Full Description
The story of the emerging professionalization of classical Indian dance forms in Britain is wrought with contradictions. Though becoming increasingly popular within mainstream culture, the forms lack the clear routes to vocational training so essential for creating a dance career in the traditional sense. Towards a British Natyam uses this lens to analyze the cultural, social, and political frameworks that make a profession possible within the arts. Innovatively drawing on the work of decolonial theorists and the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Gorringe illuminates the transformative potential of a classical Indian dance profession to decenter white supremacist modes of knowledge formation and recenter pluriversality.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Flourishing or Fragile? The Contradictory Context of Classical Indian Dance Forms in Britain
Chapter 1. Context: The BBC Young Dancer and the Professionalisation of South Asian Dance in Britain: A Snapshot of the Sector and Its Place within British Dance
Chapter 2. Professionalism :Of Work, Love and Money: Living to Dance - or Dancing to Live? What It Means to Be a 'Professional' Classical Indian Dance Artist in Britain
Chapter 3. Learning: Migration, Identity, and Making Professional Dancers
Chapter 4. Livelihood, Learning, Embodiment: 'Technical Habitus', Classical Indian Dance Forms and the Limits of the 'Versatile Dancer'
Chapter 5. Legitimacy: Professionalising Classical Indian Dance in Britain and Entering the 'National Cultural Canon'
Conclusion: Part of the 'British DNA'?
Appendix I: List of Judges and Mentors for the BBC Young Dancer
Appendix II: Table of South Asian Dance Tuition in British HE Institutions
Appendix III: Table of Members of the South Asian Dance Alliance
Appendix IV: Project Interlocutors
Bibliography
