Dancing Odissi: Paratopic Performances of Gender and State

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Anurima Banerji explores how dance shifts from regional art to global spectacle, highlighting state regulation and gender performance.

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Anurima Banerji explores how dance shifts from regional art to global spectacle, highlighting state regulation and gender performance.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 4, 2024

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This video video discusses Ori, a classical dance form from the Indian state of Odisha, which gained recognition from the Indian government around 1960. Ori is a blend of various artistic traditions, including the Mahari dance, UA technique, modern Oriya theater, and stylized everyday movements. The dance showcases a complex combination of choreography and performance influenced by ancient texts like the Natyashastra and the region's artistic heritage.

Throughout the mid-20th century, efforts were made to reconstruct and develop Ori as part of India's cultural renaissance post-independence. The dance is characterized by signature positions that create an "S-curve" in the body and emphasizes both lyrical and rhythmic patterns. Additionally, Ori includes storytelling elements and maintains a continuous flow of movement.

The author's motivation for researching Ori stemmed from a personal inquiry into its intricate histories and narratives, further driven by formal training under respected Gurus. The research reveals that Ori's roots may trace back to ancient dances like Ra Magdi, and it contests the notion that classical Indian dances solely serve religious purposes, highlighting multiple religious and secular influences.

The author notes that throughout history, dance in Odisha has had political significance, reflecting relationships between the state and the art form. The Mahari tradition and its transformation over time demonstrate the interplay between dance, power, and cultural identity. The book aims to illustrate the complex interplay of dance and politics and encourage a broader understanding of Ori as both an aesthetic and politically significant form, revealing its historical narratives and aesthetic possibilities.

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Or see is one of the eight dance forms

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that are currently recognized as classical

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by the Indian government.

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It achieved this recognition in around 1960.

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So or see is a form

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that developed in the Eastern Indian state of Orisha,

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and it's an amalgam of four different art forms.

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The Mahari dance,

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which is a female ritual specialist tradition, enshrined

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around the 11th century in the region in the Hindu temples,

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the UA technique, which is a tradition of young boys

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embodying the female mythological figure, Radha on stage.

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And this is a practice associated with

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Bhati religious movements.

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And bhati was a form of direct devotion that was preached

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by the saints

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and figures associated with the movement as opposed

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to having to go to the temple

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to have a mediated relationship with the divine.

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The third influence is the modern Oria theater, which

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took shape in the 1930s.

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And the fourth real source is stylized tavian

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everyday movements.

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So the main movement principles

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and figurations in Nordic also draw on the choreographic

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codes listed in the Naati Shara,

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which is an ancient treaties on performance

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and the visual art

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and sculptural heritage of the Orisha region.

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But all of these influences were folded into the form

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in the mid 20th century.

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It's not that there's an unbroken lineage from an ancient

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period into the present,

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but the form was actively developed as part

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of India's cultural reconstruction efforts in the

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1950s when India, right

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after India achieved independence in 1947.

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So while it goes to ancient sources, it's an active

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conscious effort to create a form in order to ize it.

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So the dance itself is marked by four signature positions,

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which are both linear and curve linear.

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The sum of hunger is a simple standing position.

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The ab hunger is an asymmetrical stance.

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Um, choke is a position

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where the arms are bent at the elbows

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and then the knees are turned out,

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and so it's a sitting position.

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And three hung also is, a turned out position

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with, with the knees, on either side

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with one foot in front of the other.

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But this creates a three bends in the body

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at the knee, the torso and the neck.

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And this creates what we call an s-curve

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for the body in the form.

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Ori also divides the body

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Into upper and lower spheres at the navel.

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And then the transversal torso movement is a distinction

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of the form and the dance incorporates both lyrical

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and rhythmic patterns,

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and it includes abstract formalist

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elements alongside storytelling components.

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And energetically as a dance,

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it represents a continuous flow, meaning

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that the upper body in specific is always in motion.

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And there's some moments of arrest

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that punctuate the phrasing.

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In terms of the book, there were multiple

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motivations for writing it.

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The first that it was a personal inquiry into an immensely

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intricate dance form that intertwined

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so many fascinating histories.

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And this was the reality I came to understand initially

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as a student in training,

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and it was the practice then that opened up many vistas

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for historical exploration aesthetic as well as political.

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I was curious about the form

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and the narratives that had been passed down to me

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from the gurus that I worked with who really took care

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to stitch together the stories about the origins

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and purposes of the dance.

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When I studied with them, I first started learning the form

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as a child with guru Tia in Delhi,

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and later did advanced training with Guru Moji

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who taught at Binti University in K Kata.

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And a trip I took with his family

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to Orisha really spurred my curiosity about the practice.

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As I learned, it was framed as the oldest classical dance.

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And so I wanted to learn more

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and engage with a history directly

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and pursue doctoral studies so that I could deeply study it,

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and then later kept pursuing further inquiry.

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As, as an academic, many scholars have claimed

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that the roots of

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or Siegel back to a dance called Ra Magdi,

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which is mentioned in the Nachi Shara, which is dated to

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between the second century be BCE

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to the second century ce.

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In fact. So

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because of its mention in this compendium is said

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to have been prevalent in that ancient period

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and possibly prior to it.

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In my research, I found evidence

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of dance in the Oresa region through literary

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and epigraphic sources,

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but a standing myth connected to Ori,

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and in fact many of the classic size Indian dances is

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that they're imbued with religiosity,

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especially Hindu religiosity,

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and that they have purely devotional aims.

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My research contested that monolithic reading

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because religion is a key influence,

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but not the only influence on the dances.

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I found that historically dance

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and Orissa had multiple religious influences from Buddhism

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to Islam to Christianity, to various animist

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and, tribal traditions.

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And it also had a secular or worldly identity.

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And it was associated very much with a political function

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because the royal figures who supported the form through

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its many stages over time, through its developments

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and its identity as these other discreet forms

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in different historical, moments, they saw the dance

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as a mode of expressing their power.

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They saw dance as a way to cultivate relations

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with their subjects to seal their prestige

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and indicate their beneficence as well

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as signal their elite cultural position.

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Also, in the ancient period, dance operated in the region

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as the mode of moral instruction,

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as the society was stratified on the basis of caste class

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and gender among other dynamics,

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knowledge was really the purview of social elites.

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Dance was used as a way of conveying the value systems

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of the privileged to the masses now,

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and the dominant narrative of the dance holds

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that ODC was a Hindu dance that ended up being a fallen form

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as a result of Muslim rule

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and political intervention in the region starting in the

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15th century, I did not find that to be the case.

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I found that view to be in fact indicative

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of a do mode of historiography that

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has a Hindu bias

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and also seeks to

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alienate Muslim subjects from an Indian identification.

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So I actually found that the GPU tradition in fact,

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became institutionalized under Maal rule,

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and that the Mahari tradition,

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which was allegedly displaced according to

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the conventional narrative, actually continued

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into the period of British colonialism

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and in the post-colonial era for a brief time.

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So it was really in the era of colonial modernity that

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many dance forms were targeted by colonial

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and native activists and officials,

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and discouraged as a tradition in Orissa in the 1960s

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because of a general

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and problematic association of various kinds

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of dance traditions, especially those performed by

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women dancers, as

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associated with prostitution sex work

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and concubine edge.

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And there were complex social

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attitudes towards these practices as a result.

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And the mahari tradition, for instance,

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then became deinstitutionalized

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and is no longer in service at the juggernaut pur temple

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where it was a tradition for a thousand years.

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So the book was really designed

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to examine the key historical breaks

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and shifts in Odic C'S trajectory, what led to its making

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in the 1950s through

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and intertwining of the various practices

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and textual

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and artistic sources that I mentioned previously.

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And I conducted interdisciplinary research

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by doing extensive archival research,

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ethnographic field work

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and studying the literary artistic

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and material culture linked to ODC dance,

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especially studying the temples

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and the archeological monuments associated with it.

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And of course, I watched performances.

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I took part in dance classes

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and workshops in order

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to better inhabit the different styles that compose

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or DC today and interviewing many of the practitioners,

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both dance teachers, students,

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and well-known exponents of the form.

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When I began the research, I noticed that ODC,

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as I said, was framed as the oldest classical form,

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and this was on the basis of the mention

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of apparently the root form of the ti in the n as well

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as a series of dance release

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that appeared at a site called the Rani Caves,

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which is just outside the city of Bernet in Orisha.

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And I went to that site

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and I realized that the reliefs

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that are allegedly depicting the dance

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show dance occurring in pastoral spaces,

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dance occurring in courts,

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dance occurring in social situations.

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And so that was my first hint, my first research clue

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that dance didn't exist only

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as a temple ritual historically.

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And in fact, I later found out that temples

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as structures only originated around the fifth century

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because that's when they started to build stone edifices.

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Prior to this time, there wasn't a whole culture of

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temple building in the way that we understand it today.

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And so this also opened up the possibility for thinking

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through the various kinds of relationship that dance had

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to the society and more specifically in relation

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to the state because there are some epic graphs

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at the site at the U caves, which,

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holds the ran caves.

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There's also an inscription there from the king

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who was a gen king in the first century, BCE,

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who mentioned that he sponsored dance in order to

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give pleasure to his subjects

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and to again indicate his position

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as a culturally sophisticated person.

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And what I realized at this time is

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that dance wasn't only fulfilling a ritual function,

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it was fulfilling a political function.

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So it was from that time that I started to trace

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Rd C's trajectory,

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or at least the antecedents of Rd c,

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what we call Rd C today,

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how those antecedents developed in

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relationship to the state.

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So at that time, dance

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and ora was very much tied to the political function

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of the monarchy.

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And later I also found out that the mahari rituals,

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which were established around the 11th century in Oria

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were also cultivated by the royal regimes.

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And so this was very interesting

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because it showed me

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that there was an inordinate interest in dance on behalf

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of state agents, and it led me to question why,

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why was there this special relationship between dance

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and the state at different historical moments?

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So what I found out is that dance operated

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as a significant form for the state,

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whether it was being targeted in negative terms

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or celebrated in positive terms.

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And this was true of the pre-colonial period,

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the colonial period, what is referred to often as

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the mogul period of history.

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Um, and what we see repeatedly is this assertion

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by the state that dance is an important social activity.

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And so what I see over time is that it developed really

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as a local stage form

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and then it became institutionalized as a temple tradition.

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It also existed as

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a street form or as part of the PTI religious movement

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because that's when the UA form when it came into being,

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it was trying to ize on behalf of the bakhti movement

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to attract proponents outside of the dominant

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orthodox religious sphere.

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And you see a whole range of ways in which

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the state is mobilizing a relationship

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to dance again in order to create a relationship

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with its subjects.

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And in order to assert the extraordinary power

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Of the royalty.

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And this is why I think in art science specific,

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there was a constant relationship between dance

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and the state because art was not simply,

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a woven into the social fabric.

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It was seen as a highly politicized activity.

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And over time it kept being mobilized by the state.

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The colonial regime also saw dance as an activity it wanted

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to target when it wanted to actually marginalize or

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and cultural values and orian heritage practices.

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And later on we see that the post-colonial state

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also took up the regulation of dance as one

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of its activities.

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And again, it saw dance then as a sign

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of archaic cultural elements that had to be excised

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for the modern nation state to come into being.

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And so we see that dance operated very much

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in this political struggle over time, whether it was

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privileged by some royal authorities and state authorities,

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or whether it was then the attempt was made

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to marginalize it as well in certain moments

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by extraordinary genders, I wanted to create a term

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that would speak to the way in which

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non-normative gendered practices were for grounded

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by state authorities over time in relation

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to the antecedents of the ODC forum

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and then in the modern period linked

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to the ODC practice itself.

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So the reason I chose extraordinary genders is

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that often we think of non-normative gender expressions

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in the Western frame as queer, broadly speaking,

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queerness signals non normativity, both in terms

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of gender and sexuality.

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When I was doing my study, I wanted to separate the study

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of gender and sexuality

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because I actually had no insight into

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the very complex sexuality that was,

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embraced by the Mahari

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and ua, for example,

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who were the ritual performers from which,

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or DC draws much of its aesthetic and movement codes

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and of course its histories.

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So the extraordinary genders became a term that I could use

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to signal the fact that mahari

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and gowa in particular were extraordinary in relation

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to the normative valuations prescribed by society.

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The Mahar, for example, were

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Women who held the highest position

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in the temple order at the au Temple in Puri in Orisha.

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And they were female servit in that tradition.

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And their profession was to

18:08.105 --> 18:09.485
create dances

18:10.305 --> 18:14.085
and deliver song repertoires that

18:15.135 --> 18:18.405
would not only entertain the gods.

18:18.835 --> 18:19.925
Juna rah

18:19.945 --> 18:23.845
and balam at the Pur temple were seen as living entities.

18:24.625 --> 18:27.805
Um, and the Mahari were seen as their wives,

18:28.105 --> 18:29.245
the wives of Juna.

18:30.305 --> 18:34.645
And the Mahari also had an elevated social position

18:35.145 --> 18:37.405
in that they weren't expected to, to adhere

18:37.505 --> 18:39.245
to the norms for ordinary women.

18:39.995 --> 18:43.965
They did not have to be married to men.

18:45.075 --> 18:46.165
They did not have

18:46.165 --> 18:49.085
to participate in heteronormative reproduction.

18:49.835 --> 18:54.045
They did not have to, abide by other kinds

18:54.045 --> 18:57.085
of social codes that were prescribed for ordinary women.

18:57.085 --> 19:01.045
They had access to wealth, to income, to education,

19:01.785 --> 19:03.165
to ritual knowledge.

19:03.905 --> 19:06.245
And so they held this elevated position

19:06.825 --> 19:08.605
in the orian social structure.

19:09.425 --> 19:13.365
And that's why I named them as inhabiting this sphere

19:13.385 --> 19:15.405
of the extraordinary gender spectrum.

19:16.345 --> 19:20.005
The Go Tip was also, that was a very interesting phenomenon

19:20.655 --> 19:24.965
where the UA were young boys

19:25.705 --> 19:28.965
who were embodying the figure of Radha.

19:29.605 --> 19:33.285
Radha is a divine figure who is seen as the consort

19:33.865 --> 19:36.565
of the God Krishna, who is very much a celebrated

19:37.185 --> 19:41.885
God in Orisha as a result of the PTI tradition,

19:42.575 --> 19:46.885
which really became consolidated in Orisha

19:47.225 --> 19:50.725
around the 15th to 16th centuries.

19:51.745 --> 19:56.325
And so these young boys were said

19:56.545 --> 20:00.645
to have to embody rather on stage in order

20:00.645 --> 20:02.725
to express their devotion to Krishna.

20:03.185 --> 20:05.125
And because the child's body was seen

20:05.145 --> 20:08.805
as a malleable body in its prepubescent phase,

20:09.945 --> 20:14.045
it was ripe for inscription around gender.

20:14.745 --> 20:17.725
And the Tupu tradition also saw gender.

20:18.485 --> 20:22.205
I would argue as then a floating property that could be

20:22.955 --> 20:27.405
enacted by male or female actors.

20:28.585 --> 20:31.605
And so because female

20:32.515 --> 20:35.365
dancers were already seen as inhabiting

20:36.795 --> 20:40.275
these feminized properties according

20:40.275 --> 20:42.235
to the normative gender thinking,

20:43.185 --> 20:46.895
these young boys then would be encouraged

20:46.895 --> 20:49.625
to embody Radha to

20:50.135 --> 20:53.385
express again their devotion to Krishna.

20:53.885 --> 20:57.945
And the dancing was a way also of consolidating

20:58.415 --> 20:59.665
that devotional mood.

21:00.605 --> 21:04.065
And the dancing also was a strong form of entertainment

21:04.175 --> 21:08.505
that would then attract followers to the PTI tradition.

21:08.615 --> 21:10.945
That was part of the motivation for the develop,

21:10.965 --> 21:12.825
the development of the Go Tippo form.

21:13.965 --> 21:18.585
So these two were enactments of extraordinary gender.

21:18.935 --> 21:21.025
They resided outside the

21:21.785 --> 21:23.945
conventional gender patternings

21:23.945 --> 21:25.785
that were prescribed at the time,

21:26.765 --> 21:31.035
and they were also exhibiting a phenomenon

21:31.065 --> 21:35.675
that was actually quite widespread in the subcontinent

21:36.375 --> 21:39.035
of interrupting binary gender codes.

21:39.495 --> 21:42.955
In fact, historically throughout Indian history,

21:43.095 --> 21:45.475
we see evidence that there was at least acknowledgement

21:45.615 --> 21:46.675
of three genders.

21:47.215 --> 21:49.435
So crossing genders in performance

21:50.295 --> 21:53.715
or enacting gender norms that were outside

21:53.715 --> 21:56.315
of the conventions assigned by the social structure

21:56.385 --> 21:59.155
that was also very much tied

21:59.215 --> 22:02.475
to the performance history in the subcontinent.

22:03.215 --> 22:04.555
So we see that

22:05.295 --> 22:09.515
by naming these practices in terms of extraordinary gender,

22:10.215 --> 22:14.315
we can be very specific about how they're literally

22:14.665 --> 22:16.035
outside the ordinary,

22:16.815 --> 22:20.795
and also that they are in some way marked

22:21.695 --> 22:25.995
for special consideration in terms of their epistemologies,

22:26.295 --> 22:29.595
in terms of, in terms of the practices they engender,

22:29.735 --> 22:33.275
in terms of how they take us out of everyday life

22:33.975 --> 22:35.755
and point to other possibilities

22:36.225 --> 22:38.755
outside the standard lexicons of gender.

22:39.535 --> 22:41.915
So this is why I wanted to

22:42.555 --> 22:45.035
identify this particular phenomenon.

22:45.215 --> 22:50.155
The Protopia refers to a space of alterity that is carved

22:50.775 --> 22:51.995
out by dancing bodies,

22:52.975 --> 22:57.195
and so it generates an epistemology, which is different than

22:57.355 --> 22:59.715
that of the dominant value system.

23:00.575 --> 23:04.555
But importantly, it doesn't find its identification

23:05.535 --> 23:07.755
as a counter hegemonic expression

23:07.755 --> 23:09.435
or as a resistive expression.

23:10.255 --> 23:11.355
It may be read that way,

23:11.655 --> 23:13.755
but that doesn't mean that at its core it is.

23:14.825 --> 23:17.515
It's about a phenomenon that is generated

23:17.745 --> 23:21.835
through moving bodies to create different kinds

23:21.855 --> 23:26.195
of knowledge systems, different kinds of value systems

23:27.505 --> 23:30.195
that again, lie adjacent to the norm,

23:31.375 --> 23:36.135
but don't define their own,

23:36.135 --> 23:39.375
normative structures in relation to what is dominant.

23:40.755 --> 23:45.015
So the para atopic is a parallel ground that's carved out

23:45.825 --> 23:47.125
by dance performance

23:47.865 --> 23:50.765
and it's temporal, yet it has lasting effects.

23:51.665 --> 23:54.325
So it has both an ephemeral quality as well

23:54.325 --> 23:56.805
as a durational quality in that

23:57.665 --> 24:01.365
it creates new cultural realities,

24:01.905 --> 24:06.605
new cultural imperatives that don't necessarily interrupt

24:06.675 --> 24:07.685
that which is dominant,

24:08.385 --> 24:11.765
but certainly multiply what is possible in terms

24:11.765 --> 24:13.885
of the social reality through performance.

24:14.395 --> 24:17.325
What I hope is that they'll understand Ori

24:17.325 --> 24:19.885
as a very complex aesthetic and political form,

24:19.995 --> 24:24.365
because in popular understandings, dance is often diminished

24:25.065 --> 24:26.765
as having political significance.

24:27.195 --> 24:29.565
It's seen often in purely aesthetic terms.

24:30.585 --> 24:33.685
We don't often consider the interrelationship between art

24:33.685 --> 24:37.765
and politics and in in this class size

24:37.765 --> 24:39.085
dance space in particular.

24:39.345 --> 24:42.165
And I hope that the book reveals the interrelationship

24:42.835 --> 24:45.605
between ODC dance and the state over time

24:45.785 --> 24:49.045
and shows readers an alternative narrative that opens up

24:49.595 --> 24:53.365
both their sense of the importance of the dance practice

24:53.505 --> 24:55.285
and its choreographic potentials.

24:55.475 --> 24:58.405
Because so often the narrative about the dance

24:59.285 --> 25:01.365
determines its choreographic protocols.

25:01.745 --> 25:05.285
So by opening up the histories of the form, we also open up

25:05.865 --> 25:07.725
its aesthetic possibilities.

Odissi: A Classical Dance of Orissa

00:00:00 - Or see is one of the eight dance forms that are currently recognized as classical by the Indian government. It achieved this recognition in around 1960. So or see is a form that developed in the Eastern Indian state of Orisha, and it's an amalgam of four different art forms. The Mahari dance, which is a female ritual specialist tradition, enshrined around the 11th century in the region in the Hindu temples,
00:00:37 - embodying the female mythological figure, Radha on stage. And this is a practice associated with Bhati religious movements. And bhati was a form of direct devotion that was preached by the saints and figures associated with the movement as opposed to having to go to the temple to have a mediated relationship with the divine.
00:01:06 - took shape in the 1930s. And the fourth real source is stylized tavian everyday movements. So the main movement principles and figurations in Nordic also draw on the choreographic codes listed in the Naati Shara, which is an ancient treaties on performance and the visual art and sculptural heritage of the Orisha region. But all of these influences were folded into the form
00:01:38 - It's not that there's an unbroken lineage from an ancient period into the present, but the form was actively developed as part of India's cultural reconstruction efforts in the 1950s when India, right after India achieved independence in 1947. So while it goes to ancient sources, it's an active conscious effort to create a form in order to ize it.
00:02:13 - which are both linear and curve linear. The sum of hunger is a simple standing position. The ab hunger is an asymmetrical stance. choke is a position where the arms are bent at the elbows and then the knees are turned out, and so it's a sitting position. And three hung also is, a turned out position with, with the knees, on either side
00:02:44 - But this creates a three bends in the body at the knee, the torso and the neck. And this creates what we call an s-curve for the body in the form. Ori also divides the body Into upper and lower spheres at the navel. And then the transversal torso movement is a distinction of the form and the dance incorporates both lyrical and rhythmic patterns,

Exploring the Historical Significance of Orissi Dance

00:03:17 - elements alongside storytelling components. And energetically as a dance, it represents a continuous flow, meaning that the upper body in specific is always in motion. And there's some moments of arrest that punctuate the phrasing. In terms of the book, there were multiple motivations for writing it. The first that it was a personal inquiry into an immensely
00:03:46 - so many fascinating histories. And this was the reality I came to understand initially as a student in training, and it was the practice then that opened up many vistas for historical exploration aesthetic as well as political. I was curious about the form and the narratives that had been passed down to me from the gurus that I worked with who really took care to stitch together the stories about the origins
00:04:15 - When I studied with them, I first started learning the form as a child with guru Tia in Delhi, and later did advanced training with Guru Moji who taught at Binti University in K Kata. And a trip I took with his family to Orisha really spurred my curiosity about the practice. As I learned, it was framed as the oldest classical dance. And so I wanted to learn more and engage with a history directly
00:04:50 - and then later kept pursuing further inquiry. As, as an academic, many scholars have claimed that the roots of or Siegel back to a dance called Ra Magdi, which is mentioned in the Nachi Shara, which is dated to between the second century be BCE to the second century ce. In fact. So because of its mention in this compendium is said
00:05:22 - and possibly prior to it. In my research, I found evidence of dance in the Oresa region through literary and epigraphic sources, but a standing myth connected to Ori, and in fact many of the classic size Indian dances is that they're imbued with religiosity, especially Hindu religiosity, and that they have purely devotional aims. My research contested that monolithic reading
00:05:53 - but not the only influence on the dances. I found that historically dance and Orissa had multiple religious influences from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity, to various animist and, tribal traditions. And it also had a secular or worldly identity. And it was associated very much with a political function because the royal figures who supported the form through

Historical Power Dynamics of ODC Dance

00:06:26 - and its identity as these other discreet forms in different historical, moments, they saw the dance as a mode of expressing their power. They saw dance as a way to cultivate relations with their subjects to seal their prestige and indicate their beneficence as well as signal their elite cultural position. Also, in the ancient period, dance operated in the region
00:06:56 - as the society was stratified on the basis of caste class and gender among other dynamics, knowledge was really the purview of social elites. Dance was used as a way of conveying the value systems of the privileged to the masses now, and the dominant narrative of the dance holds that ODC was a Hindu dance that ended up being a fallen form as a result of Muslim rule
00:07:27 - 15th century, I did not find that to be the case. I found that view to be in fact indicative of a do mode of historiography that has a Hindu bias and also seeks to alienate Muslim subjects from an Indian identification. So I actually found that the GPU tradition in fact,
00:07:59 - and that the Mahari tradition, which was allegedly displaced according to the conventional narrative, actually continued into the period of British colonialism and in the post-colonial era for a brief time. So it was really in the era of colonial modernity that many dance forms were targeted by colonial and native activists and officials, and discouraged as a tradition in Orissa in the 1960s
00:08:31 - and problematic association of various kinds of dance traditions, especially those performed by women dancers, as associated with prostitution sex work and concubine edge. And there were complex social attitudes towards these practices as a result. And the mahari tradition, for instance,
00:09:04 - and is no longer in service at the juggernaut pur temple where it was a tradition for a thousand years. So the book was really designed to examine the key historical breaks and shifts in Odic C'S trajectory, what led to its making in the 1950s through and intertwining of the various practices and textual

Exploring ODC Dance: Research and Insights

00:09:36 - And I conducted interdisciplinary research by doing extensive archival research, ethnographic field work and studying the literary artistic and material culture linked to ODC dance, especially studying the temples and the archeological monuments associated with it. And of course, I watched performances. I took part in dance classes
00:10:04 - to better inhabit the different styles that compose or DC today and interviewing many of the practitioners, both dance teachers, students, and well-known exponents of the form. When I began the research, I noticed that ODC, as I said, was framed as the oldest classical form, and this was on the basis of the mention of apparently the root form of the ti in the n as well as a series of dance release
00:10:39 - which is just outside the city of Bernet in Orisha. And I went to that site and I realized that the reliefs that are allegedly depicting the dance show dance occurring in pastoral spaces, dance occurring in courts, dance occurring in social situations. And so that was my first hint, my first research clue
00:11:11 - as a temple ritual historically. And in fact, I later found out that temples as structures only originated around the fifth century because that's when they started to build stone edifices. Prior to this time, there wasn't a whole culture of temple building in the way that we understand it today. And so this also opened up the possibility for thinking
00:11:43 - to the society and more specifically in relation to the state because there are some epic graphs at the site at the U caves, which, holds the ran caves. There's also an inscription there from the king who was a gen king in the first century, BCE, who mentioned that he sponsored dance in order to
00:12:13 - and to again indicate his position as a culturally sophisticated person. And what I realized at this time is that dance wasn't only fulfilling a ritual function, it was fulfilling a political function. So it was from that time that I started to trace Rd C's trajectory, or at least the antecedents of Rd c, what we call Rd C today, how those antecedents developed in

Politics and Dance: A Historical Interconnection

00:12:44 - So at that time, dance and ora was very much tied to the political function of the monarchy. And later I also found out that the mahari rituals, which were established around the 11th century in Oria were also cultivated by the royal regimes. And so this was very interesting because it showed me that there was an inordinate interest in dance on behalf of state agents, and it led me to question why,
00:13:19 - and the state at different historical moments? So what I found out is that dance operated as a significant form for the state, whether it was being targeted in negative terms or celebrated in positive terms. And this was true of the pre-colonial period, the colonial period, what is referred to often as the mogul period of history.
00:13:51 - by the state that dance is an important social activity. And so what I see over time is that it developed really as a local stage form and then it became institutionalized as a temple tradition. It also existed as a street form or as part of the PTI religious movement
00:14:23 - it was trying to ize on behalf of the bakhti movement to attract proponents outside of the dominant orthodox religious sphere. And you see a whole range of ways in which the state is mobilizing a relationship to dance again in order to create a relationship with its subjects. And in order to assert the extraordinary power
00:14:53 - And this is why I think in art science specific, there was a constant relationship between dance and the state because art was not simply, a woven into the social fabric. It was seen as a highly politicized activity. And over time it kept being mobilized by the state. The colonial regime also saw dance as an activity it wanted
00:15:27 - and cultural values and orian heritage practices. And later on we see that the post-colonial state also took up the regulation of dance as one of its activities. And again, it saw dance then as a sign of archaic cultural elements that had to be excised for the modern nation state to come into being.

Extraordinary Genders in Odissi Dance History

00:15:59 - in this political struggle over time, whether it was privileged by some royal authorities and state authorities, or whether it was then the attempt was made to marginalize it as well in certain moments by extraordinary genders, I wanted to create a term that would speak to the way in which non-normative gendered practices were for grounded
00:16:32 - to the antecedents of the ODC forum and then in the modern period linked to the ODC practice itself. So the reason I chose extraordinary genders is that often we think of non-normative gender expressions in the Western frame as queer, broadly speaking, queerness signals non normativity, both in terms of gender and sexuality.
00:17:02 - of gender and sexuality because I actually had no insight into the very complex sexuality that was, embraced by the Mahari and ua, for example, who were the ritual performers from which, or DC draws much of its aesthetic and movement codes and of course its histories.
00:17:34 - to signal the fact that mahari and gowa in particular were extraordinary in relation to the normative valuations prescribed by society. The Mahar, for example, were Women who held the highest position in the temple order at the au Temple in Puri in Orisha. And they were female servit in that tradition.
00:18:08 - create dances and deliver song repertoires that would not only entertain the gods. Juna rah and balam at the Pur temple were seen as living entities. and the Mahari were seen as their wives, the wives of Juna. And the Mahari also had an elevated social position
00:18:37 - to the norms for ordinary women. They did not have to be married to men. They did not have to participate in heteronormative reproduction. They did not have to, abide by other kinds of social codes that were prescribed for ordinary women. They had access to wealth, to income, to education, to ritual knowledge. And so they held this elevated position

Embodiment and Expressions of Extraordinary Gender

00:19:09 - And that's why I named them as inhabiting this sphere of the extraordinary gender spectrum. The Go Tip was also, that was a very interesting phenomenon where the UA were young boys who were embodying the figure of Radha. Radha is a divine figure who is seen as the consort of the God Krishna, who is very much a celebrated
00:19:42 - which really became consolidated in Orisha around the 15th to 16th centuries. And so these young boys were said to have to embody rather on stage in order to express their devotion to Krishna. And because the child's body was seen as a malleable body in its prepubescent phase,
00:20:14 - And the Tupu tradition also saw gender. I would argue as then a floating property that could be enacted by male or female actors. And so because female dancers were already seen as inhabiting these feminized properties according
00:20:43 - these young boys then would be encouraged to embody Radha to express again their devotion to Krishna. And the dancing was a way also of consolidating that devotional mood. And the dancing also was a strong form of entertainment that would then attract followers to the PTI tradition. That was part of the motivation for the develop,
00:21:13 - So these two were enactments of extraordinary gender. They resided outside the conventional gender patternings that were prescribed at the time, and they were also exhibiting a phenomenon that was actually quite widespread in the subcontinent of interrupting binary gender codes. In fact, historically throughout Indian history,
00:21:45 - of three genders. So crossing genders in performance or enacting gender norms that were outside of the conventions assigned by the social structure that was also very much tied to the performance history in the subcontinent. So we see that by naming these practices in terms of extraordinary gender, we can be very specific about how they're literally

Exploring Dance's Epistemology and Political Significance

00:22:16 - and also that they are in some way marked for special consideration in terms of their epistemologies, in terms of, in terms of the practices they engender, in terms of how they take us out of everyday life and point to other possibilities outside the standard lexicons of gender. So this is why I wanted to identify this particular phenomenon.
00:22:50 - out by dancing bodies, and so it generates an epistemology, which is different than that of the dominant value system. But importantly, it doesn't find its identification as a counter hegemonic expression or as a resistive expression. It may be read that way, but that doesn't mean that at its core it is. It's about a phenomenon that is generated
00:23:21 - of knowledge systems, different kinds of value systems that again, lie adjacent to the norm, but don't define their own, normative structures in relation to what is dominant. So the para atopic is a parallel ground that's carved out by dance performance
00:23:51 - So it has both an ephemeral quality as well as a durational quality in that it creates new cultural realities, new cultural imperatives that don't necessarily interrupt that which is dominant, but certainly multiply what is possible in terms of the social reality through performance. What I hope is that they'll understand Ori as a very complex aesthetic and political form,
00:24:25 - as having political significance. It's seen often in purely aesthetic terms. We don't often consider the interrelationship between art and politics and in in this class size dance space in particular. And I hope that the book reveals the interrelationship between ODC dance and the state over time and shows readers an alternative narrative that opens up both their sense of the importance of the dance practice
00:25:05 - Because so often the narrative about the dance determines its choreographic protocols. So by opening up the histories of the form, we also open up its aesthetic possibilities.

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