But We Will Not Give Up the Categories! (De)valuing the Categories in South Asian Performance Traditions

Brahma Prakash

doi:10.33303/gpsv5n1-2a112

Authors

Brahma Prakash Jawaharlal Nehru University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4106-6359

Abstract

Interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches and practices are increasingly celebrated in a larger field of Theatre and Performance studies. However, the existing categories and divisions that are typically valued in Indian and South Asian contexts are often seen as sacrosanct divisions that inform artistic practices and institutional policies, such as the division based on dance, music, and theatre. Most of these categories and divisions are based on the Western discourses on theatre and performance practices, and in most cases, the artistic practices and cultural performances in India do not maintain such rigid boundaries between song, dance, music, or ritual and theatre. This essay offers a critique of categories and divisions existing in the encompassing field of theatre and performance studies in India. It is argued that these divisions not only create hierarchies of genre but also exclude the communities whose performance practices do not ascribe to the similar divisions and categories. They continue to perpetuate hierarchical values in terms of aesthetic and cultural taste. I argue that devaluing these categories would be a step further to a radical decolonization of the field of study. The essay also asks why decolonial discourses have informed diasporic South Asian scholarship, but have not had a similar appeal in their home countries.

Author Biography

Brahma Prakash, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Brahma Prakash is a leading cultural theorist from India and an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the ‘Folk Performance’ in India (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Body on the Barricades: Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India (forthcoming 2023). He was a fellow at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University, Germany (2021) and the CRASSH at Cambridge University, UK (2018-19). His popular columns on art, culture and politics frequently appear in Scroll, Wire, Outlook, Indian Cultural Forum and other media platforms. His opinions have also appeared in the BBC, Aljazeera, New Arab, Print and other popular podcasts in Hindi and English.

References

Alone, Y. S. “Caste life narratives, Visual Representation, and Protected Ignorance.” Biography, Vol. 40, No.1, , 2017, pp. 140–169. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2017.0007 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2017.0007

Arora, Swati. “A Manifesto to Decentre Theater and Performance Studies.” Studies in Theater and Performance. Vol. 41, No. 1, 2021, pp. 12–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2021.1881730 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2021.1881730

Bala, Sruti. “Decolonising Theater and Performance Studies: Tales from the Classroom.” Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies. Vol. 20, No. 3, 2017, pp. 333–345. https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGN2017.3.BALA DOI: https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGN2017.3.BALA

Banerji, Anurima, and Royona Mitra. Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies: Decolonizing Dance Discourses. Dance Studies Association, Vol. 40, 2020.

Blackburn, Stuart H. Singing of Birth and Death: Texts in Performance. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512800579 DOI: https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512800579

Chandra, Shefali. The Sexual Life of English: Languages of Caste and Desire in Colonial India. Duke University Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv120qscj DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv120qscj

Chibber, Vivek. Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital. Verso Books, 2014.

Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera. “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” South Atlantic Quarterly. Vol. 111, No. 1, 2012, pp. 95–109. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-1472612 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-1472612

Gopal, Priyamvada. “On Decolonisation and the University.” Textual Practice. Vol. 35, No. 6, 2021, pp. 873–899. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2021.1929561 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2021.1929561

Haygunde, Chandan. “Elgaar Parishad case: NIA arrests third KKM artiste, says all were in contact with Maoist leader Milind Teltumbde.” The Indian Express, September 9, 2020. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/elgaar-parishad-case-nia-arrests-third-kkm-artiste-says-all-were-in-contact-with-maoist-leader-milind-teltumbde-6588624/.

Hindu, The. “KKM activists surrender, deny having any links with Maoists.” May 7, 2013. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/kkm-activists-surrender-deny-having-any-links-with-maoists/article4692944.ece.

Jangam, Chinnaih. “Decolonizing Caste and Rethinking Social Justice in South Asia.” Virtual CASI Seminar, April 8, 2021, University of Pennsylvania. https://casi.sas.upenn.edu/events/chinnaiahjangam. 2021

Jangam, Chinnaih. “Politics of Identity and the Project of Writing History in Postcolonial India: A Dalit Critique.” Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 50, No. 40, 2015, pp. 63–70.

Kaur, Amandeep. “Framed, Captured and Gagged: The Performing Presence of Kabir Kala Manch.” Mellus-Mellow Journal. Vol. 5, 2015, pp. 76-88.

Manoharan, Karthick, et al. (editors) Rethinking Social Justice. Orient Blackswan, 2020.

Mitra, Royona. “Beyond Fixity: Akram Khan on the Politics of Dancing Heritages.” Rethinking Dance History, Edited by Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas, Routledge, 2017, pp. 32–43. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315544854-4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315544854-4

Morcom, Anna. “Following the People, Refracting Hindustani Music, and Critiquing Genre-Based Research.” Ethnomusicology. Vol. 66, No. 3, 2022, pp. 470–496. https://doi.org/10.5406/21567417.66.3.07 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5406/21567417.66.3.07

Narayana Rao, Velcheru. “Epics and Ideologies: Six Telugu Folk Epics.” Another Harmony: New Essays of Folklore of India, Edited by A.K. Ramanujan and S.H. Blackburn, University of California Press, 1986.

Prakash, Brahma. Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the ‘Folk Performance’ in India. Oxford University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199490813.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199490813.001.0001

Prakash, Brahma. “Dialogue with a Dancer.” Seminar Magazine, Vol. 753, May 2022.

Prakash, Brahma. Performers meet the Humanities: Underground Cultural Radicals Shaping the Overground Humanities in India. World Humanities Report, CHCI, 2022.

Patel, Shaista. “Complicating the Tale of ‘Two Indians”: Mapping ‘South Asian’ Complicity in White Settler Colonialism Along the Axis of Caste and Anti-Blackness.” Theory & event. Vol. 19, No. 4, Vol. 19 No. 4, 2016.

Rao, Shabari. 2020. Decolonizing Performance Pedagogy: A Position Paper from Bangalore, South India. Performance Research. Vol. 25, No. 8, pp. 9–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1930761 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2020.1930761

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. The Rise of the Global Left: The World Social Forum and Beyond. Zed Books, 2006. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350223516 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350223516

Sinha, Rakesh. “With Central Vista, Bose Statue, Narendra Modi is Decolonizing Indian Mind,” Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-decolonising-indian-mind-central-vista-bose-statue-rakesh-sinha-8150168/

Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. East African Publishers, 1986.

Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa. Moving the Centre. James Currey, 1993.