and capital3 . This deterritorialization lends itself to the production of locality
more as multiple nodes of conjunctural and context-specfic interaction (Gupta
and Ferguson 1992). Ironically, it is also an integral force in the development of
a number of national revivalist projects and religious fundamentalist
movements (i.e. Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism, war in the Middle East,
ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe), as people all over the globe find the
traditional cohesion that accompanies community, solidarity and allegiance
challenged (Bhatt 2001).
Theoretically, the traditional conceptions of the territorial nation-state
might be coming undone. Yet in all practicality, it would be far too
presumptuous to claim it is on its way out, or for that matter, if an "out" can
ever be claimed. That is, for those who do not migrate out of choice and/or
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9 4
those who find themselves on the margin of society, the erasure of race,
nationality and ethnicity may not necessarily be desired. As Dorinne Kondo
reminds us, we cannot ignore, “the historically, culturally specific power
relations that constitute and inscribe that difference," (1997:178) of the
diasporic subject. Consequently, it is in addition to deterritorialization, that a
reterritorialization of space, home, and identity is perpetually negotiated (ibid.).
Once again, the double narrative of the performative and pedagogical arises. In
other words, the very act of reconstitution implies an original or authentic
locale from which the process of migration and the subsequent diasporic
identity operates as its derivative or copy4. And yet, it is because the diasporic
identity is continually in the process of replication that its performance is
revealed. ".. .repetition never fully accomplishes identity. That there is a need
for repetition at all is a sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be
instituted again and again, which is to say that it runs the risk of becoming de-
instituted at every interval" (Butler 1997: 309).
The parents of first generation South Asian Americans are quite aware of
this construction of Indianness. This plays itself out in the cultural and social
significance of bharatanatyam (as well as other cultural practices such as
regularly attending temple, balavihar, attending social functions such as ras or
bhanghra, popular South Asian dance forms, learning Karnatic music, etc.) has
assumed within the South Asian American community.
I return to this question of Muslims performing a Hindu dance. I ask
myself: Do I know who Parvathi is? Because I am Hindu, do I know anymore than
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9 5
another person who is not Hindu ? Moreover, because I do not actively engage in
my "Hinduism" on a regular basis through activities such as attending temple,
daily prayer, reading Hindu mythology, are Ananya, Mona and Zara more
"Hindu" than I am given that their knowledge of the Hindu gods, stories and
prayers are enacted on a regular basis through engagement with the dance? I
turn to Haseem and Samira Jafar to explore these questions in greater depth.
Haseem and Samira are sisters whom I chose to follow more closely in
the summer of 2004 since they were practicing for their dance debut, the
arangetram, that they delivered in September. They are the first Muslims in the
Shakti school to perform their arangetram. The Jafar family are Shia Muslims.
The girls' mother and father, Amina and Tariq, respectively, migrated to Los
Angeles from Pakistan in the early 1970s. Their own parents are from Uttar
Pradesh, the northern part of India, but relocated to Pakistan because of the
Partition. Tariq formulates these various movements into what he identifies as
an integrated identity:
Anita: So Uncle we were talking about um, H indu nationalism and equating
H indu nationalism w ith India, w hich is the predom inant view in the
country right now—is that they equate, there's a kind of coming together of
secularism, secular India w ith the religious India. And your parents who
were born and raised in India, w ho had to m ove to Pakistan, forced to
move to Pakistan after the Partition, u m ...w hat do they think of, w hat is
their conception of India, know ing th at th ey 're M uslim , and their
conception of India is [a very] marginalized?
Tariq: Yeah. I would say, taking the liberty of talking about my parents, or let's
say elders who were, m igrated to Pakistan. I think their conception is sort o f
frozen in time. Okay, where they w ould just think of their old days when
India was really an integrated India. And uh, if you talk to them, they will
go back into their history, and they w ould just talk about how good it was
that they were able to mix and match, and talk to people. A nd uh, not have
to really worry about any distinction betw een H indus and Muslims at that
time.
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'Cause my father dearly tells me stories, that he felt so special 'cause he was
invited into this rusue, or you know, kitchen of one of their uh, uh, Hindu
neighbors, and you know, he felt as if he was part of that family. So,
especially for you know, for us, even from my parents' point of view, we
are carrying on an im age of our, um im m igrant, uh identity, as an
integrated identity, rather than an identity that is based on separation.
Anita: And can you explain that more, an integrated identity?
Tariq: Well, w hat 1 m ean by integrated identity, is that for us it really doesn't
m atter. We are all from the same part of the world, or same part of our
ethnic identity. A South Asian means either India or Pakistan (dog barking).
A nd uh, o u r...o u r upbringing, especially you know, ours—mine and
A m ina's and obviously, you know , the kids— is a reflection of an
integrated identity, which m eans there is no separation based on either
culture or language or you know, or religion, okay.
For instance, like my parents come from [the] north part of India, which is
U.P. [Uttar Pradesh], The dom inant dance form over there is Kathak, okay.
A nd then they were separated because of this political div..., you know,
division. Both of us, me and Amina, we were born in Pakistan, okay. And
then, we have our kids over here...
So talking about my parents originating from U.P., m igrating to Pakistan
during this political division, me and Amina growing up in Karachi, which
is part of Sindh, coming over here and having our kids learn a South Indian
tradition, rather than a N orth Indian tradition. I think that is what, w hat we
call developing an integrated identity.
Anita: Um, and in a way, w ould you say then, that...equating your grandfather
to, I m ean your father to this sort of timeless India, [Tariq: Yes, yes.] In that
sense w ould you say, you and your wife as well as your kids, are also sort
of working in th at...
Tariq:...from that kind of image. Exactly.
Operating here is a certain ahistoricism, the forgetting of historical context that
on one hand opens a new performative space for identities and interactions in
ways that were not possible before, "those contested spaces through which
particular unities are sought to be constituted and others broken up," (Pandey
1992: 50). In fact, such sites ultimately instill in us a sense of hope, promise and
empowerment. It isn't about the dance's "Hindu-ness" or national significance
that the Jafar family participates in this art form. It is for its aestheticism.
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9 7
Certainly, this is Viji's strong conviction, and what she tries vigorously to instill
in her students. She asserts during one of our mid-day conversations:
So for me culture is like, bharatanatyam is like, it's just good art. And you get
from it, w hat you get from it. And I think once you get into that um, field of
dance and music, it should not be, 'I am black, I am white, I am Hindu, or I
am Muslim.' Or, you know, it should not be there, so...that's w hat really art
does. You know it, it just binds us all together. And we all know that.
Samira reinforces the same rationale. When asked what her friends'
responses to her sister and her learning bharatanatyam were, she states, "We'd
always just explain to them that you know, it's something that we have a
passion for. It's something we enjoy even throughout the blood, sweat and
tears. It was just something that we always loved. And it was an art form, and
that's how we viewed it. We viewed it as an art form with the backdrop of
Hindu mythology."
And yet, such a perspective easily falls prey to the reification (and thus
simplification) of culture and tradition, a reaffirmation of an essentialized and
timeless India. This is clearly stated in Tariq's elaboration of what he means by
an integrated identity, and is then exemplified in their daughters' learning
dance.
Initially, the Pakistani community did not consider Haseem and Samira's
decision to study bharatanatyam appropriate. Haseem recounts a story from
her childhood:
Haseem: So my mosque friends, like they were always like, "Whoa, you're
kind of weird 'cause you're doing something like that." W hen we
were young, w hen we were like ten, we, we really didn't bring it up
to them because we knew that they really d id n 't like care. They
were just like, "W hatever. Like that's something really weird."
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9 8
And I think there's this once incident where um, I think we had, we
had a program or som ething like that, and m y dad took like a
picture of me w hen I w as all in my like bharatanatyam costume and
everything. And, I think I was like eight or som ething like that,
eight or nine. And somehow, that picture got around to the whole
community. And like the whole mosque community and everybody
was like, "Oh, w hat is this!" Just like people started talking crap,
like, "Oh yeah! They're turning into H indus, a n d " A nd my
parents have always taught me, you know, like that stuff doesn't
matter. That's not going to help you. It's not going to hurt you. Just
sidetrack it. Do w hat you w ant to do, you know.
Now, I've noticed that they've [friends] kind of been more curious
tow ards it. Like, "Oh, hey. I w anna come see your program . I
wanna see w hat you're doing." Like for example last night, I went
to one of my um , friend's birthday party, and I m et one of my
friends there from the mosque. And she was very like, "Wow! You
guys are going to be dancing for three hours!" Like really
supportive. A nd so, slowly, slowly, there's a handful of people, a
handful of our friends that w e've know n for a really long time that
have become m ore supportive...they're a little more open-minded
to it. But then yeah, there's always gonna be those people that are
like, "Ugh, whatever! Like they're so Hindu. They're so bad!" So it's
like, [you] always see a mix of people.
Anita: How does that make you feel?
Haseem: I, I don't w anna be cocky or anything like that, but I don't think
like, it doesn't effect me at all. I think I've learned to be very ...I
m ean of course like us being M uslim and like dancing to other
people, it's a big thing. Like, oh my God! To me, it's not a big thing
at all. I don't understand their mentality of how it is a big thing. So
for them to be like, "Oh my God! Like why are you dancing...,"
Like saying bad stuff, talking thrash behind our back and stuff like
that. I've slowly just become like, "You know what? Whatever. You
can do w hatever you w anna do, but that's not going to effect me at
all. If I'm going to dance, I'm going to dance, you know." A nd like,
I don't see it as a bad thing, so there's no reason for me to like listen
to you, or anything like that.
As an interesting corollary, when I asked Tariq and Amina what the Pakistani
community's reaction was to their daughters' performing their arangetram, a
process that is incredibly intensive in terms of the family's time, finances and
desire, the following discussion ensued:
Tariq: Ignorance of n o t know ing the culture, cultural and artistic
importance. [Anita: Of what?] I m ean cultural importance is to us
learning and studying, I m ean learning dance or any kind of artistic
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9 9
expression is very im portant. But for m ost of the Pakistanis, as you
said, I m ean because of this religious time or whatever, they think
it's not im portant at all. I mean, that's just like waste of time, waste
of money.
A nita: So, in other words, if they were learning ballet. Like let's say they
stuck to ballet and they had a huge solo debut.
Amina: Yeah, that's Americanized.
Tariq: They [the Pakistani community] would be more, they w ould be more
inclined; There w ould be m ore acceptance because it is again a class
issue. [Amina: A class issue.] B allet is asso ciated with
Europeanization or Am ericanization of your class, or, or, or the
[Amina: U pper-m iddle class.] culture, or upper-m iddle class. So for
them it will be,"'Oh, wow!" W hen I tell them that they're going to
Lincoln Center, their ears rise up. But w hen I tell them that they're
going to perform bharatanatyam , okay. Then they're, you know,
then they're totally confused.
A m in a :You know, m ost of the people understand Lincoln Center. You
know, if this is Pakistani upper class I'm talking about. They know
w hat Lincoln Center is, w hat is the value of...they know CalArts,
w hat is Cal Arts, and going to CalArt is a big deal. They know, they
understand all these American, or W estern phenomena, you know.
But, they don't understand Indian phenomena, like bharatanatyam.
They don't understand. I mean, they do. Probably they block their
mind because they just don't w ant to think about it.
Tariq: Again, this, this, this is. See again, we are, we are, we are, again the
whole question comes around is that, you know, is you know—why
this? And that's why I'm trying to say that the question in itself is
um, trying to tell us that we have to justify our actions because they
do not necessarily fit the mould.
Anita: And also w ith the Pakistani community, w hen you have a response
like that, you feel very m uch...like for the past year, ever since your
daughters have been working on this arangetram. You know, it takes
a year. You start a year ahead. Um, have you felt like that? Have you
felt like you've had to justify this whole [Tariq: No!]...process?
Asad: No, not at all, not at all. It's just like they're, they're...first they are
amazed. Second, they have a chance to actually see som ething new,
okay. Uh, and the third thing is, that it's like, 'Wow! Can it, can [this]
actually happen?' But the other thing is that we (turns to Azra) [Azra:
They are very supportive.] No, no, no. They are very supportive. But
at the same time we have covered our tracks.
Anita: Can you explain?
Asad: This is why this whole incrim inating question comes into the picture.
Because if we were to tell the community that we are doing, the girls
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are gonna do this arangetram, bharatanatyam, a H indu dance. And, if
we had not gone through and [taught] them the Koran and having
both of those two things, you know...But both of them had their own,
you know, their ow n uh, religious ceremonies. So they [community]
already have know n that these girls have gone through their required
fundam ental religious uh, [Amina: Traditions.] traditions. A n d they're
doing this [arangetram]. So their criticism perhaps is m uted. [Amina:
It's m uted.] But at the same tim e...but that shouldn't really be the
issue. It should never be the issue.
Tariq and Amina, themselves, are very aware of the construction of identity. We
have covered our tracks. The community's approval is predicated on the belief
that the girls first and foremost are Muslim. Because the girls have performed
all the normative activities necessary to firmly establishing this identity, it is
okay for Haseem and Samira to participate in bharatanatyam. Their criticism
; perhaps is muted. Interestingly, this assumption reveals the performative and
pedagogical narrative at work together—while Muslim religion is who they are,
the being-ness of this identity comes undone once the girls start learning
bharatanatyam, at once highlighting its performativity.
Secondly, the Pakistanti community's response to the girls' persistence in
learning bharatanatyam as opposed to ballet is revealing. Ballet and the Lincoln
Center are both Western markers of class. Like my own racial inscription of Viji
(Kondo 1997), diasporic communities enact their own racial marks of identity.
Engaging in activities such as ballet would presume an acceptance into
American upper-middle class identity, and would be looked upon favorably
since this would imply that the girls have "made it" in American society.
Whereas in the prior situation, Muslim identity is taken as the originary or
authentic being of the girls, here, American or mainstream society is the
originary source from which the ethnic minority (in this case, Haseem and
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101
Samira) is then expected to imitate. However, this notion falls apart once the
girls' parents explain that Haseem and Samira are going to the Lincoln Center
to perform bharatanatyam, not ballet. The appropriate ethnic minority identity is
destabilized for the replication is not fulfilled in the expected manner.
Replication marks identity at-risk, "...w hat if [identity] fails to repeat, or
if the very exercise of repetition is redeployed for a very different performative
purpose?" (Butler 1997: 309). This is clearly depicted in Haseem and Samira
Jafar's engagement with the dance.
* * *
OCTOBER 1985
Indian summer—thick, dry, smothering heat. The kind of heat where the
sun's rays relentlessly scorches just under the skin with its low, simmering burn;
the kind of heat that sears the leather upholstery inside the car and stings the skin
when one first enters and is unaware. That was what we were dealing with that
Saturday afternoon.
We, my family and I, are driving in circles, in search of the Norwalk
community center—one big room in the middle of a huge park. It is in this
room that I— along with four other 7-yr. old girls— will nervously demonstrate
whatever dance knowledge we have gathered in the past year. When all is said
and done, this repertoire consists of five basic dance steps.
We are already a half hour late. There is a crown of orange and white
flowers enveloping my head, held up by at least a hundred bobby pins. The
flowers are like a sponge, soaking up the sun's unrelenting rays, and turning
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1 0 2
the crown of my head into a burning oven. The braid mom has made stretches
the hair on each side of my head so tight that my temples throb from the
stiffness.
I really couldn't take it anymore. I guess neither could my dad because he
finally pulled over to call information. He parks the car, and turns around to my
aunt and I. Vinaya, Anita, why don't you get out and ask those people over there where
this center is.
A wave of heat floods over me. Did he seriously expect me to get out of
the car looking like this—with my ten layers of mascara, eyeliner, lipstick and
rouge; dripping from head to toe in jewelry? Of course, I don't let on, but
dutifully join my aunt outside the car.
We are half way towards the group. The laughter, shouting, playing are all
getting louder, more real. I stop. I cannot go any further. My aunt turns around.
C'mon, Anita. What are you doing? I silently shake my head no. She continues, and
then, I am all by myself. And that is when it happened.
She had blonde, curly hair. She was short and hefty, if I remember
correctly. For some reason, red stands out. There's a boyfriend attached to her.
They are walking towards me. She lets out a peal of laughter. They're getting
closer. My right foot is tracing circles in the ground. Closer. I can hear her voice
now. Her left hand grips his right. Closer. They are now walking past me. And
why I did it, I don't know, but I smiled—a timid, 7-yr. old smile.
Honey, look at that big red dot on her forehead, and that red stuff on her hands.
Why didn't you tell me Halloween came early this yearll A huge peal of laughter
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1 0 3
completes the statement. Who knew? This is the boyfriend's response. More
laughing. There is a ringing in my ears. Were they talking about me? My eyes
fixate on their backs; follow their disappearing figures. Then, the joke sinks in. I
am the joke.
RE(VIEW)ING INDIA
In many ways, bharatanatyam within the South Asian diaspora parallels
the nationalist project that Partha Chatterjee describes in India under British
colonial rule (1993). The South Asian bourgeois immigrant readily concedes to
the technological superiority of the West, what Chatterjee refers to as "the
material... the domain of the 'outside', of the economy and of statecraft, of
science and technology" (1993: 6). In fact, such a concession is fundamental to
the second wave of South Asian immigrants after the 1960s since many came to
the United States with the hopes of actualizing the material promises of the
American dream5. Yet, while modernization is crucial to the formation of
bourgeois identity, there is also an active effort on the part of the South Asian
immigrant to resist complete Westernization, in this case Americanization,
which represents "sex, drugs and rock and roll". In fact, the high value placed
on individuality and defiance of authority, customs and traditions, lends to the
perception among South Asians that Americans suffers from a lack of culture, or
"The spiritual... 'inner' domain bearing the 'essential' marks of cultural
identity" (ibid.).
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1 0 4
It is this realm— the spiritual, characterized by religion, arts, drama, and
literature that balances out the material acquisitions of the West, that serves to
preserve cultural difference, an Indian "essence" impervious to the dominant
culture (this is most evident with Leila, a subject to be taken up in the final
section of this chapter.) For fear of complete acculturation, immigrant parents
see the arts as the standard vehicle for the cultural training of subsequent
generations of South Asian American youth, whose ties to the homeland are
even more tenuous. Why else has bharatanatyam come to serve as the
quintessential rite of passage among the South Asian bourgeoisie, particularly
females, within the diaspora?
For both the immigrant South Asian and the subsequent generations of
South Asian Americans, born and raised in the United States, activities such as
bharatanatyam figures crucially in the construction of "Indianness". However,
it carries differing signification for each. That is, for the South Asian immigrant,
identity conflict lies more in the development of an "American" identity since it
is not seen as "natural" as their "Indian" culture. Bharatanatyam simply
strengthens South Asian customs and values that are already present. Yet for the
South Asian immigrant's children who are South Asian and American, the
struggle lies in building "Indianness". In this context, bharatanatyam does not
serve to reinforce, but rather to build cultural traditions and traits that are in
danger of "extinction".
This distinction between the modern (West) and cultural (East) is
necessarily gendered. Those South Asian female immigrants and South Asian
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American females who have taken an activist stance within the South Asian
community are likely to be considered more "modern", thus more Western and
anti-South Asian by the community itself (Bhattacharjee 1992; Dasgupta and
Dasgupta 1996). This response is not reciprocated in the bel^jvior of the South
Asian male immigrant and South Asian American male. In fact, the reverse
seems to hold true, where the South Asian male is encouraged to be more
assertive and vocal ("modern"), so as to demystify the stereotype of the
emasculated Asian man.
While in various ways this gendered nationalized discourse holds true
within the Shakti school, there are other discursive strands that run counter to
and challenge this image of the feminized East and masculine West. Viji's own
strong character and progression with the dance in the West presents a blurring
of the seemingly sharp distinction.
* * *
I've just arrived at Viji Aunty's home in Cheviot Hills. I have returned
from a month-long trip to Europe and I had a lot of catching up to do. Summer
was Aunty's busiest season. This is when the orchestra from India and her
dance collaborator, Amith, visit for three, four months. So Aunty tries to pack in
as many programs as possible.
This summer, summer of 2003, was particularly intense. Bhagavad Gita
was still touring nationally, the big performance at the Lincoln Center just
around the corner. Prince to Buddha was in the works, to be debuted at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in September. And, just this
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weekend she was taking Meera to Houston. As if this was not enough, she had
organized four dance camps for her students, and six students were delivering
their arangetrams, or debut solo performances.
Earlier in the day while I was on the phone with Viji, trying to get a
sense of her schedule, she exclaimed, "I wake up six in the morning to cook for
all the musicians, Amith, the family and students. By ten o'clock I am in the
studio and I work until midnight!"
"Don't you think that's insane, Aunty?" I retort back.
"No! I love it. I don't consider it work, since it's what I love to do. It's the
cooking that I hate. I wish I didn't have to do it," was her response.
So only a few hours later, there I was in her kitchen, watching as she
fixed a quick bite in between rehearsals. Somehow the conversation turned to
the topic of kids, and I ask her, "Aunty, did you ever think of not having kids?"
"Never. Once I was married, not having children was not an option. I had
to be a mother."
Little did she know that she'd become the surrogate mother of two
hundred kids.
k k k
Similar to its role in India, bharatanatyam within the South Asian
diaspora reproduces a recurring theme within Indian nationalism. That is, it
serves as a superior vehicle for the transmission of Indian bourgeoisie
traditions and values. The Indian woman serves as the central figure in this
depiction (Chatterjee 1993; Mani, 1989). "The woman becomes a metaphor for
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the purity, the chastity, and the sanctity of the Ancient Spirit that is India.. .the
mythical Indian women" (Bhattacharjee 1992: 30-31). In fact, for the South
Asian bourgeoisie immigrant community, the South Asian American female
trained and cultured in bharatanatyam becomes the symbol of the community,
the mythic model minority6 . As Annanya Bhattacharjee affirms, "The
compelling, and approving image of model minority can be an inducement for
building an image of a model India that is commensurate with this minority
standing.. .This is the model that m ust be constructed and re-constructed. At
each moment it is externalized, preserved and celebrated as one might
eulogize an ancient artifact" (ibid.: 32). The model minority is itself a
regulatory regime, constructed by the larger dominant culture and internalized
by the South Asian bourgeois community. Employed by both parties to govern
and construct South Asian identity, it ultimately presents an ahistorical and
homogenous image.
While the South Asian American female dancer is able to successfully
utilize the economic opportunities that secure her materially in the American
mainstream, bourgeois culture, her uniqueness is demonstrated by her ability
to resist complete absorption7 . The cultural domain remains intact (Chatterjee
1993:130); traditions and spiritual values reaffirmed by way of her dance
training. Through her is the preservation of Indian identity, and through her
lies the responsibility of passing this identity, complete and timeless, to
subsequent generations.
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What I find most poignant in the vignette above (as well as revealing of
Viji herself) is her response to marriage and motherhood. A fiercely
independent and strong woman, Viji still firmly gives credence to the
traditional roles of wife and mother. An Indian woman will naturally get
married at some point in her life, and once married, she must have children.
There is no getting around it. While her response seems at once to be
contradictory, Sayanthani Dasgupta writing on the gendered aspect of the
Indian migratory experience to America and the generation of an Indian
American community, points out that this is not necessarily the case.
Historically, women have played an active, and moreover, integral role within
social movements in India, while at the same time fulfilling their traditional
duties as wife and mother (Dasgupta and Dasgupta 1996)8 . Sayanthani
recounts:
My upbringing, although quite traditional in many ways, never convinced
me that being a w ife and m other and a social change agent were
oppositional to each other. A lthough m y parents had arranged my
marriage when I was sixteen, they had not emphasized only the traditional
'good wife' role to me. I was raised on M ahatma G andhi's proclamation, 'A
woman who does not raise her voice against social injustices is committing
injustices herself.' (1996:387)
Similarly, Dasgupta's daughter (co-author of the article), Shamita, an Indo-
American, born and raised in the United States writes:
...activism was not som ething 'A m erican' to me, nor was it something
unique to my mother. I had grown up seeing a strong tradition of w om en's
strength in India: from the mythical ferocity of the w arrior goddess Durga
to the very formidable presence of the wom en in my family. While I grew
up hearing stories about m y great-aunts, who fought and died in the Indian
Independence Movement, I was able to m eet in person my grandm other's
friends: elderly white-sari-clad ladies w ho turned out to be Black Belts in
Judo, double Ph.D.s and international language experts (ibid).
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Both mother and daughter reference Hindu goddesses as one of the
sources for role models in their lives, identifying in particular, the powerful
Shakti (also the name of Viji's dance school and company), the embodiment of
female strength and energy9 . In real life, the virangana, or brave warrior woman,
reflects this image, personified in woman leaders such as the late Indira
Gandhi. In India, viranganas do not occupy a marginal place in society, but
instead are regarded with high esteem. However, in the process of migrating to
the United States, Dasgupta and Dasgupta argue that the Indian bourgeois
immigrant community has silenced such characters in the rewriting of their
history and reconstruction of community to bolster the monolithic public image
of the model minority.
As second-generation w om en are expected to be 'chaste' and 'pure', so too
are they expected to be 'docile' and 'obedient.' Indeed, m ost 'second-
generation' com m unity m em bers are taught to believe that Indian culture
and political activism do not go together. Young w om en are raised to
believe feminism and ultimately, perhaps, wom en's strength, is anti-Indian
(ibid:386).
While this might hold some legitimacy, it also runs the same pitfall of
generalizing and essentializing constructions of South Asian American female
identity. Yes, in learning bharatanatyam, the Shakti dancers are training
themselves in the Indian national bourgeois discourse. Yes, they promote an
essential and ahistorical notion of India and the model minority. Yet at the same
time, the Shakti dancers are anything but docile and submissive.
This is most evident in Viji's choreography, which through the years has
only increased in pace to an incredible intensity (so much so that Viji's guru has
complained that it has become too fast). It is not uncommon for dancers to walk
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1 1 0
out of class, gasping for water, tendrils of hair clinging to the sides of their
faces, and enormous circles of sweat staining the back of their costumes. The -
gethu, a signature piece of Shakti, is ten-minutes of continuous footwork, a
choreographic "conversation" between the dancer's feet and the mridangam
(percussionist) player, the beat increasing in speed and intricacy. Most of her
students have attributed Viji's intense choreography and rigorous training to
the development of their own strong, vocal personalities.
One such student is Sejal Patakia. Sejal is a recent graduate of Stanford
University. Through the course of her four years at Stanford, she successfully
established and led the bharatanatyam dance team, Nooper. The group consists
of girls from cities all over the country, each bringing their own unique training
and background. While this is exciting because it opens up a space for different
interpretations and choreographies, it can also be challenging since a certain
level of cohesiveness is also necessary. In order for this to occur, somebody
needs to take the lead. Given that Sejal initiated the formation of Nooper, it was
not surprising that she would assume this role. However, her explanation for
this is interesting:
Sejal: At Stanford, I helped organize a bharatanatyam dance group. And
though, we didn't m ean for it to be this way, it just sort of happened.
The Shakti dancers becam e the leaders. We started to lead the
classes, the choreography. The students that d id n 't learn w ith Viji
A u n ty didn't produce exciting choreography, they were slower and couldn't
keep up w ith us. They got tired faster. So we just kind of just took
over, though we didn't m ean to. (my emphasis)
When probed further as to why the group dynamics worked out such that she
and the other Shakti dancers (Malani and Arati) became the leaders given they
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I l l
had been dancing just as long as the other girls on the team, this was Malani
and Sejal's response:
M alani: Viji A unty does a really good job of m aking us perform a lot.
So, w e've done annual show s since w e w ere five. A nd then,
recently after finishing our arangetram s w e've traveled m ore
an d done m ore show s and tours and stuff like that. A nd I
d o n 't th in k th a t everyone here [referring to m em bers of
N ooper] has h ad th at sam e sort of experience...I d o n 't know , I
m ean w e just have danced m ore, perform ed m ore m aybe.
Sejal:: I think um , Shakti also has a very forw ard kind of take-charge
a ttitu d e in g e n e ra l... even w ith a p e rso n w ith a q uieter
personality, everybody is p u sh ed to sort of like speak their
m ind. E verybody is p u sh e d to sort of do th e ir best, ask
q u e stio n s w h e n y o u h av e it, say w h en y o u d o n 't get
som ething. You know , tell each other w h en th e y 're doing
som ething w rong, an d n ot take it personally. A nd I th in k
bringing th at attitude to an environm ent w here there are a lot
of corrections to be m ade, um , there is a lot of coordination to
be done, bringing th at to the group has been really effective
because people feel like it's an open forum for them to express
if they d o n 't get som ething, or if they have an idea, and just
question w h a t M alani and I are doing. A nd, I th in k th a t's
really im po rtant. T hat's h elped us like, m ake the item s a lot
better.
Given that Shakti dancers are required to perform right away, beginning with
the annual programs, the girls' sense of confidence are cultivated early on.
From the age of five and onwards, girls are introduced to long and rigorous
practices and rehearsals, the arduous process that goes into getting ready the
day of the show. But most importantly, the girls learn quite quickly what the
role of dancer entails. That is, the ability to carry themselves with poise and
composure while under the spotlight.
A sense of confidence is simultaneously strengthened through the very
open and communicative environment Viji fosters within Shakti. Sejal is quite
emphatic in asserting that Viji and the dance school in particular played a crucial
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1 1 2
role in developing her identity as a strong, independent and assertive South
Asian American female:
Sejal: W hen she [Viji] walks into a room, like she has no inhibitions. And I
think w hen I w as younger I w as always intim idated a lot by
different situations...w here I d idn't feel comfortable. I d id n 't feel
like I fit in. And Viji Aunty just has this presence where she walks
in, and she's w ho she is. And you know, if you can't handle that,
then...that's too bad! (Sejal and M alani start laughing) But I mean,
m ost people love it. And m ost people admire that, and that's w hat I
try to strive for.
...I think having leaders, having the leadership be very open, and
be very um encouraging of open-m indedness, and just speaking
your mind, know ing yourself, being blunt, and having opinions, I
think that's really im portant. And that, that played into the dance a
lot because that was a huge forum for us growing up. And that was
w here we developed those skills, you know, because in public
schools you're not learning that. I mean, you have to like, raise your
hand. And sometimes the teacher will call on you, and sometimes
she w on't. Sometimes you get embarrassed if you say the wrong
thing.
A nita: Do you think that's also growing up Indian? I mean, [plays into]
your South Asian identity?
Sejal: Yeah, (says this in a very matter-of-fact tone) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think
South A sian A m erican girls som ehow , in som e w ay [are]
encouraged to be kind of quiet. And encouraged to sort of be the...
(paused camera because o f an airplane fly in g up above)
Anita: So South Asian American girls?
Sejal: So South...I think that South Asian Am erican girls are really like
encouraged in some way, shape or form to be quiet, and to be sort
of the modest, um soft-spoken girls. And m aybe that's a cultural
thing. Maybe that's from watching Hindi movies where the girls are
like, 'Ha, ha, ha. I don't like you. Ha, ha, ha.' (M alani and Sejal start
laughing) They're like all shy. Um, or maybe it's just from our moms
you know, teaching us don't...like my m om used to tell me, 'You
know. D on't speak in such a deep, loud voice.' Or like, 'Crunch
your cereal less.' Or something, you know.
A nd um, it's just little cultural conditioning. A nd I think that
having a forum of Indian w om en who can get together, speak their
mind, be blunt w ith each other, talk about anything, um raise their
voices if they w ant to, you know, and still get stuff done, and still
learn about their culture, and learn about the past, and learn about
themselves. I think that has been extremely m eaningful for me.
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This dialogue reveals multiple disciplinary discourses that choreograph Sejal's
identity as a South Asian American female—the school system, an institution of
the dominant social structure, visual media, the South Asian family, and finally,
the dance. While the school functions to mold Sejal into an appropriate citizen
of the state, Bollywood films and the family are sites for the partial construction
of a South Asian female identity. That is, she learns that she m ust be gentle,
docile, and coy— feminine. And yet, the practice of bharatanatyam, specifically
through Shakti, has cultivated another construction of "femininity"—that of
poise, self-presence, independence, and assertiveness that takes after the
paradigm of the virangana.
It is evident from these discussions that Viji serves as a prominent role
model of strength and assertiveness in the majority of these girls' lives.
Through the course of fifteen and more years that a student develops a
relationship with her, Viji is no longer simply a teacher. She is a second mother.
Yet, in one of my conversations with Viji, she was very explicit about her
feelings towards identifying the Shakti dancers as vocal and outspoken:
V iji: I d o n 't think they come across as strong-willed w om en. I don't
think that's the point. The point is not—I'm a strong dancer, so
I'm a strong-willed women. I think they retain, they retain their
femininity, and a lot of them are uh, evocative speakers about
w om en and about their wom anhood. But I, I, uh...I do not see
them as aggressive. I think they're very um , outspoken...ugh!
O utspoken comes across as a very aggressive term. I d o n 't like
that. But they're all independent thinking individuals w ho are
trying to make a m ark for themselves in life. A nd in that context,
yeah, they're a, their self-expression that they've had in the dance,
it does enhance their ability to express in society at large. But I
think that, if that's w hat um, their ability to express means, yeah,
it's all very good. But, in term s of just being, um , obnoxious
creatures in society, m aking a statem ent, being hard-nosed, I
don't. I don't think they are so.
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A n ita : I d o n 't think so, either, though. I think that w as my lack of
w ording because I don't think they're obnoxious. I guess I should
clarify w hat I m eant by being vocal and outspoken. I didn't m ean
it in an aggressive way, at all. I m eant it m ore in the way that
you're describing now.
Viji: Yeah, I think that came about because I give them the freedom to
speak. A nd we, we talk. We discuss. A nd I think that is also
im portant— to keep lines of comm unication [open]. You know, if
you just have I am guru, you are teacher, and you jolly well listen to
me, and you don't ask me any questions. It just makes learning and
teaching a v e r y difficult experience.
In the process of emphatically expressing her dislike for the term, "outspoken",
linking it synonymously to aggressiveness, Viji makes it clear that these are not
"feminine" qualities. A lot of them are evocative speakers about women and about
their womanhood. And yet, they retain their fem ininity. At the same time, she does
not yield to the stereotypical attributes assigned to "femininity":
Anita: So then, w hat are your thoughts between, and you m ight not [agree
w ith this], but is there the distinction between male versus female, or
w om an versus man?
Viji: No, no, no, no, no, no. We all are physiologically, genetically bound
in our different um ...w e have different roles to perform. I think it's
ridiculous when I...I try to play a role that I can not play. We have to
learn to accept an d live w ith each o th er's strengths and
w eaknesses...I'm a woman, and whatever I do within, I, I have to be
honored and proud that I'm a wom an, just as if I was a man. I'd be
honored and proud to be a man, and do w hatever that is a part of
my, m y characteristic. And there's so m any things that whether it's a
m an or a woman, that it's done, it really doesn't, both can be, it can
be done the same. All the impediments that are p u t into it are m an or
w om an-m ade, y o u know —self-m ade. W e p u t all these
restrictions...Shiva, Shakti have to live together. I'm not, I'm not a...I
don't know, how do you call it—woman, wom an pow er or whatever
that thing is—w om an's emancipation. I just, I just think we all have
different roles, and we all play it. You can call me an emancipated
w om an you know, because I work. I think independently. But, I have
a great m an who you know, who thinks like me, or gives me the
freedom to think how I want. We d o n 't agree all the time, but we
disagree, and we deal with [it].
Anita: So, do you think there are um, fem inine qualities?
Viji: I don't think about that. I don't think [there's] anything wrong with
lifting a suitcase, even though it's considered— Oh you know, a man
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1 1 5
m ust lift the suitcase and pick up the bricks. I do it. So, I don't know
w hether lifting a suitcase is fem inine or unfeminine. So, in that
context I m ight break the barriers of you know, just the norms that
are there.
In the beginning of her response, Viji adopts an essentialist understanding of
what it means to be a male versus female. However, she follows this by
declaring her awareness that these are self-made constructs. The definitions and
labels serve to constrict what each of us as individuals can do, regardless of
whether one is a man or a woman. Just be true to yourself. This is a recurring
theme that comes up time and time again.
Viji and her husband break with many of the normative discourses of
“family", “mother" and “father" ascribed by the mainstream Indian bourgeois
community. Prakash attests to this during an interview. "We just do whatever
is necessary for something to get done, whether I do it, or Viji does it, it doesn't
matter who does it. That's the philosophy that we have". While traditionally the
man is the "breadwinner" of the family (or both men and woman have careers),
for the Prakash family, Viji assumes this role. More importantly, for a
community that primarily established its model minority status through the
migration of men and women who were highly educated, highly skilled
professionals from urban centers, and employed primarily as scientists,
engineers, and health professionals, Viji has achieved material success as an
artist. She might uphold Indian immigrant bourgeois ideals, and maintain the
fable of the model minority, on one level, but in other ways, Viji distinctly
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1 1 6
counters such constructions through her own life history as well as through her
rendering of bharatanatyam.
Herein, lies the pleasure in the disciplining, the productivity of power
(Foucault 1977 and 1978). That is, bharatanatyam's scripting of the body
inscribes a certain discourse around race, nation and gender. Yet the highly
complex choreography and incredible intensity of Viji's training, her proclivity
to perpetually push the limits of what is possible with the dance form, for
herself and for her students, constructs yet another narrative of nation and
gender that does not lend itself quite easily to the predominant portrayals of
South Asian American female. Perhaps, contrary to what Dasgupta and
Dasgupta contend, the South Asian bourgeois diaspora has not completely
forgotten its strong female characters in its migration to the United States, and
writings of nation, history and community.
U p (R o o t )i n g In d i a
Tonight I am at a dance studio, MND Dance Studios, in "Little India",
Cerritos where Viji Aunty holds classes. As I walk in, I am struck by the image
ahead of me. Viji Aunty sits in front of a movie poster, most likely a Hindi
classic. Her right arm is raised up and her eyes are closed as though she was
hailing the Higher Power from above. Her pose beautifully reflects that of the
actress in the poster, whose right arm, strapped to a wood pole, is lifted in
strength. Her head is thrown back, eyes shut tight. Mother India is the film title;
the irony is not wasted on me. From this poster emanates a collage of South
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1 1 7
Asian actors and actresses that fill an entire wall of the studio. Some are of the
classic era, though most are the latest Bollywood pop stars. Interspersed are
cubbyholes where statues such as Lord Nataraja (the God of Dance) and Lord
Krishna reside.
In response to the explosive success of Bollywood filmmaking as well as
larger South Asian culture (represented by figures such as pop stars, Madonna
and Gwen Stefani), MND Studios was created specifically for the teaching and
practice of a variety of South Asian dance forms, from the classical forms such
as bharatanatyam to the more popular bhangra style.
Tonight's class is a special treat because Leila, Viji's first student of
Shakti, will be joining the group. Blonde and blue-eyed, Leila disrupts much of
the traditional portrait of the South Indian classical dancer. In fact, one
afternoon while reminiscing about the old days, Viji Aunty and Leila laugh
over how hard it was to find hair that matched the color of Leila's, which was
light brown at the time (it is necessary for all classical dancers to have long hair.
This is achieved by braiding a long piece of fake hair in with the dancer's hair).
Back in the 1970's, the only hair available was jet black to match that of a South
Asian. Finally, Leila had to resort to wearing a wig, an incredibly unfavorable
option since this only contributed more to the already intense heat and sweat
generated while dancing.
This Tuesday night, Leila's two sons are also sitting in on the class.
Delighted, Viji Aunty introduces the younger son to the other students, while
Leila changes into her half-sari.
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"That's Gautam, you girls. That's Leila's younger son."
"What's his name?"
"Gautam, right? They can call you Gautam?"
His large blue eyes timidly stare back at Viji as his tiny head slowly bobs
up and down in approval.
"What's his brother's name?" asks one student.
"M urugan.. .yeah."
"All Indian names," remarks another.
Viji replies, "Oh, Leila is more Indian than me or you, included. It's
just.. .that's how she is." Just then, Leila emerges from the bathroom, ready in
her bright blue half-sari. She quickly does namaskara, and joins the girls On the
floor in leg stretches.
In his book, The Nation and its Fragments (1993), Partha Chatterjee
provides a strong critique of how the emergence of a Indian nationalist identity
and discourse in resistance to colonial rule came to affirm the old binaries of the
West versus East, modernity and materialism, against the spiritual and
mystical:
...anticolonial nationalism creates its ow n dom ain of sovereignty within
colonial society well before it begins its political battle with the imperial
power. It does this by dividing the world of social institutions and practices
into tw o dom ains—the m aterial and the spiritual. The m aterial is the
dom ain of the "outside," of the economy and of statecraft, of science and
technology, a dom ain where the W est had proved its superiority and the
East had succumbed. In this dom ain, then, W estern superiority had to be
acknowledged and its accom plishments carefully studied and replicated.
The spiritual, on the other hand, is an "inner" dom ain, bearing the
"essential" marks of cultural identity. The greater one's success in imitating
W estern skills in the m aterial dom ain, therefore, the greater the need to
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1 1 9
preserve the distinctness of one's spiritual culture. This formula is, I think, a
fundam ental feature of anticolonial nationalisms in Asia and Africa (ibid.:
6).
Chatterjee goes on to cite that it is within the cultural, spiritual domain
that creativity reigned; the "inner" realm was the site where the anticolonial,
nationalists "imagined its community"—"a 'm odem ' national culture, that is
nevertheless not Western" (ibid.). In other words, in the process of "mimicry"
(Bhabha 1994) of the West in matters of material development, the East
relinquishes its agency. However, when it comes to cultural traditions and the
arts, the East acquired a variety of quite powerful means to preserve its "inner
essence". Such a project certainly forms the basis of an Orientalist discourse,
which continues to inform geopolitical, transnational, and capitalist mass-
consumerist endeavors and identities, as the discussion in the previous section
affirms. However, is the dichotomy between material and spiritual, West and
East that transparent?
The unraveling of these binaries occurs in Dorinne Kondo's About Face
(1997), as she teases apart the multiple and concurrent modes of Western
Orientalism, self-Orientalizing and counter-Orientalisms appropriated by
Japanese fashion magazine editors as they constmct gendered and nationalized
narratives of Southeast Asia, Japanese masculinity and femininity:
If R yuko Tsushin's nostalgic blend of East and West constructed Japan's first
w orld identity through the figure of the w om an, the sam e m onth's
counterpart article in Ryuko T sushin for m en figures Japan as male.
Masculinized Japan here dom inates a feminized, sexualized Southeast Asia,
overlaying the gender binary onto the dom estic/foreign binary. Kyoto
Etrangere adopts the subject position of wom an in relationship to the West,
that is, in a position of inferiority where the tropes of the Orient as feminine
are recirculated...T he m en's m agazine creates Southeast A sia as the
feminine, exotic Orient submissive to Japan's masculine dom inance (1997:
85).
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Similarly, Marta Savigliano's tracings of the tango in the transnational
circuit, paint an intricate nexus of commoditization, appropriation,
reappropriation, neocolonization and autoexoticization of the dance form, the
tango, but more specifically—passion, repackaged by the First World in the
form of "Exotic Culture" (1995: 2). Thus, it is apparent that even the cultural,
inner domain is not immune to the (neo)colonizer's gaze1 1 . This was the case
with the revival of bharatanatyam in the 1930s when the American ballerina,
Ruth St. Denis, upon arriving in Chennai (Madras), was instantly taken by the
movements and gestures of the dance, and was integral in launching its global
circulation. To what extent was the historical reconstruction of bharatanatyam
and its dissemination within the South Asian diaspora simply a variation of the
master narrative of European history? As Dispesh Chakrabarty confirms "That
British rule put in place the practices, institutions, and discourse of bourgeois
individualism in the Indian soil is undeniable" (1992: 7). Accordingly, from
bourgeois individualism sadir, or temple dancing, not only emerged as
bharatanatyam, but was standardized as an object of national, elite discourse1 2 .
Its newfound association with a Sanskrit background elevated its status,
marking it different from its disreputable history.
In a transnational context, w hat happens when Western hegemonic
institutions attempt to integrate such aesthetic forms into their very structure?
Is not the very dissemination and proliferation of bharatanatyam, an artistic
and spiritual expression, mediated through the Western lens? Viji has been a
faculty member of the World Arts and Cultures department at UCLA for the
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1 2 1
past seven years. Over the course of this time period, South Asians have
increasingly become a minority in the racial and ethnic composition of her
classes. Her dance company gave a sold out performance at the highly
acclaimed Lincoln Center in New York City, while she was invited by the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to debut her latest production,
Prince to Buddha, as part of their exhibition, The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist
Meditational Art. Finally, what about Viji's Caucasian students, such as Leila?
Viji proclaims Leila is her best dancer throughout the twenty-five years of
running the Shakti dance school? I have yet to see a dancer perform as well as Leila.
To this day I have not seen anyone come even near to her level. Viji reiterates time
and time again in her classes.
These questions and statements point to the possibility of a blurring
between the material and spiritual. In posing the boundaries as more porous,
my objective is to collapse the gendered image of the masculine West and the
feminized East that Chatterjee's argument ultimately upholds. In other words,
if the task is to "provincialize 'Europe' " (Chakrabarty 1992: 20), then "It cannot
originate from the stance that the reason/ science/universals which help define
Europe as the m odem are simply 'culture-specific' and therefore only belong to
the European cultures" (ibid.)
The survival of the dominant culture relies on a discourse of difference,
constructed through the very consumption and circulation of aesthetic
expressions from ethnic communities. The label, "traditional, classical Indian"
dance cements the construction of the ethnic minority through the processes of
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exoticization and autoexoticization. Both parties objectify the dance; uphold it
as a timeless symbol of Indian national identity and tradition. In doing so, the
"material" West and "spiritual" East encircle one another, dependent on one
another in defining itself and the maintenance of power.
This afternoon finds us in the back room of Viji's house, amidst towers of
costumes, ornaments, bells and other bharatanatyam "stuff". Viji cannot stand
these conversations. Too much talking. I'll ju st be rambling. She's a dancer. What
can I expect? She likes to do. So, Viji folds, unfolds, hangs, rehangs costumes
while we chat. Leila is the topic today. I recreate the scene for Viji—the one
where she introduces Leila and her two sons to the girls in the dance class. Leila
is more Indian than me or you.
Anita: What did you mean by that?
V iji takes a seat. I can tell she is intrigued. H m m m .. .1 fin a lly have som ething
interesting fo r her to talk about. I fin d m y se lf emboldened.
Viji: Um, yeah. That's w hat I mean. She's um, her, her, her deference to the art,
to the teacher, her respect, her, her attitude towards learning, to adults, to
teaching...um , very, very respectful, always willing to learn. You know, she
would never, she will never sit dow n w hen I'm standing. She'd always
make sure there'd be a seat for me, always make sure that um ...som e of
these little gestures that for us are norm al...H er going to the temple,
praying, reading so m uch about H indu culture, knowing the stories, so
many of the things even I may not know ...about Krishna, about...just
different things. The innate curiosity, that...the curiosity about the music,
you know, the eating habits...just her natural state of being, being
somebody without um, pretending to be, or m aking an effort to be. It just
comes naturally to her.
And um ...I think it's maybe the interest in Krishna-consciousness.
M aybe...but I think a lot of it largely has to do with her samskara.s, her past
life. It's a gift. It's a gift that cannot be nurtured in the course of ten, twenty,
thirty years. I strongly believe these are things that have come from the
past. You know, it's a connection from the past, and her step into the future.
I feel that.
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Viji's response epitomizes Orientalist binaries. To be "Indian" is to acquire
deference to the arts, to be spiritually inclined, and uphold characteristics of
humility and respect for authority. Thus, there exists an inner being that is
exclusive to an essentialized and racialized Indian identity. In fact, the
successful personification of an "Indian" Being requires cultivation from past
lives, transcending the materiality of an individual's life. In other words, the
Soul is eternal and permanent; the body is immaterial and performative. This is
why Leila, while Caucasian, can be more Indian than Viji or I. Her soul dictates
her Indian identity and disciplines the body into "Indianness", a topic to be
taken up in the next chapter.
Likewise, her husband, Prakash's response to my question of "roots"
reveals a similar binary between the material West and spiritual East:
Roots is...it has nothing to do w ith uh, the color of your skin. It has
everything to do w ith the beliefs, the thoughts, the uh...w hat your parents
have inherited you [with], and w hat your environm ent has given you. Root
does not m ean you know, an Indian root or an American root. But it means
that you're well-centered w ithin yourself. So a person is confident about
him self...wherever he goes. W hether he's in America, he's in India or he's
in Europe, he's in the M iddle East. He feels well-grounded. He feels that
he's a person of substance. That's w hat I m ean by roots...Take for an
exam ple an Indo-A m erican w ho d o e sn 't have th is background
[bharatanatyam training]...a lot of them get taken up by this so-called
"material" thing[s] that the West has to offer, and m ight get trapped into it.
Um, m uch more so than a West, a W esterner m ight because the W esterner
would have some sort of a root[s], you know, given their religion, church,
or this or that background. But an Indian w ho doesn't connect in this
fashion, you know, m ight get lost. So that's why it's very im portant to the
Indo-American community for their children to be exposed to some kindfs]
of art[s] that takes them back to their culture, to where there forefathers
came from. So I think in that way, Shakti plays an im portant role.
Prakash sees bharatanatyam as providing the spiritual grounding for those who
do not possess such means in their life. Particularly for the South Asian
American youth, if they are not actively engaged in the temple or education of
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1 2 4
Hinduism, then exposure to arts is absolutely critical. Otherwise, that child will
easily fall into the material traps of Westernization. But before we quickly
assign Prakash's reply as a direct corroboration of the East/W est binary, it's a
statement that resists such oversimplification for it, simultaneously, de-
essentializes an "Indian root" to race or nationality. It has nothing to do with uh,
the color of your skin. Root does not mean you know, an Indian root or an American
root. But it means that you're well-centered within yourself. This is how a Westerner,
more attentive and participatory in the cultural and spiritual activities of Indian
culture (as in the case of Leila) can be much more "rooted" than an Indo-
American. The boundaries between the East/West, spiritual/material,
inner/ outer, feminine/masculine become more opaque. Prakash does not let us
off that easily.
• k * ★
I arrive at UCLA fifteen minutes early this Monday afternoon. I am here
to video Viji's World Arts and Cultures dance class, where fifty bodies will
pack the dance studio, decked out in bright blue, green, orange, red and pink
saris. Under Viji's watchful eye and passionate cries, they will attempt jathis in
the half-sitting position, knee turns, and lunges—the poses of the South Indian
temple dancers.
I enter Studio 304.1 am not alone. Shraya, is already busy wrapping her
yellow sari around her waist. I smile, throw out a friendly hello, and quietly
assume my seat on the floor in the back of the room. My eyes cannot help but
make their way to Shraya's corner. She is struggling with her sari. One-two-
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1 2 5
three. In and out she folds the cloth, but somehow when she tucks the pleats in
the front, the cloth unravels. Ugh! How the hell do you do this?! Shraya looks up at
me. With a guilty laugh, I immediately respond. I am so sorry, but I can't help
you. The one time I wore a sari, it was ten years ago, and my mom did everything for
me.. She smiled. Shraya understood. We were the "coconuts"—Indian on the
outside, but White on the inside.
Just then, two students walk in. I recognize them from our conversation
last week—Caitlin and Jessica. Can you guys help Shraya because I have absolutely
no clue how to wear a sari? I announce.
Oh sure! The girls immediately take charge, re-wrapping the cloth
around Shraya's waist. This is how you wrap it. And again. This is where you begin
the count. Then you tuck in the pleats and wrap it around your shoulder. And, there
you are!
Ohhhhh, that's how it goes. Shraya exclaims. All three break into laughter.
Saved once again, I slip back into my seat on the floor, watching Caitlin as she
quickly slips into her own dance sari. The siren red color set off the blue of her
eyes. The irony of the situation sat with me for the rest of the class.
ENDNOTES
1 See Spivak (1994); in her analysis of the devadasi tradition and temple
dancing, she notes that in the ancient classical dance theory texts, Natya
Sastra and Abhinaya Darpana, there is no explicit reference to temple
dancing. It is a medieval collection of stories, Kathasaritsagaral, that makes
the first mention of temple dancing.
2 See Berlant (1996), in her critical look at what constitutes successful
naturalization and "Americanization" of the immigrant into the proper and
law-abiding citizen. Here the state maintains power through a popular
discourse centered around desire and longing: "...immigration discourse is
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1 2 6
a central technology for the reproduction of patriotic nationalism: not just
because the immigrant is seen as without a nation or resources and thus is
deserving of pity or contempt, but because the immigrant is defined as
someone who desires America," (413). Also refer to Rosaldo (1994), where he
looks to alternative configurations of the national community, ".. .whose
solidarity emerges more from diversity than from homgeneity," (240).
3 See Singh (2000), where she discusses the popular Gadar party (Party of
Rebellion), organized and led by Har Dayal in 1913. An overseas, nationalist
organization based in San Francisco, The Gadar movement actively worked
to mobilize various Indian ethnic groups via widespread publications and
armed sedition, against the British rulers. It quickly gained momentum
among mainstream Asian Indian immigrants along the West Coast of the
United States, eventually having strong political impact in India.
Some of Viji's earlier dance events were community benefits that raised
money for particular tragedies back in India. For example, she remembers
the first big production that she organized was a benefit to raise money for
the 1989 Union-Carbid incident in Bhopal.
4 I am applying Judith Butler's discussion of originality versus imitation
within the regulatory regime of heterosexuality. However, I am using the
dialectic of the nation and ethnic diasporic identity as the structure of
regulation. By arguing that imitation never presents an exact copy of the
original, but is rather parodic, Butler highlights the very construction of an
"original"(Butler 1997: 308-310).
5 South Asian immigration to the United States occurred primarily in two
waves, each of which took place in very different contexts and of different
compositions (Leonard, 1997). The first phase lasted from the mid
nineteenth century till 1914. Ironically, it consisted of uneducated peasant
farmers, primarily males, from the north Indian province of Punjab who
settled along the Western coast of the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1917,
prohibiting the entrance of people from Asia, effectively put an end to the
first wave of South Asians to America.
Fifty years later, the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 generated
the second wave of immigrants, which continues today. The number of
South Asians immigrating to the U.S. continues to increase, with India
sending the largest number of immigrants from the region. Immigrants
come from all over South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Afghanistan, Nepal), and settle throughout the U.S., though primarily in
metropolitan areas. However, unlike their predecessors, the second wave of
immigrants consists of highly educated, highly skilled professionals from
urban centers who are employed primarily as scientists, engineers, and
health professionals. The reversal of discriminatory U.S. immigration
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1 2 7
policies towards Asians was largely driven by this desire to access and
commoditize such intellectual capital. The most recent immigrants to the
United States, on the contrary, are of a lower socioeconomic class, working
as blue-collar workers in the service and industrial sector, and are having a
harder time in the United States (ibid.).
6 The label 'model minority' has been given to South Asians, as well as other
Asian communities living in the United States, to characterize our high
educational status and financial prosperity. Its implications are Asian
immigrants and Asian Americans have managed to successfully integrate
themselves into a white, mainstream, bourgeoisie American culture without
posing a significant threat to this structure.
7 Similarly, Kondo (1997). illustrates how the Meiji men, in Comme de
Garcons' Japanese Suit personifies the "true" Japanese Man because his
Japanese spirit and soul is still preserved, particularly as evidenced by the
Meiji men
The play of inner and outer is them atized through intertw ining racialized
masculinities and nationalisms: the Meiji m en who wore W estern suits as
though they w eren't really W estern suits looked better than present-day
Japanese men, w ho are m ore thoroughly acquainted w ith W estern dress,
presum ably because the Meiji m en were preserving something Japanese in
their bearing...T his distinctiveness becom es the essence of Japanese
identity...This Japanese spirit anim ates the Japanese suit in a refigured
world in which the Japanese have taken a foreign object, appropriated it
and made it their own, (167-168).
8 Chatterjee (1993) provides a powerful analysis of how such a construction of
Indian middle-class womanhood—strong, educated, activist-oriented, and
yet able to maintain the traditional roles of wife and mother came to be:
Education then was m eant to inculcate in women the virtues—the typically
bourgeois v irtu e s characteristic of th e new social form s of
“disciplining"—of orderliness, thrift, cleanliness, and a personal sense of
responsibility, the practical skills of literacy, accounting, hygiene, and the
ability to run the household according to the new physical and economic
conditions set by the outside w orld...O nce the essential fem ininity of
wom en was fixed in term s of certain culturally visible spiritual qualities,
they could go to schools, travel in public conveyances, w atch public
entertainment programs, and in time even take up em ployment outside the
home. But the "spiritual" signs of her fem ininity w ere now clearly
marked—in her dress, her eating habits, her social demeanor, her religiosity
(ibid.: 130).
This fabrication of Indian middle-class womanhood went hand-in-hand
with the intense Indian nationalist projects underway during the late
nineteenth-century. In fact, it is the reason for why Chatterjee avows that
there is a relative absence of gender discrimination in middle-class
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occupations, or why independent India gave women the right to vote
without any major struggle, unlike what is encountered in British or
American feminist movements.
Additionally, Chakrabarty's discussion of the bourgeois domestic sphere in
colonial India (1992:13) provides helpful insights into understanding this
seeming incongruity. In the national elite's understanding and subsequent
desire for the construction of a m odem self, based on European ideals,
"freedom" became a highly contentious term in the rhetoric for
independence and its regulation of the "modem Indian woman". That is,
freedom became a abstraction that ascertained an "Indian" self, separate
from its colonial oppressor. At the same time, for an Indian women to be
completely free like her British counterpart, she was labeled a memsahib,
European woman, "selfish and shameless," (ibid.). Freedom, within the
discourse of the Indian national elite, takes on a metaphysical nature, where
it figured as freedom from the ego, as fulfillment of one's dharma, or one's
moral duty.
9 See Chatterjee (1993) and his discussion of the construction of the middle-
class Indian women by the nationalist project during British colonial rule.
As a result of the nationalist elites new relegation to the middle, questions
emerged as how best to safeguard the sanctity of the bourgeoisie Indian
woman while at the same time confront the inevitable changes modernity
was bringing to the home and family. In dealing with these issues, a new
patriarchy developed, legitimized by a discourse that elevated the role of
woman as goddess or mother:
W hatever its sources in the classical religions of India or in medieval
religious practices, the specific ideological form in which we know the
'Indian wom an' construct in the m odern literature and arts of India today is
wholly and undeniably a product of the developm ent of a dom inant
middle-class coeval w ith the era of nationalism ...This spirituality did not,
as we have seen, im pede the chances of the w om an m oving out of the
physical confines of her home; on the contrary, it facilitated it, m aking it
possible for her to go into the w orld under conditions that w ould not
threaten her femininity. In fact, the image of wom an as goddess or m other
served to erase her sexuality in the w orld outside the home (131).
10 See Savigliano (1995) for a discussion of the political economy of passion
and desire through the circulation, appropriation, exoticization, and
autoexoticization of the tango. She traces the tango's global trajectory from
its rioplatense roots to the Paris cabarets, to finally Japan. This economy
frames the relationship between the colonizer and colonized (in the form of
imperialism and neocolonialism), First and Third World, core and
periphery:
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This im perialist circulation of feelings gave rise to an emotional capital —
Passion— accum ulated, recoded, and consum ed in the form of Exotic
Culture... The em otional/expressive practices of the colonized have been
isolated, categorized, and transform ed into curious "cultural" patterns of
behavior...Thus, "exotic" subjects have been constituted by applying a
hom ogenizing practice of exoticization, a system of exotic representations
th a t co m m oditized th e colonials in o rd e r to s u it imperial
consum ption...C onversely, to th e colonized-exotic-O ther, th is very
allocation of passionateness provides both a locus of identity and a source
of contestation vis-a-vis the colonizing-civilized-Desire—the Desire of and
for the One, (2).
11 In his discussion of the construction of a "modem individual" necessarily
predicated on European thoughts and practices, and influential in the later
development of an Indian nationalist discourse, Chakrabarty notes the
preponderance in the 1830s and 1840s of the novel, biography,
autobiography, and history, all expressions of the "m odem self" (1992: 8).
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5. Embodying Identity:
Race, Nation and Gender
Each week, sometimes two, four times a week, depending on the student's
commitment plus parent's determination, a particular disciplining of the body
transpires. It is a corporal writing of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality
and gender through dance. This process is evident in the linear formations,
intricate footwork, the numerous hand gestures, and lively facial expressions
exacted by the dance itself. Bharatanatyam's choreography weaves the epics
and dramas of Hindu mythology— enlarged eyes fraught with guilt as Krishna
is caught stealing butter; knee turns around the stage accompanied by rapid
and increasingly complex footwork, heighten the tension as young Arjuna
battles Kama:
Sejal: W hen I think of like 'India', I think of my cousins, my relatives, w hat
kind of issues they have to deal with. There's a lot of poverty. There's
you know , this m iddle-class forming, and there's all these family
relationships. And dance I think, fits into sort of the idealized image of
Indian history, and that beautiful like ancient, m ysterious past that is
so colorful, and that is so wonderfully portrayed in all the scriptures,
and in all the writings and the drawings. And I think that that rich sort
of past is um, is w hat makes me w ant to learn about our community
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[South Asian American] over here, ...or makes me w ant to talk to my
parents about w hat their life was like in India...I don't know how to
describe it. It's just, it's just that antique sense of like a tradition, like
this heritage that is sort of shining a light on the present, and sort of
pushing it along.
For Sejal, the physical movements exacted by bharatanatyam, transform
the abstract, antique India that she talks about into a lived India. Dance plays an
integral role in the production of identity, inspiring her to learn more about her
own self as an Indo-American as well as the larger diasporic community.
While the embodiment of bharatanatyam evokes one to "feel" Indian, it
is in the more mundane and ritualized tasks, such as the dress code and the
touching of the guru's feet at the beginning and end of each class, that the
performance particularly reveals itself. Viji insists that all her students come to
class in proper attire. For females this is the dance sari and bindhi, while the
males must wear the traditional dothi. By doing this, she hopes that "the
dancers feel 'Indian', allowing themselves to further let go of their inhibitions
and simply feel the movement". The race or ethnicity of the student does not
matter for the sari and dothi become tangible displays that allude to an
essentialized Indian identity. The dance space itself, perpetually filled with the
musty fragrance of incense, adorned with various statues of Lord Nataraja and
Krishna, enhances this sentiment. These actions appeal simultaneously to the
performative and the pedagogical. In other words, in the construction there is
an appeal to an abstracted essence, the spirit of India. And yet, it is in the
abstraction that the performative emerges. Anyone, regardless of her ethnic or
religious background, can participate in the dance.
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* * *
Monday, 1:00 p.m. UCLA. Viji reviews the kauthuam she taught her
students last week. A mixture of facial expressions and choreographed
movement, a kauthuam is a collage of short stories about one of the Hindu
gods, acted out by the dancer. Viji's voice rises in fervor. Expression is crucial! At
once, her shoulders, neck and head tighten. Eyes expand, stretching the arches
of Viji's brows. Her gaze locks onto the concrete building across the street. One
gets the sense that her body is in a state of hyper-awareness, and yet her focus
is directed to a place within. Lord Vishnu is a wonderful and beautiful being. If you
have not heard of him or do not know who this is, just recall the feeling of something
beautiful.
This motto—recall the feeling— reverberates through all of Viji's classes.
Feel that 'sundhari' (beautifulness) inside. You need to feel that pause. Don't let your
mind bog you down. In each of these statements, primacy is given to the body.
The ultimate goal is for the dancer to enter the zone where the body is no longer
the subject of the mind, but rather serves as the articulation of an internal
energy—the soul. If you feel it inside, then it will look exciting.
D is c ip l in i n g t h e B o d y
In Discipline and Punish (1977), Foucault articulates a relationship
between the soul and the body. He ascertains the soul as the conduit of
power/knowledge relations, which then marks itself on and through the body:
This real, non-corporal soul is not a substance; it is the element in which are
articulated the effects of a certain type of pow er and the reference of a
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1 3 3
certain type of knowledge, the m achinery by which the pow er relations
give rise to a possible corpus of know ledge...B ut let there be no
m isunderstanding: it is not that a real m an, the object of knowledge,
philosophical reflection or technical intervention, has been substituted for
the soul, the illusion of the theologians. The m an described for us, whom
we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection much
m ore profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to
existence, w hich is itself a factor in the m astery that pow er exercises over
the body. The soul is the effect and instrum ent of a political anatomy; the
soul is the prison of the body (ibid.: 29-30).
The soul materializes the body. The soul is not an entity in and of itself, but
constitutes and is constituted by a complex network of power relations, from
which particular systems of knowledge emerge that are in turn, signified in and
through the material body. The body, in this sense, is deeply embedded in a
complex political field, where "...pow er relations have an immediate hold upon
it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform
ceremonies, to emit signs" (Foucault 1977: 26).
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault is principally interested in examining
the discursive productivity of power in relation to the state and civil subject,
what he identifies as the emergence of political modernity. That is, through the
course of the eighteenth century, a vast reconfiguration of the state's power
transpired, transitioning from a direct and violent force into a more subtle and
discreet manipulation of power that manifested itself in and through the
numerous regulatory regimes of the everyday. This '"political anatomy'" (ibid.:
138) was to form disciplined, "'docile' bodies"(ibid.):
Discipline increases the forces of the body (in economic terms of utility) and
diminishes these same forces (in political term s of obedience). In short, it
dissociates pow er from the body; on the one hand, it turns it into an
'aptitude', a 'capacity', w hich it seeks to increase; on the other hand, it
reverses the course of the energy, the pow er that m ight result from it, and
turns it into a relation of strict subjection (ibid.)
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For Foucault, the material is the power-laden discourse, and it is
precisely when materiality becomes disengaged from discourse, that power is
most productive. "When this material effect is taken as an epistemological point
of departure...accepting this constituted effect as a primary given, successfully
buries and masks the genealogy of power relations by which it is constituted"
(Butler 1993: 35).
In certain ways, the manner in which I analyze discipline and "the docile
body" differs from that of Foucault's, primarily because I examine the role of
discipline in light of an absence of the discursive powers of the state. In other
words, I am more interested in bharatanatyam's power to discipline bodies and
selves to imagine a state, whose agency, with the exception of its pedagogical
role, is relatively absent. The more Viji's students can disengage their bodies
from their minds, the stronger they are as dancers; thus, the more powerful the
performance of "Indianness". This is how Leila, while racially Caucasian, can
be more "Indian" than Viji:
Viji: W hen Leila dances you don't think, 'O h, here's this blonde girl with
b lu e-ey es, w h o 's d o in g b h a ra ta n a ty a m .' B londe, blue,
bharatanatyam —all you know, sort of incongruence w ith each other.
She tides over her 'alienness' or her 'differentness'. Sorry, I said the
w rong word. She tides over that w hen she dances. And she's always
been like that. I think it's a gift from the past, that bharatanatyam has
just been a part of her being.
In other words, Leila's dedication and perseverance with the dance, reading
books on Flinduism and Krishna consciousness, her deference to elders—these
are all repeated acts that she has cultivated over the many years as well as
lifetimes, according to Viji. The goal is for the student to separate mind from
body. And yet, one can only achieve disengagement from the mind through the
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utmost focus and concentration—mind and body m ust synchronize so perfectly
that one is not thinking, but simply doing. This is the point at which power
exercises itself most successfully. Leila does not think about these activities in
any conscious manner. She just does them. Moreover, she has performed them
for so long, that "Indian" comes to be seen as a set of characteristics expressed
by the individual. Leila is Indian, when in actuality it is the other way around.
"Indian" is a set of performances whose effective outcome is exhibited through
Leila.
Similarly, when Viji choreographed an Islamic song to bharatanatyam
for Haseem and Samira's solo debut, the girls expressed a feeling of
completeness different from any other time they had danced.
Haseem: I guess when I do the opening N ursat Fateh A li Khan piece— I don't
really think. I just go w ith the music, and just go. It's like it's a part
of me. The first time that Viji Aunty was listening to it and we were
in rehearsal, just listening to it, 1 can say that I [got] kind of carried
away w ith the music. I just feel there's more of a connection with
me and that music since we've, I've grown up around [it] since I
was, I don't even know how young I was. I rem em ber going to his
concerts.
...I know what it means, too. W hen you're, when you're dancing to
som ething that you u nderstand every single w ord, just the
expression on your face— I feel as if I can convey it more to the
audience in a m ore com fortable m anner. I m ean, dancing to
anything else in Tamil [a South Indian dialect] like, I just have to
[put] in that extra effort to write dow n the lyrics, and write dow n
what it means, so I understand w hat I'm doing.
Samira: The first piece is a pushpanjali, and it's the opening act. At first I felt
kind of...Oh, you know, I w anted a very traditional pushpanjali in
the beginning because I felt that even though I'm Muslim, I didn't
w ant to have any exceptions to the arangetram process because I'm
Muslim. I wanted my arangetram to be like any other arangetram
that any other, you know, bharatanatyam dancer w ould have.
But, in retrospect, I'm very honored. I feel very unique in having
two Islamic pieces. And, the opening act is to a song that I've grown
up listening to ever since I was a little girl. W hen I dance to that
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piece or listen to it, I have so m any fond memories of having dinner
parties in the house, and the N usrat Fateh Ali Khan song going on
in the background. And to be able to convey something that's so
close to me through bharatanatyam , which I love so much, I feel
like I'm getting the best of both worlds. To finally be able to dance
to something, or to songs that really move you, I think is just very
fortunate.
Here is discourse in its most productive form, for the materiality of Islam is
thoroughly detached from its discourse. When you're dancing to something that
you understand every single word, just the expression on your face— I feel as if I can
convey it more to the audience in a more comfortable manner. Both girls exemplify
the very tension between the performative and pedagogical, construction and
essentialism. They acknowledge that dancing to Nursat Fateh Ali Khan is easier
because they have been socially conditioned to it since they were little girls,
going to his concerts and hearing his music play at dinner parties. However,
the discursive effects have been so successful, that the song is Haseem and
Samira. They are finally dancing to a song that really moves them. And thus,
mind is freed. I don't really think. Bodies are free to feel the music. I just go with
the music.
While both examples show the inextricable link between mind and body,
primacy is still assigned to the former over the latter. The Cartesian mind / body
distinction is maintained1 . There is still little understanding of what the body
feels or what the self feels itself as when embodying various subjectivities.
However, the very essence of dance is rooted in the physical movement of the
body. Thus, dance provides a promising space from which to disrupt the
m ind/body binary. Additionally, "Because dance does not exist in a cultural
vacuum, but rather is a situated embodied aesthetic practice, it can also highlight
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1 3 7
and reflect the presence of these very dualisms in the cultural domain"
(Thomas 2003: 93). How does the dance physically shape the body? What
sensations run through the body while dancing?2 Simultaneously, how does the
dance formulate a sense of self? How does one come to experience the self in
relation to her environment through the dance? Dance in many ways supplies a
uniquely intimate and immediate understanding of how an individual makes
sense of themselves in relation to their surroundings, community, history, and
the world. Sally Ness's dance ethnography (1992) of the sinulog dance tradition
in Cebu City, located in the Philippines does exactly this:
Choreographic activity, through its ow n decision-m aking processes of
physical rendering, serves in a distinctive way the cultural need: the need
to be rem em bered— the need to be rendered animate in an immediate sense.
Choreographic phenomena, in this respect, always represent on some level
the recent findings of culture bearers, findings about the w orld they
physically inhabit, findings about the society they embody, findings about
w hat it m eans to be a living, breathing hum an being in their particular
place, in their particular historical m om ent (my emphasis) (Ness 1992: 233).3
Through astute observations of daily living in the city, Ness manages to
discover certain recurring patterns, traits and stylistic formations. Most
noteworthy was a "resilient bouncing" (1992:119), a trait that appeared
frequently in a number of social contexts, from the most pedestrian activities,
such as walking to its very incorporation in the language:
Sigue was used interchangeably w ith "okay" in Cebu City and expressed
general assent...Sigue arguably w as the m ost im portant w ord of the
Cebuano language, the w ord that m ost dialogue was designed to produce
in the end. It was the w ord I heard and overheard m ost often during my
stay in the city...The sigue principle was pervasive in Cebuano life, not
only in nonverbal behavior, as illustrated above, but in verbal interaction as
well. It was an integral part of the style of argum ent that was typical of
public speaking in C ebu...In both verbal and nonverbal activity, various
applications of this sigue principle appeared, which was symbolized in the
tindera sinulog4 performances in the loose and gentle m anipulation of their
candles. The grasp of the tinderas thus symbolized a w idespread strategy
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for handling social processes. The tinderas literally had a hold on social life
as they perform ed (ibdid.: 125-126).
The resiliency that weaves its presence throughout Cebu City, in all the
people's behavior—"phrasing patterns, spatial forms, and bodily attitudes"
(ibid.: 56), ultimately "contributed to the notion of what a 'self' was in this
community and how it was likely to behave, and with what it was likely to
interact, all things being equal" (ibid.) Of course, Ness does acknowledge that
this argument is problematic in that it tends towards a homogenized image of
Cebuano identity, something she is wary of conveying However, her attention
to the Cebuano body within three different sinulog traditions, each of which are
shaped and continued to be shaped by differing historical, political and social
forces, lend support to the fact that the sinulog and the people of Cebu City are
by no means static. Instead, they continue to grow and change according to the
varying discourses around indigenous, ethnic, urban, national and
transnational identity. In doing so, each sinulog style was in a constant process
of cultural productivity:
The sinulog choreography w as a point of access for understanding the
articulation of local "otherness" in the contem porary urban context. The
choreography m ade w hat w ere judged to be the disappearing aspects of
social life—forms of local symbolism possessing a relatively high degree of
temporal continuity—visible and productive (ibid.: 231-232).
It is precisely because of its ephemeral nature, its constant eluding of
permanence and reminder of the now, dance enlivens constructions of race,
nationality, gender, and sexuality, of cultural practices. Thus, dance is never
purely aesthetic, but informs the social and political. And, in "dance's defiance
to intellectualization" (Savigliano 1995:13), dance is necessarily political. This is
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1 3 9
illustrated in Yvonne Daniel's ethnography, Rumba: Dance and Social Change in
Contemporary Cuba (1995).
In its inception, rumba operated as a disguised form of defiance that
emerged from the slave barracks of eighteenth-century Havana City, Cuba:
Slave barracks became focal points of anguish and protest. Rebellion was
difficult and dangerous, but protest in a disguised form was often expressed
in recreational music and dance (ibid.: 19).
After the Revolution of 1959, the government instated rumba as the national
symbol of Cuba and the Revolution itself—solidarity and the strivings of the
working class, light and dark-skinned and a recognition of its Afro-Latin
heritage. However, as Daniel points out, while rumba as a national symbol
upholds the image of class and racial equality that the government circulates
internationally, this does not reflect what transpires on the streets of Havana. In
other words, . .light-skinned or white Cubans do not attend rumba
performances very often. The light-skinned or white audience of Sabado de la
rumba are generally foreign visitors and tourists" (ibid.: 120). Thus, the
"everyday" interactions between people presents rumba in a different racial
discourse that directly disrupts the Cuban government's narrative of nation and
race disseminated globally.
Rumba also enacts discourses around heterosexuality and gender. The
bodily syncopations between men and women personify accounts of Cuban
machismo. When a m an's body dances sensuously, he protects the woman.
When his gestures are forceful and authoritarian, he controls her. ".. .both
emphasize male dominance" (ibid.: 124)5 .
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Barbara Browning (1995) and Julie Taylor (1998) recount an analogous
narrative of the samba and tango, respectively. Like the rumba, both dances
draw their roots in the intense oppression and enslavement of black and other
indigenous communities, and through the centuries have emerged as national
symbols. In the case of samba, this process was furthered by the physical
destruction of documents that serve as record of slavery in Brazil. Thus,
physical action brought the erasure of a history that samba seeks to inscribe
through corporeality:
Those who w ould prom ote samba as a purely aesthetic form, the Brazilian
national dance in its m ost harm less sense, are also those w ho have long
promoted the fiction of a Brazilian racial democracy—a fiction which began
to be inscribed w ith the destruction of the docum ents of slavery. This is
another form of negative articulation, an erasure of a historical moment
which in fact brings this m om ent into relief. This fiction has silenced a
history of cultural and political repression of blacks and indigenous
peoples. Samba speaks this history (Browning 1995: 15).
For Browning, because of its constant motion, the samba (and capoeira)
articulates a history never complete and always in a state of rearticulation. "The
capoeiristas say that in life, as in capoeira, you have to keep doing the ginga,
dancing between the blows" (ibid.: 125).
Likewise, in its journey to the ballrooms and cabaret of Paris, New York
and London, tango was stripped of its slum and brothel origins, to become a
lively expression of Western bourgeois heterosexuality, only to be remarketed
to Argentina (and other developing countries) in its new form (Savigliano
1995). And so as Julie Taylor points out, the steps, gestures, gaze of the tanguero
are riddled with this very ambivalence towards masculinity, history, and
national identity:
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In the dance, the dancer acts as though he has none of the fears he cannot
show ...H e refers to an experience of total control over the wom an, the
situation, the w orld—an experience th at can allow him to vent his
resentment and express his bitterness against a destiny that denied him this
control. The tango can also give dancers a moment behind the protection of
this facade to ponder the history and the land that have formed them, the
hopes they have treasured and lost...W hile thus dancing a statem ent of
invulnerability, the som ber tanguero sees him self—because of his
sensitivity, his great capacity to love, and his fidelity to the true ideals of his
childhood years—as basically vulnerable. As he protects himself w ith a
facade of steps that dem onstrates perfect control, he contem plates his
absolute lack of control in the face of history and destiny (1998: 11).
I juxtapose Browning and Taylor not simply for their corporal rendering of
race, nation, history and sexuality (something Daniel's work on rumba does as
well), but because both authors identify dance's unique manner of disciplining
the body, particularly their own. In other words, both authors describe a mode
of learning, knowing, teaching and looking at the world that could occur only
through their practice of dance. Browning and Taylor incorporate literary
techniques to heighten this relationship between writing and dance, bringing us
a step closer to the body and the lived experience of culture:
" B u t w h y do you do all this d a n cin g ? ” an acquaintance asked in a
conversation w ith several unbelieving Argentines. Another member of the
group, w ho had initially expressed similar bewilderment, suddenly lit up.
She announced to the rest of the group in the Italian understood on porteno
streets, "Perche le piaceY’ Because she likes it. And she w as right. I was in a
world deeply familiar from my years as a dancer, a w orld that gave me
back my body and the m odes of learning w ith it and from it that had
formed my earliest perceptions. As the tango threw all this sharply into
focus, I recuperated som ething that had been obliterated by years of
rational argum ent. I recuperated ways o f knowing, ways o f know ing art, ways of
knowing violence, ways o f know ing fear—ways of knowing them to be bound
up together in a body to which I could lay a tentative claim (my emphasis)
(Taylor 1998: 20).
As the narrative unfolds, Taylor finds herself using tango "as a language to
think and communicate my experience that was both Argentine and not" (ibid.:
47). Some moments have the tango assuming the role of another person with
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whom Taylor is in dialogue. "Sometimes I think that I recognize myself in you
because you first recognized me" (ibid.: 50). Other times the tango effaces
Argentina as an Other. "The tango reminded me once again that I have lived so
much of my life in Argentina that it seems more a state of mind than a
country... That map is now covered with lines, coming and going in and out of
Buenos Aires, erasing the city. Is it that my life erases Buenos Aires, or that
Buenos Aires became my life?" (ibid.: 54-58). Thus, Taylor's ethnography
portrays an intricate dance between mind and body, representation and "being-
in-the-world" (Csordas 1994), subject and object.
Similarly, Barbara Browning demonstrates how dance and writing
inform one another. Samba and Brazil do not become meaning(ful) for her until
the body becomes central to the narrative:
The only meaningful hum an writing, as I. have come to see it, is done in the
service of belief. This may not be articulated as belief in the orixas but as
belief in political or aesthetic principles. Precisely. I am trying to feel m y mind
work like a muscle (my emphasis) (1995: 72-73).
It is the dancing body that ultimately opens a new way of knowing, teaching
and most significantly—writing. The body guides the text, and yet forever
eludes it precisely because of its immediacy and continuous movement.
Bharatanatyam has also "cleaned up its act", severing its ties to the
devadasi system. In the homeland, the dance now circulates amongst upper
and middle-class Indian society as a legacy of pan-Sanskrit, Hindu tradition
and a normative scheme for socially appropriate values and behavior. Such
aims undoubtedly propel the South Asian American bourgeois diaspora as
well. However, its diasporic identity-— ethnic minority, thereby fixing its
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1 4 3
subordinate status to a dominant other, provides another impetus for learning
the dance. This incentive is not only aware of difference, but brings it from its
margins and celebrates it. Like Viji proclaims:
The Indian in me says, 'H ey, it's okay. You know, It's alright. I can
speak a language, I can sing something other than W estern pop. I can
do something other than ballet. And, I can feel good about it because
my other counterparts like it, you know. So, it's okay to be Indian. And
then from 'It's okay to be Indian, to it's...it's wonderful to be Indian.' I'm
something extra. I'm a smart, intelligent, talented hum an being with an
extra zing I have which is my Indianness.
Dance presents one way in which the South Asian American youth can come in
touch with this "extra zing"—their Indianness, particularly for its positive
effects in developing the body and sense of self, a topic I elaborate upon in the
next section. The corporal materialization of this identity is the outcome of a
specific kind of power—the disciplined South Asian female (real and imagined)
body, and specific kind of knowledge—Indian nationalist ideology that espouses
Western bourgeois ideals upheld by the South Asian immigrant bourgeoisie. This
process of disciplining might celebrate difference, but I will argue in the next
section, that it concurrently sustains the discourse of the "model minority" by
which the dominant culture defines itself. Thus, bharatanatyam's disciplinary
regime of the self fits well with the dominant hegemonic structures.
Integral to theorizing a relationship between construction and
materiality, I take up Butler's argument that it is through the persistent
reiteration of legitimized norms enacted by the body over time, that identities
come to be naturalized and fixed.
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9:00 in the morning. Riddick Center. I can't believe I managed to make it over to
the West side this early in the morning. Then too, it was a Saturday. Eight little
thighs quiver as they attempt the aramandi, or half-sitting position. Ew. Ah. It
hurts. "You can do it. You can do it!" Viji pushes the little kids. No one appears
to be older than six. Viji towers over them. Of course, her aramandi is
perfect—tall, straight, stationary. "Your best aramandi starts now. Not when
you are fifteen or sixteen. By then, you'll all be superstars." Sunjay can't take it
anymore. Knees give way, and his legs straighten to the full-standing position.
Viji's statement is revealing in that it implies that only through
continuous practice will the muscles be strong enough to maintain this position
for extended periods of time, but the body will accustom itself to the half-sitting
position. And eventually, after many attempts, aramandi will come naturally to
the body, to the point where one does not have to think about it6 . Mind and
body converge. As in any dance training, the ideal time to start bharatanatyam
is when the child is four or five. The body is supple and pliable—perfect for
"molding". Thus, the earlier one starts, the more time available for the body to
practice, repeat and imitate.
At the bare minimum, most students are required to take two group
lessons per week. Many students, depending on their personal interest in
dance, take more. For instance, one student, Shanti, takes two group classes and
two individual practices, making it four hours of scheduled dance a week, in
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1 4 5
addition to her own personal practice at home. Along with dance and keeping
on top of her studies at school, Shanti studies South Indian Kamatic music.
• k k k
"Don't worry. Prakash is there, and he will help you locate the file in the
computer, and answer any questions you have. And make sure to eat
something!" A two-second hug, and Viji scurried out the door, her fingers
furiously digging in her bag for the car keys and cell phone that had been
ringing incessantly throughout class.
I have agreed to help Viji Aunty edit an article she is sending into India
Perspectives. So on Monday, after her class at UCLA, I head over to her house,
while Viji rushes straight off to her next class in Redondo Beach.
Back at the Dudley Street house, while working on the article, Prakash
Uncle and I get into an interesting discussion.
"The arts are so important. It helps release stress. I have a flat in Bombay,
and every year I am willing to send Aditya there to practice his music. Take the
time put into sitting in front of the television, and use it towards practicing
dance, music," asserts Prakash Uncle.
I nod my head in agreement, while at the same time recalling my
childhood and all the countless reprimands and lectures I would receive from
my teacher and mother for not practicing my dance. For me, doing my
homework was preferable to even one run-through of pushpanjali.
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1 4 6
"Take breaks from homework to practice. Use it as a stress releaser,"
continues Uncle. Only now, twenty-two years later at twenty-seven years of
age, can I begin to appreciate this statement.
The following week, Viji Aunty opens up her class asking the girls if they
practiced. Silence. Six pairs of eyes stare back, eyebrows furrowed with guilt.
Viji is not moved. She lets another thirty seconds of silence transpire, letting the
gravity of the moment sink in.
"How do you expect to not practice and yet still perform well and
become good dancers?" she eventually throws back.
A jumble of complaints ensue. I have too many other classes. I don't have
enough time. By the time I get home from school, other classes, and do my homework I
am too tired.
Mona pipes up, "I have some class everyday after school—soccer, tennis,
dance, piano. I barely have time to finish my homework!"
Viji's voice is resolute. The seriousness of her statement rests in its
quietness, the calm manner in which it is delivered. "You are all training to be
solo dancers. You train to be dancers who can perform for three hours. Your
capacity to become a good dancer only comes when you are able to perform
multiple roles in one dance well. Then you can dance in choreographed pieces.
And that only comes with practice."
* * *
Back straight. Fingers tight and spaced apart. Elbows up. Your eyes should be
like those of the sculpture' in LACM A (Los Angeles County M useum of A rt)—always
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1 4 7
calm since you are always working for good7 . Like ballet, bharatanatyam is a
classical dance form. And similar to ballet, bharatanatyam's aesthetic
framework is defined by symmetry (Bull 1997; Foster 1997 & 1996). Every pose,
gesture, footwork and stance m ust be tight, linear and precise. The basic
standing position, samapadha requires the back and shoulders to be straight, the
feet together, and hands secured at the side while the head is held high. At the
same time, the body must not look stiff. Each stance and movement must be
fluid and graceful— sharp but relaxed. Mythili, Viji's daughter, elaborates on
this:
I think it's all based on w hat look, w hat is aesthetically appealing...Like for
example, if you're standing, we call it stanakam. You just keep your feet
together. That's the basic position. A nd um , it's just basically not to be
hunching, not to be you know, thrusting your belly out. Not to stand with
your feet sloppy...just to look neat and look elegant and graceful. And I
think w hat's special about bharatanatyam is that it, it um, combines both
grace with vigor...you're constantly moving, you're jumping, you're leaping,
you're banging. You have to go dow n to the floor. You're in that constant
half-sitting position. A nd w hat's hard about it is it's, it's tougher than
running in a way because you always have to be constantly aware that your
hands are geometrically aligned, that your body is like leaning a certain
way, and that you don't look like you're dying, right. I mean, you have to
enjoy yourself, and make sure that's evident as you're dancing, (my emphasis)
Mythili's comment is particularly revealing for two reasons. First, it
highlights the importance of visual perception in the dance, what is
"aesthetically appealing". The individual dancer must look "neat and elegant",
her body properly aligned and straight. This aesthetic rubric is then
extrapolated to the overall spatial design of bharatanatyam's choreography. In
other words, the placement of bodies in relation to one another is just as
important in order to provide a visual wholeness. This is similar to ballet's
choreography where "[s]hifting lines and clusters of dancers constitute major
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1 4 8
organizing principles of its composition, and formations of symmetrical bodies
create visual harmony and hierarchy" (Bull 1997: 274). Viji has a striking knack
for spatial precision, choreographing bodies in and out of one another at
incredible speeds and rhythms, while still retaining symmetry. For instance,
while one line of dancers might start a sequence of steps with their right hand
raised above the body, another line of dancers standing in the back will begin
with the left hand facing downward. Thus, bodies and movements complement
one another—when one is up, the other is down, and vice versa. Other times,
Viji will have the dancers come together to form the statue of a Hindu god, like
Lord Nataraja. Thus, coordination between the bodies is of utmost importance
since each dancer holds a unique pose with their hands, feet and body that
when brought together, form a visual whole8 . Such choreographic exactitude
makes Viji's productions visually arresting, particularly for the Western
spectator, who may not be familiar with the Hindu mythology that the play
enacts.
The second point of significance that Mythili raises is bharatanatyam's
ability to "combine both grace with vigor". Herein lies the challenge, and thus
where discipline is most crucial. The suppleness and agility only comes with
relentless practice. With time, the body will naturally take on the formations
without their looking difficult or contrived because the body has conditioned
itself into the performative framework called for by the dance. The movements
will come "naturally" to the dancer. "The steps are literally inscribed into the
dancer's body" (Wainwright & Tuner 2004:103)9 . Prakash succinctly surmises
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1 4 9
the relationship between dance and its corporeal rendering of the body when
he states, "Even physically you can identify a dancer from a non-dancer when
they are walking. The gait that a dancer has—you can tell right away that she's
a dancer."
And yet, the regulatory schemas of identities remain precisely that—
idealized structures by which to order, shape, constrain, and sculpt the body.
"Through a stylized repetition of acts" (Butler 1999:179), bharatanatyam
materializes Indian national identity and heterosexuality within the body.
Insofar as it is an idealization, something that by definition can never be
reached, identities remain performative (Butler, 1999 and 1997) precisely
because reiteration is necessary to identity formation. And by definition,
repetition means that the copy is never complete. "That there is a need for a
repetition at all is a sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be
instituted again and again, which is to say that it runs the risk of becoming de
instituted at every interval" (Butler 1997: 307). The student will always fail in
the perfect emulation of the original. Each act will prevail as "a deformity, or a
parodic repetition that exposes the phantasmatic effect of abiding identity as a
politically tenuous construction," (Butler 1999:179). Thus, the fiction of
originality is unmasked.
In some ways, whether she is conscious of it or not, Viji is aware of the
performativity of identity. She understands that one will never attain perfection
in the dance. In fact, as Viji asserts, this is the bane of a bharatanatyam dancer
(or any artist for that matter). Provided the aesthetic foundation is maintained,
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1 5 0
one m ust always be willing to try new things, to push oneself as the dancer
explores the vast language that bharatanatyam has to offer:
I don't think w e [Viji and musicians] give up. I don't think I give up. I
always keep trying. Okay, so let's go on. Let's try som ething else. Let's
make it look better. I'm already brewing in my mind, "How am I going to
change some of those scenes in M eera. And, how am I going to evolve
Buddha, and make it better than w hat I think it looked." You know, you
have to do that. I know people tease me, and say, "Ohhh, here she goes,
m aking changes again." But you, if a change is for the better, I think it's
good. It m u st happen because change is evolving. I think change, or
thinking about it and realtering, or redoing, or rechoreographing, or
restaging just helps the quality grow better and better. That's been my
experience.
Accordingly, why can't Marcos, a Latino male, perform bharatanatyam better
than Usha, a South Indian American female? Why can't Leila be more "Indian"
than Viji?1 0
Bhartanatyam not only serves to regulate the individual dancing body,
but also interactions between bodies. Dancing is as much a commitment for the
family as it is for the daughter, alone. Becoming a student of the Shakti School
does not involve just learning the dance, but making dance a lifestyle for the
entire family. Since the majority of girls start at the age of five or six, the parents
(often the mother) are the ones driving their daughters to the class. By the time
the child is back at home, ready for dinner and homework, it is not impossible
for three or four hours to have transpired. If the family lives in Riverside or
deep in the San Fernando Valley (not uncommon), simply getting to dance
practice could take a good two hours (depending on Los Angeles traffic). Thus,
dance practice becomes a ritual around which other social activities are
planned. Sonia's parents, whose daughter has been dancing for almost twenty
years and who is now a dancer in the company, recalls their Friday nights:
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Rajini (Sonia's mother): Friday night was "dance night". The whole family
would go to W est L.A. for her dance class. While waiting we would
go around L.A. or talk to the other parents. And then after the class,
we w ould all go out to dinner. Usha's parents, N arika's....all of us.
Nisha, another senior dancer, currently in graduate school, elaborates:
I guess w hat I m ean by lifestyle is m aking it a priority. So it's not
just a priority for the dancer, the student. It's a priority for
everyone in that family. Because, you know, if I'm eleven and I
need to go to dance class, and I love it...m y parents are you
know ...they're working, or they can't make it, so m y...m y brother
w ould take me to dance class, as well. Like, so everyone has to
come [to] appreciate that priority. And you know, it's...it's a family
thing. Like even in terms of time, money, events that you go to, it's
a priority for the whole family. So, I think that's more w hat I mean
by lifestyle.
Um, and a huge p art of dance class or learning dance, and
especially learning w ith Viji Aunty, is going to see the arangetrams
and the other program s. A nd that's how you get your um,
motivation and your inspiration. Your like, "Wow! I w ant to dance
like that!" And you go back to dance class, and you practice more
and stuff. So, m aking it a priority, the whole family m aking it a
priority to go watch the program s. And um, just get exposed to the
performance venues and w hat you could do to dance, as well.
These responses illustrate the ways in which bharatanatyam not only
disciplines the individual body, but groups of bodies as they interact with one
another as a family and a community, as well as with the dominant structures
of society. Dancing orders the schedules of parents, siblings, and friends. Friday
nights are "dance nights", thus accentuating how bodies make use of time1 1 .
Reciprocally, the various actions, such as attending a dance performance, shape
discourses around the self, family, and community. A student watches an
amazing performance, gains a renewed sense of self, and returns to dance class
the following week charged with energy and ready to twist, twirl, bang and
jump stronger than before.
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P e r s o n a l Jo u r n a l E n t r ie s
T hursday, M arch 31st, 2005
O h m y god! The pain is unbearable. First sensation as I came to consciousness this
m orning w as the soreness in m y outer thighs. Just a sim ple throw ing of m y legs to the
side of the bed brought u p an array of eius and ahs. I stood up. The soreness perm eated
m y w hole body, m y w hole being so th at as I m ade m y w ay to the bathroom , the
tightness of m y m uscles brought m e to full aw areness of m y body. I could not w alk
w ithout raising m y feet, replacing the custom ary dragging of m y feet w ith an unusual
silence. The dullness in m y low er back m ade m e alert to m y spine. It w as straighter, I
stood taller; m y chest the tiniest bit expanded. Som ehow, despite the pain, I felt good.
Y esterday w as m y first day of dance class. I w as so nervous, so anxious. Last tim e I
attem pted nam askara, I w as fourteen! I'm tw enty-eight. Five m inutes into the leg
stretches brought m y thighs to trem bling. By the end of the hour, m y body w as crying,
p ushed and pulled into postures com pletely foreign to it. I got hom e at 7:30. Could
barely collapse onto the sofa, b u t the second I did, every corner, every tip of any
extrem ity of m y body w as sw am ped w ith exhaustion and tightness. I could n o t m ove; I
could not think for it w as like navigating through fog. The second I caught hold of one
thought, another bum ped into place. D inner. I need food. But I'm too tired. A nd yet it's
too early to go to sleep. Force yourself to eat som ething, then m ake your next m ove.
This is how it w ent for the next h o u r or tw o, until finally I could not endure it
anym ore. By 9:00, m ind and body finally got a respite.
W ednesday, A pril 13th, 2005
Tonight w as m y third dance class. M y body has already slightly acclim ated to the
m ovem ents, the postures. I am not incapacitated like I w as just tw o w eeks ago. M y
body w as capable of m aking som e dinner, and in fact, I feel like I can actually get some
reading done tonight. I've been aw are of m y body m ore—its posture, shoulders out,
straight back. M akes m e feel taller. Today, Viji rem arked in surprise, "I d id n 't realize
how tall you were!" Today's class w as a bit harder since she w ent through so m any
adavus. I had a h ard tim e keeping up. The half-sitting position kills m y thighs! But they
sure do feel stronger. Same w ith m y u p p e r arm s. The tension from holding them up, so
tightly for so long. But each w eek I'm able to hold it just a tad bit m ore, a tad bit
higher, and just a tad bit m ore correctly.
There isn't that absolute dread that w ould settle in m e a couple of hours before dance
class w hen I w as a little kid. I just try not to think too m uch about it— about dance
w hen I was grow ing up, w hat it m eans to be trying it now, w hat dance represents,
w hether this "helps" m y Indianness. Clear the ju n k y thoughts fro m yo u r head. T hat's w hat
Viji said w hen she told m e I had to start dancing. A nd so, that's w hat I'm trying to do.
D is c ip l in in g t h e S elf
In her influential text, Purity and Danger (1966), Mary Douglas invites the
reader to "see in the body a symbol of society, and to see the powers and
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1 5 3
dangers credited to social structure reproduced in small on the human
body"(ibid.: 115). While the relationship between the individual body and
social structure is not, Douglas argues that the boundaries, restrictions and
rituals of cleanliness placed on the body reveal society's own classificatory
structures of order and disorder. Thus, studying the body provides a rich
source of information about particular cultural and social discourses. It is
particularly the margins of the body that are the most powerful and dangerous
for they perpetually threaten the stability and unity of the whole:
All margins are dangerous. If they are pulled this way or that the shape of
fundam ental experience is altered. Any structure of ideas is vulnerable at
its m argins. We should expect the orifices of the body to symbolize its
specifically vulnerable points. M atters issuing from them [are] marginal
stuff of the m ost obvious kind. Spittle, blood, milk, urine, feces or tears by
simply issuing forth have traversed the boundary of the body...The mistake
is to treat bodily margins in isolation from all other m argins. There is no
reason to assum e any prim acy for the individual's attitude to his own
bodily and emotional experience, any m ore than for his cultural and social
experience, (ibid.: 121).
Douglas gives predominance to the cultural and social domain, and in doing so,
collapses the individual subjective experience of these bodily classifications,
pollutions and transgressions. "That is, the phenomenal, experiencing body is
in danger of becoming a blank slate upon which society stamps its image,"
(Thomas 2003: 22-23). This is precisely w hat I am arguing against in this
chapter.
What I do find beneficial to Douglas' analysis is her discussion of the
social drive towards wholeness. "To be holy is to be whole, to be one; holiness
is unity, integrity, perfection of the individual and of the kind" (ibid.: 54). But,
the very definition of unity necessitates the creation of rules and boundaries,
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1 5 4
which are constantly jeopardized by those objects that don't fit—dirt, or
"matter out of place"(ibid.: 35). Thus, unity reveals itself as a construction, and
in order to sustain itself, unity m ust employ discipline, that is— self-restraint,
control and focus. The fact that unity can never truly be established then
discipline also never fully succeeds, constantly needing to reinforce itself. Thus,
discipline also remains performative.
Likewise, in Foucault's, The History o f Sexuality, v. 2: The Use o f Pleasure
(1990), the philosopher traces the means in which "morality" shapes an
individual's behavior and constitution. Morality, according to Foucault, is a set
of thoughts, values, and practices that are largely self-governed and diffuse in
nature. He conceptualizes the larger framework in which an individual
constitutes themselves as an "ethical subject" through the articulation of four
general points. The first, "determination of the ethical substance", has to do
with the parts of an individual that revolve around making oneself a moral
being. The second component, "mode of subjection", centers on the degree to
which an individual identifies with a rule (i.e. whether it be divine or rational
law) and fashions their moral behavior accordingly. "Forms of elaboration of
ethical work" marks the third concept, and involves the various actions that the
individual works on herself to formulate moral behavior and ethical
subjectivity. Finally, the fourth point, "telos", historicizes the particular gesture
within an overall mode of being. That is, while the singularity of the action is
important, its larger importance rests in its relation to other actions that serve as
a whole to constitute the ethical formation of the individual.
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1 5 5
What is most significant about this framework is that Foucault highlights
the vast variability that characterizes each element. This variability typifies the
discursive actions one adopts in becoming an "ethical subject":
In short, for an action to be moral, it m ust not be reducible to an act or a
series of acts conform ing to a rule, a law, or a value. Of course all moral
action involves a relationship w ith the reality in which it is carried out, and
a relationship w ith the self...A nd this requires him to act upon himself, to
m onitor, test, improve, and transform himself. There is no specific moral
action that does not refer to a unified moral conduct; no moral conduct that
does not call for the forming of oneself as an ethical subject; and no forming
of the ethical subject w ithout "m odes of subject!vation" and an "ascetics" or
"practices of the self" that support them. Moral action is indissociable from
these forms of self-activity, and they do not differ any less from one
morality to another than do the systems of values, rules, and interdictions
(ibid.: 28).
It is primarily those "techniques of the self" that Foucault proceeds to
explore in greater detail. Such practices have less to do with its obedience to a
law or rule, but more with an individual's relationship with herself; the
differing thoughts, values and behaviors she attempts and incorporates into the
construction of a moral and ethical being. Such a subjectivity is defined by the
ability to master one's own desires through the cultivation of moderation. "The
intensity of the desires and pleasures did not disappear, but the moderate
subject controlled it well enough so as never to give way to violence" (ibid.: 69).
Underlying the development of a disciplined self is the notion that physical
activity was essential to this construction. ".. .physical training [that] was
indispensable in order for an individual to form himself as a moral subject..."
(ibid.: 77).
While culturally specific, these are conclusions also drawn by Kondo (1990),
when she participates in a youth ethics seminar put on by the owner of the
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1 5 6
Japanese confectionary business, the site of her fieldwork where she was also a
part-time employee. Kondo ascertains:
In such a theory of selfhood, bodily m ovem ent and physical appearance
may be considered indices of—or synonym ous w ith—the dispositions of
the kokoron . This, some w ould argue, is true not only for program s such as
the ethics school, but for Japanese society in general...Physical action can in
fact be perceived as isom orphic w ith spiritual change (ibid.: 108).
Thus, each external, physical task was associated with an internal positive
change. For example, polishing the floor was likened to a refined heart;
straightening the back was conducive to a better attitude. And while the tasks
inherently were not important, the value was placed on "see[ing[ things
through to the end, and as a result endurance and perseverance are among the
most frequently cited virtues in Japanese society" (ibid.: 109).
Similarly, the discourse of discipline as a practice circulated frequently
among the Shakti dancers and their relationship with bharatanatyam. Viji
pushes the girls to continue dancing, even if they are sick or stressed out. You
have three midterms and a 10-pg. paper to write. That is all the more reason to come
and dance. After practicing for an hour, you will feel energized, and will be able to
concentrate better on your studies. Haseem and Samira attest to this:
Haseem: Like she [Viji] always used to say. Dance [is] like the cure to
everything. Like if you're sick, if you're anything, just dance it
off. Even if you have a sprained ankle, just dance it off. And, I
m ean in a sense it's kind of true because it tests your own
ability...It does help you. It is a cure.
Samira: Even like yesterday— my eyes were so red. I couldn't even see
anything. A nd everybody was just like, "Dude, you know, just
sit down. D on't worry about anything." And then Viji Aunty
was like, "W hat do you m ean sit dow n. Just dance!" You
know, and that's so true because after the end of practice, I was
done, and I was just like— okay. My eyes are still red. But
you know I did n 't, I really w ouldn't have thought I w ould
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1 5 7
have been able to do all of that practice if I d id n 't have
someone sitting there, and being like, "W hat are you talking
about? That's nothing!"
Secondly, discipline comes to signify a crucial attribute of the Shakti
dancer. When I asked what role dance played in their life, every girl stated
discipline as one of the dance's primary contributions in their development. In
order to be considered a serious and successful dancer, the individual must
develop discipline; it must become part of her constitution, it must define her
self. Prakash directly links the learning of dance with discipline:
Well, bharatanatyam itself is, is too narrow . It is a technique... the
movements and w hat you learn in class, the technique—that gives you
the discipline. That gives you the mental focus. A nd that mental focus
that you develop can be applied to any situation. It can be applied to
your classroom or your w ork environm ent...But through the technique,
you learn the very basics of w hat the culture is. W hat hum anity is, how
to lead your life, w hat are the consequences o f doing good, w hat are the
consequences o f doing bad. Because bharatanatyam , through the various
you know, Indian mythological stories that it interprets, it gives you a
whole gam ut of characters, a whole gam ut of situations, and how, w hat
are the consequences of your actions. So, one not only learns the
technique, and the discipline involved through the technique, b u t one
learns, you know, a complete way o f life, (my emphasis)
Bharatanatyam provides a set of embodied practices through which an
individual builds moral character. She learns to make the distinction between
right actions and wrong actions. She cultivates mental focus and "an integrated
framework for solving [their] problems" (Kondo 1990:115)1 3 , that will in turn,
help to successfully juggle numerous activities at one time. Senior students and
dancers in the company, who perform in the shows and participate in tours,
operate under an incredibly demanding schedule. Most are in college,
attending prestigious universities all over the country; the majority is pre-med,
pre-law or pre-business. In addition to attending classes, studying for exams
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1 5 8
and writing papers, the dancers m ust reserve chunks of time for practice,
rehearsals, performances and traveling from show to show. Nisha (previously
mentioned) was incredibly persistent in her love for dancing:
I started learning dance w hen I was ten, and I lived in Los Angeles. But
three years into learning w ith Viji Aunty we m oved back to Utah, where
I'm originally from. And so, my mom and I just w anted to continue m[y]
learning dance. My mom w ould drive me eight hours, um, each way from
Southern Utah to Los Angeles. I practiced over the week, and then about
every other weekend, w e'd take off on Friday evening, and get to L.A. in
the nighttime. A nd then I'd dance whatever classes I could w ith Viji Aunty
on Saturday mornings, and then w e'd drive back so that I could get back to
school M onday morning.
Discipline was an absolute requirement that Nisha had to develop in order to
sustain such a time intensive schedule. Both, Prakash and Nisha's responses
point to the significance of bodily movements not simply for their symbolic
meaning, but also for their utilitarian role in formulating the self. These bodily
practices are necessarily reiterative and cumulative over long periods of time.
They are not an expression of innate desires or characteristics, but instead, work
the other way around. That is, for the members of the Shakti community,
embodied action is seen as the primary means by which to elicit feelings, and
through time, instill certain values and traits as constitutive of the self. Thus,
similar to the women Saba Mahmood follows in her thought-provoking
ethnography of the mosque movement in Cairo, Egypt, such acts effectively
"reversejs] the usual routing from inferiority to exteriority"(2005:121) that
predominates in the anthropological literature on the cultural constructions of
subjectivities.
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In his investigation of classical Greek texts by philosophers such as Plato
and Socrates, Foucault draws a relationship between the ethical subject and
state:
The organization of the city, the nature of its laws, the forms of education,
and the m anner in which the leaders conducted themselves obviously were
im portant factors for the behavior of citizens; but conversely, the freedom o f
individuals, understood as the m astery they were capable o f exercising over
themselves, w as indispensable to the entire state...The individual's attitude
tow ard himself, the way in which he ensured his own freedom-with regard
to himself, and the form of suprem acy he m aintained over himself were a
contributing elem ent to the well-being and good order of the city (my
emphasis) (1990: 79).
Likewise, the disciplined South Asian American self, in some ways,
complements the model minority discourse the state assigns to Asian and South
Asian American subjectivities. Discipline serves as an asset that increases the
utility of the body, and in doing so, also strengthens the production of an
ethical subjectivity. An individual moral being then carries into other areas of a
dancer's life, whether it is family, school, work, or peers, resulting in the strong
moral character of the citizen. For the dancers, and exemplified by Prakash's
response, bharatanatyam is simply the technique by which the student will
acquire discipline, and once acquired, can be applied to any situation. Similarly,
when I probed Viji as to what she consideres to be the attributes instilled in the
Shakti dancer over the course of her training, she answered:
...this dancer has dedication, has discipline, has the desire to learn, has an
openness of m ind, creativity, artistic intuition, a great zest for life because
w ithout observation, dance is incomplete. [She] has a sense of warm th and
clarity of expression... is very intelligent. If she or he has to sustain an art
form which is so exacting and so disciplined and so powerful over all these
years, he or she m ust carry the same discipline over into whatever walk of
life he or she chooses. And, continue to be the same disciplined, amicable,
passionate, driven, um hum an being in that walk of life, too. You know, the
two [are] sort of become inseparable. The qualities of w hat you learn in the
dance class in term s of [their] Shakti personality, the "Shaktiness" or the
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1 6 0
discipline or w hatever you learn in the dance, exudes into all the other
aspects of life, including their careers or whatever.
ie ie " k
The greatest passion is discipline. Just like that. I still remember the
moment. We are sitting on her couch in the living room. I was just two months
into the project, and it was the first time I was meeting with Viji to talk one-on-
one. The camera had not yet entered the picture. I was nervous, excited,
intimidated. I didn't really know what I was going to talk to her about. There
was so much; she did so much. Where to begin? But I didn't want to disappoint
her. I needed to show that I had direction; that I knew what I was doing; that I
was disciplined. But, the pictures and statues, books on bharatanatyam, the
sitar, mridangam. Now I am used to them, my body and senses have
naturalized themselves to these objects. But at that time, all was new. The room
was so "Indian". I was not so.
Of course Viji Aunty would have a living room filled with statues of
Lord Ganesha, Krishna playing his flute, Nataraja—the god of dance. O f course.
She's a professional Indian dancer and teacher. Then there were the
pictures—my gaze remains on Viji, but my thoughts stray to the ceiling-to-wall
blow up of Mythili in full costume, right leg extended into the crook of her right
arm as it stretches tight to meet her left arm above her head. Just below the
photograph rested another one, smaller. Mythili was staring back at me in this
one, her eyes calm and demure. She is so "Indian". I am not.
The greatest passion is discipline. Just like that. The words bring me back to
Viji, bring me back to the couch, back to my notebook and the pen suspended in
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my hand. The words seep into me, slowly settling as I battled Friday traffic
back home, and joined friends for dinner. Ten o'clock at night, as I settled down
to a DVD I just popped in, Viji's statement lingers. To this day, those words
move me.
• k - k *
Why did that remark strike such a strong chord within me? The
paradoxical juxtaposition of the words, passion and discipline, is what first
captured my attention. While the former implies intensity, excess, a letting go,
the latter signifies the polar opposite— control, constraint and order. Therefore,
what could Viji possibly mean when she says that the greatest passion is
discipline?
There is an emancipatory ring that seems to underline this statement.
This is not freedom conceived of in the liberal political tradition, but rather in
the ontological sense. In other words, freedom is not framed as free will and the
ability for an individual to choose. Instead, freedom is conceived in the
Foucaultian manner— to be the master of one's own thoughts and desires.
Saba Mahmood broadens the conceptual field of agency, in The Politics of
Piety (2005), locating the term not simply within the binary of resistance or
conformity to normative structures, but "as a modality of action"(ibid.: 157).
Viewed within this framework, Mahmood proceeds to expand Butler's theory
of performativity, situates agency in the potential destabilization inherent to the
successive iterations of regulatory regimes. Thus, agency primarily resides in
discursive acts of subversion, and involves a reformulation of the significatory
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1 6 2
process1 4 . For the mosque participants that Mahmood worked with,
destabilization of normative systems does not occur through the binary of
subversion versus compliance, or only through the resignification of normative
behavior. Instead, any destabilization of traditions within the movement must
be accompanied by an embodied practice:
In the case of the mosque movement, as I have argued above, a change in
the referential structure of the system of signs cannot produce the same
effect of destabilization. Any attem pt to destabilize the norm ative structure
m ust also take into account the specificity of em bodied practices and
virtues, and the kind of w ork they perform on the self, recognizing that any
transform ation of their meaning requires an engagem ent w ith the technical
and embodied arm ature through which these practices are attached to the
self (ibid: 167).
What is noteworthy about this statement is again the dialectic between
exteriority and interiority. That is, changes rooted in bodily practices, will
subsequently transform the self. Thus, for the mosque participants, the larger
social constructs and systems of authority were not necessarily seen as
"external social impositions that constrained the individual. Rather, they
viewed socially prescribed forms of conduct as the potentialities, the
'scaffolding'.. .for which the self is realized" (ibid.: 148). Consequently,
Mahmood argues that agency can take on different modalities, some of which
function outside of the progressive political stance which, for the most part,
associates agency with acts of resistance. However, what if freedom is
measured not according to one's free will, but instead to the degree an
individual realizes the prescribed rules of conduct and moral prescriptions
within a given tradition. "In this sense, agentival capacity is entailed not only
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1 6 3
in those acts that resist norms but also in the multiple ways in which one
inhabits norms" (author's emphasis) (ibid.: 15).
I found this extension of agency to be beneficial in my own analysis of
the discourse of discipline within Shakti. Freedom and agency are not
conceptualized as the capacity to disrupt normative patterns. Difference holds
much weight in the Shakti community, a difference I have tried to reflect within
these pages. However, the realization of discipline, dedication and focus in the
case of the Shakti dancer, simultaneously correspond with the normative
structures of the state. Freedom m ust then be contextualized in the Foucaultian
sense—the formation of moral subjectivation set by the values and rules of
behavior of the current social structures.
This is why Viji asserts that she does not find herself or her students to
espouse overtly feminist standpoints or adopt strong-willed personalities that
defy traditional expectations and stereotypes of the South Asian American
female. And yet, Viji affirms that the Shakti dancers are "all independent
thinking individuals who are trying to make a mark for themselves in life. And
in that context, yes, their self-expression that they've had in the dance, it does
enhance their ability to express in society at large." Freedom is not defined
along the lines of free will, but the ability to discipline the self. The continuous
refinement of her desires ultimately allows her to accomplish whatever she sets
out to do. The greatest passion is discipline.
For Viji and her students, the mastery of one's thoughts and desires is
facilitated by the dance, through embodied practices. In this sense, discipline
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1 6 4
functions as a process of self-discovery for the diasporic identity.
Bharatanatyam's disciplinary power also serves as a corporeal means by which
to imagine the nation. From the bodily enactment of Hindu mythology to the
larger social rituals (i.e. the required dance uniform and the customary
touching of the guru's feet before and after class), the students sustain,
circulate, consume, and perform representations of India. However, such
narratives simultaneously employ a performative and pedagogical rendering of
the nation-state. It is performative in that the gestures must be maintained
through reiteration. This is a process that is never completely successful, and
therefore has the potential for unraveling at any point, carrying out multiple
significations. Nonetheless, each performance plays on a pedagogical India,
timeless and ahistoric. This text has been an attempt to locate bharatanatyam's
construction of the nation-state, as well as the interpretations of bharatanatyam
by various members of the Shakti community, within this liminality. However,
the very term, to locate, is deceptive for the action implies some degree of
constancy. Dance evades such stability, instead defined by perpetual
movement. Thus, if this text also speaks to the role dance has played in the
shaping of racial and ethnic identity, then it articulates such formations as also
partial and variable, the outcome of historically and culturally mediated
discourses.
ENDNOTES
1 See Thomas (2003) for her discussion of the consumerist body that presumes
a more passive rendering of the body that places emphasis on spectatorship
and 'the gaze'—representation. The consumerist body is also linked to shifts
in discourses around labor and economics. In other words, the consumerist
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1 6 5
body reflective of the growth in white-collar jobs has supplanted the useful,
laboring body of the modernist, industrial era. This body is much more
active as it was shaped by raw, physical labor.
2 The Western dance practice, contact improvisation, is a style that incorporates
this question into its very movements. Based on the notion of just “letting go",
tactile sensation and improvised gestures are what guide the performer to
move. Thus, there is very little structure or an explicit aesthetic framework for
the dancer to operate in. “The contact improviser feels herself an individual
and a dancer, immersed in and led by physical sensation, responding to
another without thought or premeditation, sharing this experience with an
audience" (Bull 1997: 284).
3 Ness (2004) affirms that much of the dance literature that has come out in the
past decade has stressed the importance of an embodied methodological
practice in the cultural study of dance, shifting away from a more distant and
observational approach. One of the reasons for this shift has been
epistemological, of which phenomenology has garnered the most interest.
While this philosophical trajectory certainly seems to support the
methodological shift given its primacy of the experiential in the gain of
knowledge, Ness argues that the relationship is not necessarily one-to-one:
...a cultural understanding of hum an movement, and culturally focused
descriptions of it gained via em bodied practice, w ould appear to be
inherently "post-", "m eta-" or even possibly "anti-" phenomenological,
since such cultural study appears to be w orking to reinscribe and
internalize or "encrust" new m odes of judgem ent into the reseasrcher's
being as a result of em bodied practice, and not to expose or somehow
negate them. It is in this regard that the research does not appear most
clearly to be bearing out the concern articulated in the introduction of the
paper—the cultural interests m otivating the research are leading in
directions not approached by phenom enology, even while the shift to
em bodied m ethodology w o u ld a p p e a r to be su p p o rtiv e of
phenomenological inquiry, generally speaking (139-140).
4 One form of the sinulog dance is the tindera. It is performed solely by old
ladies in front of the basilica that houses the city's, Santo Nino de Cebu. This
figure is a boy image of Jesus, considered to protect the city and its
inhabitants. The dance carries ritual significance. It is seen as a blessing in
some ways, and calls for the ladies to hold candles as they perform its
buoyant movements. The tindera was considered a "living" piece of the
past; "One of the handful of customs that had somehow survived
recognition as a product of colonization and development...[Thus], the
dance had the capacity to celebrate "Cebuano-ness" for a community that,
as far as its leadership was concerned, was searching enthusiastically for
memories" (Ness 1992:129-130).
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1 6 6
Daniel does mention that with the playing field expanding for women in the
economic sector—more women are taking on managerial positions, women
have taken up a particular type of rumba, the Columbia, that only men have
traditionally performed. Again, I see this as corroborating the reciprocal
relationship between representation and embodiment. In other words,
changing discourses around gender and labor are then physically articulated
through dance that in turn, displays and reiterates social values and other
narratives around gender, sexuality and work.
See Richard Schechner (1986) where Schechner argues for the biological and
neurological link to performance and "deep acting". I am resistant to his
argument for he sets out to find a "source" of performance, and by
synthesizing the theories presented by Eckman, d'Aquili et al., Turner,
Pfeiffer and Lannoy, arrives at the conclusion that ". ..ritual theatre is
coexistent with our species: it is wired-in, we are adapted for it..." (1986: 362).
By no means am I trying to make a case for the neurological connects to
repetitive actions. However, Schechner does illustrate his point with another
form of Indian classical dancing, Kathakali. The intensive training required of
its practitioners parallels the kind of training I argue that a Shakti dancer goes
through:
Boys begin training som ew here betw een the ages of eight and
sixteen. They train for six or more years as their bodies are literally
m assaged and danced into new shapes suited to Kathakali...W hat
was rote movement, even painful body realignment, becomes second
nature. The m aturing perform er now feels his role, experiences it
from within with every bit of force equal to w hat a Euro-American
naturalistic actor m ight experience...Acting penetrates deep into the
brain (ibid.: 351).
See Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter (1996) for her analysis of American Delsartism, a
highly popular movement that arose in the 1880s and 1890s, among middle-
class women. Originating in France, when it made its way to America, the
Delsarte system, came to serve a vehicle of "physical culture and expression
for middle-class women, constituting a context within which they could pay
attention to their bodies, undergo training in physical and expressive
techniques and present themselves to selected audience in public
performance"(ibid.: 72). The leading figure in American Delsartism was
Genevieve Stebbins, the first to incorporate non-verbal expression in public
performances. In fact, her recitals consisted of a series of statue posing,
modeled after Greek sculpture. Why I highlight Stebbins' choreography is
because of its strong similarities to the Bharatanatyam dancer's own effort to
simulate the postures of H indu gods and goddesses. Like Viji's strong belief
in art's profound ability to get at a "universal truth" that shatter barriers such
as social and political, Stebbins "wished to convey 'the idea of absolute calm
and repose of an immortal soul, possessing infinite capacity for expression,
but at the same time giving no definite expression except that of capacity and
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1 6 7
power in reserve" (ibid.: 77). Thus, American Delsartism was a way in which
women "could reap spiritual as well as physical benefits" (ibid.), a recurring
statement in my interviews with Viji, Prakash and various Shakti dancers.
8 This stands in contrast to the individual members of the corps de ballet where
Bull writes, "individuals must control inclinations to curve an arm less or lift a
leg higher than the group ideal or they will ruin the overall visual design and
motion" (1997: 274).
9 See Wainright & Turner (2004) for the embodied narratives of discipline,
athleticism, physical beauty and youth within the professional ballet dancer.
Applying Bourdieu's notion of habitus, the researchers proceed to look at what
constitutes the ballet dancers' habitus, a field of activity that is taken for
granted until a traumatic event such as bodily injury, aging and retirement
bring the limitations of the body into sharp focus. The project is another
example of the inextricable dialogue between mind and body. For the
majority of these professional dancers, the extreme mental focus and
discipline they develop at a young age that allows them to endure
tremendous bodily pain and pushes them to persevere despite many
challenges, is severely modified once they hit middle age. The inevitable
process of aging that brings about a physiological decline in the body forces
these dancers to re-evaluate their sense of selfhood, and face the limitations of
their bodies, thus casting doubt on a radical social constructivist perspective
on the body.
10 Again, I am applying Butler's arguments she makes for the performativity of
sex and gender, and building a case for the construction of race, ethnicity and
nationhood. Thus, as Butler claims that sex is not an expression of an
individual, but is an effect or performance of gender's normative schema
(1997, 1999), I argue that race is naturalized through the regulatory regime of
nationhood.
11 See Probyn (2004) and Hammergren (1996) for an insightful analysis of how
bodies "use—and what they make of—its images and space" (Hammergren
1996: 56). Both get at responses of the flesh in the context of rather mundane
activities such as eating and strolling. Probyn examines the role of food and
"the eating body" in the space of the restaurant where an appreciation of
choreographing bodies (i.e. chefs, waiters, bartenders, etc.) is absolutely
essential:
On the verge of being in the juice was w hen everything interconnected
in an array of m ovem ent and glances, w hen one hand garnished
drinks, the other poured glasses of water, while you joked w ith the
bartender and smiled at a table (ibid.: 223).
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1 6 8
Similarly, Hammergren takes a stroll back in time to the 1930 Stockholm
Exposition, where functionalism guided the architecture. What makes this
narrative interesting is not only her juxtaposition of bodily activities and
space (i.e. smelling the flowers, chafing, waltzing—all structured and
regulated by a designated area of the exposition), but the narrative techniques
she chooses to construct this historical text. Through the reappropriaton of the
literary flaneur, a man who leisurely absorbed the activities of a city as he
strolled its streets, Hammergren attempts a "bodily intertextuality"(1996: 53):
I am trying to 'enter' a particular space to adjust the historian's body
(my own) in that past space, and yield to recollections springing from
a bodily m em ory that is mine, and yet, belonged to strangers...I am
referring to how 'source m aterial' can operate kinesthetically on the
writer. How does my body react while entering that particular space?
...H ow does it feel to touch an object, to adjust to a norm ative bodily
code, to sit in a chair, to look out over a landscape, to m ove in a
particular dress, to compare 'this' body to 'that' body? (ibid.: 54).
Thus, there is an attempt here to undo what has become "natural" to us; to
make "the familiar strange"(ibid.: 55). And in doing so, there is a heightened
awareness towards the sensations of the body as it moves about and performs
its everyday tasks. This is most relevant within the context of functionalism
where emphasis was placed on the most efficient fit between space, place and
the body.
12 Kokoro is defined by. Kondo as ".. .the heart, the seat of feeling and thought"
(ibid.: 105).
13 See Kondo (1990), where she deduces that through a set of repetitive and
exaggerated, yet not wholly successful, disciplinary actions "the center
elaborated an explicit theory of selfhood: what constitutes an ideal self; the
inseparability of selves from the sites of their construction in families, companies,
schools, and societies; the disciplines—cultural specific forms of pedagogy—that
were deployed in order to create these ideal selves" (my emphasis) (ibid.: 77).
14 I want to emphasize that Butler does not conceptualize agency as an act of
free will that an individual chooses to do, but instead is necessarily
constituted within the discourses of power. In other words, a drag queen
might destabilize the "naturalness" of normative schemas that characterize
gender and sexuality. But only succeeds in the resignification of these
constructs.
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1 6 9
Conclusion: Coming "Home"
If the objective of a cultural biography is to examine the ways in which the
images presented by a person are used in the transmission and transformation of
culture (Frank 2000), then those portrayed by Viji undoubtedly occupy a vital
space in the configuration of the South Asian diaspora and dance community.
Through her profound love and passion for bharatanatyam, she re(members)s the
narrative of the nation-state, bringing together an eclectic group of people whose
ties to the "home" land take on a number of different positions. For some of those
in Shakti, bharatanatyam awakens an antique sense of India. For others, it is a
form of artistic expression.
Neither of these factors was the case for me. It was only by de-exoticizing
the dance that I was able to open a space in which to begin exploring my South
Asian identity. To begin is worth noting here for I wish to highlight the processual
nature of this formation. That is, the friction between my South Asianness and
Americanness still remains. I am not sure it will ever completely disappear.
Flowever, my acceptance of this tension brings me a step further in
understanding myself. I type these words, realizing that in three months I leave
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1 7 0
for a three-month long visit to India, an India that's currently framed as ancient
and spiritual in my mind. It is a discursive India, not yet filled with the smells,
tastes, sounds and heat of bodies moving, interacting, doing. While this is not the
first time I have been to the country (my third to be exact), it is monumental in
that it is the first occasion where I am excited to make the journey. I want to go. I
need to go. My return to bharatanatayam, my encounters with Viji and Shakti
family are inextricably tied to this. Somehow, I needed to ground myself,
however partial this might be, as an Indo-American before I could journey out
"there".
One thing is for certain, and that is Viji has played a central role in
mediating this journey. In fact, if there was to be a figure to take on such a
responsibility, I cannot think of a more remarkable person. Two and a half years
ago, I embarked on this project, nervous and apprehensive. I was worried that
somehow I was entering a domain where I would eventually come out, and my
sense of self would be completely reformulated through means that were beyond
my control. In other words, in telling myself to let go and just be open to
wherever this ethnographic encounter was to take me, my self was vulnerable to
all sorts of resubjectifications, some of which I might not necessarily rejoice.
Foremost among these transformations was the fear that slowly, but
surely, by deciding to return to bharatanatyam voluntarily (as opposed to my
mother's doings), implied that I am now willing to be sculpted into the image of
that "good little Indian girl", a persona I struggled with from the time I was a
child. However, this is far from what came to pass. In fact, if anything, as I point
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1 7 1
out in the discussion of the role dance has played in Sejal's life, bharatnatyam has
helped her to find her voice and independence as an Indo-American.
Furthermore, essential components to the development of this particular
subjectivity are Viji and the Shakti school. In an interview, Sejal asserts that while
she cannot speak for other schools since she has only danced with Shakti, from
what she has heard, she does not think other dance schools are characterized by
the same gregariousness and forward-thinking attitude that circulates within
Shakti. Sejal attributes this to Viji's own strong and independent personality.
Similarly, I might not be a Shakti dancer, but the depiction of the confident
South Asian American women, firmly-grounded in herself, is what I identified
with the most. It is the image of Viji that predominates for me, and that holds the
most personal transformative power. Viji has come into herself by following her
heart.
You have to have faith. Good Lord! I have to have faith... that inner voice, that
instinct within me that says, "Do it! This is w hat...I have to do it." You cannot do
something if you don't love it. And, if you love it, just do it... This is the same thing. I
just love it [dance]. M y husband loves it with me. And, I think it's all God's grace that
we're able to make a living with it, and enjoy every moment that we spend with it. And, I
don't think it's chance. And I don't think it just happened. I think it was meant to be.
And so for that, I just feel 1 have to be grateful to God for this.
These words were spoken to me in our second to last conversation. It was
one of the more personal meetings where she shared the events leading up to her
marriage to Prakash, the couple's crucial decision to stay in Los Angeles, which
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1 7 2
subsequently revised the family structure of the Prakash household as well as the
future direction of Shakti. Understanding her unease with sharing such matters, I
had deliberately waited for some time to pass, before bringing up these topics. It
was my hopes that the more conversations we had, the more comfortable she
might feel in talking and sharing personal matters with me. Additionally,
through all her recollections, tracings, and countless ruminations over the history
of Shakti in our previous exchanges, I hoped that she would understand that
such matters as Prakash, the family, raising the kids, and so forth are an integral
part of where she is as a dancer, and where the dance school and company are
today. As I have mentioned before, for the Prakash household, work and home,
public and private, all inhabit porous boundaries, each necessarily constitutive of
the other. How could I discuss the school's opportunity to take two performances
to the Lincoln Center without delving into Prakash and Viji's decision to stay in
Los Angeles, and make Prakash the manager of Shakti?
However, there is more to this. There is also a personal desire to
understand how Viji treats her disruption of normative structures. In other
words, how does Viji look back on her and Prakash's decision to stay in Los
Angeles, and go full time with Shakti, effectively blurring the traditional roles of
"mother" and "father" as we know it? While this is a substantial break from the
normative family structures within the South Asian community, what I find even
more admirable is their motivation behind such a decision. In relinquishing the
job offer in Texas, Prakash and Viji were ready to give up financial security and
the freedom that accompanies such stability for the freedom derived from
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1 7 3
following one's heart. They were willing to take a risk— a gesture completely
unconventional for a South Asian American bourgeois. And yet, it was not
considered a "risk" by the couple because they were doing what felt right to
them.
I identify with this outlook—what feels right. It plays at the performativity
of normative schemas. Such "risks" are what seem to steer the course of Viji's life.
She did not plan to come to America. And yet, she migrated to the States in the
most traditional of all contexts—as the dutiful wife. She did not dream of
becoming a professional dancer, or making a career out of dancing. And yet, she
teaches and performs a dance form steeped in traditional values. She defies
traditions, but refuses to conceptualize such actions as such since they are not
overt acts of resistance, but gestures that are in rhythm with her self.
I find strength in such a narrative— in the fluidity that characterizes Viji's
dance with her self, her career, and home. And so, Viji allows me to revisit
bharatanatyam without the guise of the "good little Indian girl". For me, its
productive power lies not in evoking the past, but in a "homey" India, not the
kind of hominess that provides safety and warmth, but rather hints at the
familiar, the intimate; what speaks the closest to me and that always seem to lie
just outside of articulation.
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Asset Metadata

Creator Kumar, Anita (author)

Core Title Dancing with Shakti: Bharatanatyam and embodied performativity within the South Asian diaspora

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Visual Anthropology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anthropology, cultural,Biography,Dance,OAI-PMH Harvest,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Lutkehaus, Nancy (committee chair), Frank, Gelya (committee member), Jaikumar, Priya (committee member), Kondo, Dorinne (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-50577

Unique identifier UC11339134

Identifier 1435112.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-50577 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 1435112.pdf

Dmrecord 50577

Document Type Thesis

Rights Kumar, Anita

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA