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ABSTRACT
The article looks at the methodology used by dance-maker Mandeep Raikhy – for his works Queen Size and A Male Ant Has Straight Antennae - of using ‘stimuli’ in the choreographic process to incite and create appropriate movement principles. The usage of visual stimuli such as images, drawings, and observations, and textual or literary stimuli (fiction/non-fiction, words) can be said to hold the power to evoke ‘authentic’ movement from deep within, which can further be processed into choreography. The kinds of stimuli employed in Raikhy’s process, along with how he processes them, throw an interesting light on the needs of queer dance and choreography, while also expanding on the unique role and power of dance in queer discourse. How do images used by Raikhy metamorphose into movement, and how is movement thus conceived faithful to queerness? In what ways does text act as a motivator in working with a form that defies text? How does bodily text replace it? Once movement is generated from these stimuli, what choices does Raikhy make to choreograph, and how and why is a performance of this choreography effective in delivering a sense of queerness to the spectator (as well as being a political act)?
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Section 377 of Indian Penal Code defines ‘Unnatural offences’ as: Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.
2. See ‘’Queen-Size’ – a choreographic response to Section 377’ written by Garima Mishra.
3. See ‘Of spectatorship, privacy and dissent’ written by Neeraja Murthy, accessed at https://www.thehindu.com/society/Of-spectatorship-privacy-and-dissent/article17175355.ece in June 2020.
4. See full address at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lp6H4YYN-k, accessed in February 2020.
5. Jones, In Between Subjects. xxiii.
6. Foster, Choreographies of Gender, 10.
7. See ‘Queen Size [2016] 135 mins’ accessed at https://mandeepraikhy.wordpress.com/queensize/ in April 2021.
8. A Japanese ‘ethnographic’ sound designer and filmmaker.
9. See ‘A male ant has straight antennae- full version’ at https://vimeo.com/154162628, accessed in September 2019.
10. I refer to interviews Raikhy has given to various media outlets and websites, i.e. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/mandeepraikhy/a-male-ant-has-straight-antennae/ (accessed December 2017); http://ears.asia/past/interview-with-mandeep-raikhy/index.html (accessed on 20/03/2019); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=−0GUFgfER-4 (accessed on 20/03/2019); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZf2nGQEIUU (accessed on 15/07/2019); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0R14JNWsd8 (accessed on 15/07/2019); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOnE1RkAis (accessed on 17/03/2019). The narrative for this paper also builds on write-ups for his productions on Raikhy’s official website https://mandeepraikhy.wordpress.com/queensize/ (accessed on 13/03/2022), Gati Dance Forum’s emails, a Facebook page dedicated to Queen Size, and write-ups released by the venues/events/festivals where the work is being shown. My main source of in-depth information is an interview I conducted with Raikhy on June 2nd, 2019, in New Delhi.
11. Foster, Choreographies of Gender, 7.
12. See Wayne McGregor’s ‘A choreographer’s creative process in real time’ at https://www.ted.com/talks/wayne_mcgregor_a_choreographer_s_creative_process_in_real_time?language=en, accessed in March 2020.
13. A French Impressionist artist.
14. It is important to note imagery (visualisation here) is often assumed to be visual, but it can be aural as in imagining sounds or voice, sensorial as in imagining a texture, and kinaesthetic as in imagining movement without moving.
15. Raikhy’s Pinterest page accessed at https://in.pinterest.com/mandeepraikhy/ in March 2019.
16. Raikhy’s Pinterest page accessed at https://in.pinterest.com/mandeepraikhy/pins// in March 2019.
17. A ‘board’ on Pinterest is a term for a folder or collection of ‘pins’ or selected images.
18. The format of the poster presentation was that participants at the Institute walked around and ‘browsed’ various posters and asked questions and listened to discussions/answers. One question that came up with regard to the specific images I had chosen from Raikhy’s Pinterest was on the curious observation that the images were olden/Greek-mythical and whether that was a coincidence- i.e. whether it was intended to lay bare the time- tested validity of homosexual love or the archaic nature of the law that declared them ‘unnatural’ and offensive.
19. Croft, Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings, 1.
20. Interview with Raikhy, June 2019.
21. Jones, In Between Spaces. 185.
22. Interview with Raikhy, June, 2019.
23. Ibid.
24. Munoz, Disidentifications, 4.
25. Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist well known for his homoerotic art.
26. Interview with Raikhy, June 2019, as well as ‘Inhabiting the Male Body’, written by Devika Bakshi, accessed at http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/arts/inhabiting-the-male-body in June 2019.
27. Interview with Raikhy, ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Butt committed suicide in 2010. See http://www.asimbutt.pk/bio/, accessed in June 2019.
30. Reversing and challenging a Cartesian duality of male: female, masculine, feminine and public : private.
31. Interview with Raikhy, June 2019.
32. See Chaturvedi, ‘Breaking Stereotypes’, accessed at https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/pLCXF5Ha93w7FFndlCvAdJ/Breaking-stereotypes.html in December 2019.
33. Roy, A Little Book on Men.
34. Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse.
35. Saran’s article was first published in the Indian Express in January 2000, and is now available as an anthology of his writings called Lurkings (2000). Accessed at https://www.tarshi.net/inplainspeak/tag/nishit-saran-foundation/ in June 2021.
36. See Yusof, ‘Dance Riot’, accessed at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/dance-riot in February 2020.
37. Interview with Raikhy, June 2019.
38. Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse.
39. Saran, Lurkings.
40. Muñoz, Disidentifications, 4.
41. Interview with Raikhy, ibid.
42. The terms used within single quotes are from Raikhy’s interviews, kept unchanged by me within the essay.