Gender/less: A conversation with Leela Venkataraman

Over the past five days, we have tackled and discovered many questions, concerns and provocations, but our question from day one has served as a trigger for many of these conversations. Before an evening performance on December 21, we met Leela Venkataraman to elaborate on some of the points she made in her opening speech the previous day. 

She remarks that the female body, with its breasts - prominent, articulate markers of a certain gender, makes it slightly harder for those possessed of them to bend gender and take on roles from the opposite sex, reiterating that this is a personal viewpoint. 

It leads us to wonder why male bodies might be considered neutral. Many people point out that a bare torso allows one to locate dance movement in the body with greater clarity, which gives male bodies an edge over other bodies. Yet, it is facile to ignore the social and historical climate that makes it unacceptable for women to dance bare-bodied and achieve equal clarity. Another argument is that the flatness of the male torso offers a plainer space for the dance to be projected onto the body. Do you think that male bodies are neutral dancing bodies? Read on, and respond.

Excerpts from a conversation:

Who would you say are five dancers who have changed the game for dance in India, vis-a-vis the male dancer? 

First, of course, Uday Shankar and Ramgopal. Until that time, where was the question of Indian dance being performed there (outside India)? An odd devadasi had gone there. Shanta Rao had performed a few times. Other than that, Indian dance had really not been considered in a big way. And the fact that there was a beautiful male body performing for the first time. And both these people had such an awesome presence - that made a tremendous difference to what was shown. And plus the exotic costumes.

Ruminations from Rustom

Some points that came up in a brief conversation with Rustom Bharucha on the steps of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan after the morning session on 21 December. The trio of lec-dems from three schools of Bharatanatyam – Thanjavur, Vazhuvoor, Kalakshetra – and Rustom was very taken with especially the second presentation. It was slow, but solid, and – in his words – there was very clearly a man on stage.

Several presenters in the conference – and also some others we have spoken to – have referred to dance as genderless. This may be true when one is talking about how a practitioner approaches his or her art: but does the same hold true when one looks at the audience where societal notions of what is masculine and what is feminine must necessarily affect the perception of the body on stage? No performing art can avoid being presented directly before an audience – there is no via media, the artist HAS to be present, the body HAS to be present. And Rustom felt it was about time performers started thinking about these issues.

This observation took him back to his intervention at the end of the papers presented by Ann David and Sandra Chatterjee the previous day. The papers had been built around the work of Ram Gopal and Uday Shankar respectively, and Rustom pointed out that Ram Gopal’s sexuality had not been touched on at all. Was it possible not to address questions of gender and sexuality in a conference built around the idea and image of a male dancer – especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on Section 377?

A chat with Ramli Ibrahim

On the sidelines of the Purush conference that began at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan this morning, we caught up with a few delegates for some short conversations. Some excerpts from a chat with Ramli Ibrahim - one of the dancers mentioned as a game-changer for the male dancer in a response to our first Provocation.

Who would you say are some dancers who have changed the game for Indian dance, vis-a-vis the male dancer?

Shanta Rao

The male dancers like Ram Gopal and Uday Shankar and also people like Shanta Rao and Yamini Krishnamurthy. These are the four great ones, and also Kelucharan Mahapatra and my guru of course, Debaprasad Das.  They had a strong effect of changing some mind-sets vis-à-vis the male dancers. Because they transcend the gender thing – all of them, whether it is Shanta Rao or Ram Gopal, who is androgynous. These are the people that projected male dancing, but at the same time not in the stricture of the maleness or macho masculinity that we talk about. And because they are pioneers, with the aura they surround themselves, people forget about the question of gender. People talk about the dance. And towards this they have contributed very much – towards this transcending of the gender question.