Abstract
As South Asian arts—especially Indian classical dance—gain increasing prominence in transnational settings, travel to India for artistic training has become a major milestone for both amateurs and aspiring professionals. The global networks that are thus instantiated enable diasporic members to return to the ‘homeland’ of their art forms and communities, as well as non-diasporic enthusiasts—many of whom first encounter South Asian arts in the diaspora—the opportunity to learn their chosen art in its ‘original’ context. In this paper, I analyse this global network of artists to study the cross-cultural interactions that are made possible as a result. Some of the questions to be addressed include: How does artistic training in India serve to provide other forms of cultural education for diasporic and non-diasporic artists? How does the contemporary transnational practice of Indian classical dance sustain and/or produce particular identities relating to nation-culture, race and ethnicity? What is the relationship between dance practices in India and constructions of multicultural identity abroad? Drawing on ethnographic and historical research on the performance of Indian classical dance in the diasporic and multicultural context, this paper is also informed by my extensive experience as a diasporic Indian classical (Odissi) dancer in Canada. As travel to India for training becomes easier for diasporic and non-diasporic dancers, as well as something that is to be expected to evidence their commitment and proficiency, the question arises as to whether or not the ways in which South Asian arts are being perceived in India and abroad are changing. As I demonstrate, the fact that these national arts are regarded as rooted in India as their land of origin serves to cement earlier nationalist constructs even as these dance practices are shaped by contemporary transnational politics of multiculturalism and racial formation.
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- 1.
These politics are not of course limited to Canada, but manifest in other multicultural contexts I have studied as well. In maintaining this point, it is not my intention to treat these various multicultural locations—from Canada, the US and the UK, to elsewhere in Europe and Australia—as synonymous, for the multicultural policies and practices of each of these states are historically, socially and politically distinctive. Instead, tracing the similarities between different multicultural contexts draws attention to the transnational network in which Indian classical dance is presently practised, and the extent to which it is impacted upon by various multicultural (racialising) narratives. In other words, the Canadian context is shown to be part of the larger global circulation of Indian classical dance in the transnational present.
- 2.
This is not to say that other forms of Indian classical dance are not present in the diaspora but that these other styles are less visible and have fewer practitioners relative to Bharatanatyam (from South India), Kathak (from North India), and Odissi (from East India). While I unfortunately do not have the space here to go into detail about why dancers choose the particular style(s) of Indian classical dance that they do, accessibility—that is, which schools/teachers are available in a given location—is a major factor. For diasporic dancers, familial connections to the regions associated with particular classical dance forms may also be a factor, but this is not always the case; indeed, many diasporic dancers practise styles of Indian classical dance associated with regions to which they have no familial relation. Socio-economic status does not appear to factor in the specific selection of one classical dance style over another, although practitioners of Indian classical dance more generally, especially amongst those in the diaspora, do tend to come from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds. This class privilege is reflective of the association between Indian classical dance and middle-class respectability achieved through the twentieth century nationalist reconstruction of these dance forms in India.
- 3.
The place of Indian dance and the Indian dancer in colonial discourses marks another point in the constitution of this relationship between dance and essentialised Indian identity. Although I discuss colonial representations of Indian dance/rs elsewhere (Thobani 2017), this discussion is beyond the scope of the present paper.
- 4.
That dancers apply for and receive funding does not detract from the fact that the mobility of dancers indicates their relative class privilege; indeed, such funding is often insufficient and has to be supplemented by personal income. Furthermore, dancers must be in a position where they can afford to take off extended periods of time from work or school to travel and pursue an already expensive hobby.
- 5.
While detailed analysis of the economic impact of this transnational market on Indian producers is unfortunately beyond the scope of the current paper, it is interesting to note that enterprising businesses have begun to offer tailoring services and other goods related to Indian classical dance costumes for online purchase, indicating the extent to which dancers abroad are seen to constitute a new and likely lucrative market for producers in India. The convenience of this transnational online shopping comes at a (premium) cost, for items are sold at prices higher than one would expect to find if one were purchasing these items in India. This transnational circulation of goods via online platforms is an extension of the previous generation of diasporic dancers who would order costumes through family and/or known community members who happened to be travelling to India.
- 6.
While on fieldwork in India, there were a number of foreign dancers from elsewhere in Asia who were there to train, however the overwhelming majority of non-South Asian students I encountered who practise in, and travel from, North America and Europe are white. My focus on Western multicultural societies limits my analysis to this second group.
- 7.
There is historical precedent for dancers, mostly from America and Europe, moving to India permanently for dance and adopting various aspects of the ‘Indian lifestyle’ including, dress, language, cooking skills, eating habits and other local craft activities. The practice of ‘going native’ was of course not specific to dancers, having been preceded by some of the earliest arrivals of the East India Company (Hutnyk 2000: 91).
- 8.
The Chennai dance scene is notorious for its exclusive nature and authoritative claim in assessing Bharatanatyam, both within India and abroad. One British South Asian dancer captured this in her interview:
‘Chennai is undoubtedly the home of Bharatanatyam. So there is a root and something very grounded about that… I’m hopefully going to perform there this December. It will be my first time performing in Chennai; I finally feel ready after however many years of dancing. And it’s going to be scary. Undoubtedly…it’s going to be a scary process because, I mean when I go to India, I feel like I can perpetually be a student there because all the grand old masters are there. They’ll always be there, because if they’re not there, they’ll be replaced by the next generation. And so there’s always that aspect to it as the centre of the Bharatanatyam universe’.
Note how this dancer slips between Chennai and India (although this does not diminish the role of Chennai in the ‘Bharatanatyam universe’), as well as how she constructs Chennai/India as timeless by stating that ‘the grand old masters’ will ‘always be there’ even when they are ‘replaced by the next generation’. See Thobani (2017) for more on the implication of particular constructions of historical narratives in contemporary dance practices.
- 9.
Elsewhere I examine the cultural cues that are cited by dancers in order to make their dance more ‘authentic’. Notably, the ability to capture the lajja, grace and coyness associated with Indian femininity is seen to be the greatest indicator of one’s success in this respect.
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Thobani, S. (2019). Training in the Homeland: Negotiating Artistic Travel in the Transnational Field of Indian Classical Dance. In: Gayithri, K., Hariharan, B., Chattopadhyay, S. (eds) Nation-Building, Education and Culture in India and Canada. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6741-0_16
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