In search of the choreographies of daily life and struggle

Abstract

This essay is a reflection on the questions that have arisen during and consequently complicated the creative process as I have worked to infuse my choreographic work with social justice. Some questions have come from the troubling association of dance with entertainment only, ultimately broadening out to further questions about the function and possibilities of dance. Others have come from charges by activists that dance does not ultimately ‘deliver’ legislation that saves lives. Why dance then? In reflecting on these such questions I have sought to theorize my practice and parse out the ambiguities and contestations that necessarily complicate a practice that is intensely physical but also immediately metaphoric, and lasts only in the moment, in the labor of dancing bodies. Particularly important for me have been questions around dance and South Asian women's identities.

Acknowledgements

For many updates on these ongoing struggles and efforts I am indebted to my friends across South Asia, who use several online tools as effective organizing tools. I am particularly thankful to Mumbai-based lawyer and activist Kamayani Bali Mahabal for her daily ‘notes’ and ‘updates.’

Notes

^1. This English translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's Urdu poem ‘Bol, ki lafs azad hei teri…’ is by Azfar Hussain in Reading About the World.

^2. Accessed 24 December 2009 from http://www.mosop.org/ – the website for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People.

^3. There is a deliberate oscillation on my part between locating myself in South Asia and in India. While politically I locate myself in South Asia, when I refer to specifics of dance it is important to site/cite my cultural context with accuracy in order to avoid the implication that Indian dance can stand in for dance across all of South Asia.

^4. The move from ‘I’ to ‘us’ in speaking about my work indicates a methodological and political shift in my artistic trajectory, from working as a solo artist to working as part of a collective both in terms of the research and creative process and in terms of managing these projects.