FUSE#5

The Problematic Danseuse
“courageous attempt”. Both dancers seemed to acknowledge that
works that test boundaries and challenge the status quo are up against
hegemonic forces. Censorship of the Chennai performance began with
the requirement from the authorities that we amend the script in parts.
Then came the instruction from representatives of the government-run
Museum Theatre (our performance venue) who had attended the stage
rehearsal, to cut out the final pose of one sequence. This seduction
scene had two characters, male and female, lying horizontal together
on stage, the female protagonist (myself) suggestively placing her
lower leg over his before the lights are dimmed, to suggest triumph.
Dance critic Rupa Srikanth’s review that appeared in the leading
mainstream newspaper The Hindu emphasizes the expectations of
“dignity” that are placed on a Bharatanatyam dancer. Srikanth writes:
Strong words work well in theatre, but the stylization in dance
presupposes a certain measure of restraint… The graphic detailing of
the sexual encounters left nothing to imagination; such scenes actually
bring down art to its lowest denominator… It must be mentioned here
that the square stance that Nirmala adopted in her soliloquy, Odissi
chauka 9 -style, also did not do her dignified dance any credit (2008).
Irigaray’s emphasis—on altering the feminine style “as an excess
that exceeds common sense”, rather than reproducing or limiting its
expression within the parameters of masculine discourse (Lehtinen
2014: 78), becomes pertinent here. It lends tangibility to the existence
of strict boundaries in Bharatanatyam, evident through the praise I received
for my “courage” as well in Srikanth’s writing which reflects the
imposition of self-control, the denial of freedom for sexual expression
and ultimately the demand that the Bharatanatyam dancer reflect a
level of purity that invokes caste-based stratifications 10 .
The existence of Bharatanatyam rests, after all, on the expunging
of the hereditary Devadasi11 dancer as a result of “a female sexuality
that was exercised outside the acceptable borders of middle class
and upper caste womanhood” 12 (Hubel 2005: 133). Sociologist Amrit
Srinivasan’s seminal paper The Hindu Temple-Dancer: Prostitute or
Nun? describes the Devadasi as a “good and holy creature”, now “corrupted”
and to be replaced. The revivalists (E. Krishna Iyer, Rukmini
Devi Arundale), whose role it was to return the art form to its “pristine
glory”, operated within notions of “past purity” and “present sin”, in
weeding out the “profane” aspects of the “sacred” dance form (1983:
90, 95–96). Various aspects of the Devadasi’s dance form Sadir are
said to have been discarded in its purification/sanitization. Songs or
parts of songs that were considered overtly erotic were erased from the
repertoire (Allen 1997: 225). Rati-mudras (sexual hand gestures) denoting
various postures in sexual union that are described in medieval
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