Dance and the Dancer : Performance and Pedagogy in Kolkata

Abstract

In this thesis, I am trying to look at dancers, practices of dance pedagogy, and performances in the city of Kolkata since 1990 economic reforms. I aim to do this by perceiving dance as a synecdoche of the city. Studying through the prism of dance practices gives one a way of understanding the transformations in urban culture three decades after globalisation. This leads to constructing a triad relationship between the city, dance and identity which can be used to map a shift in the culture of the city of Kolkata by understanding the changes in dance pedagogy and performances since new economic reforms. Most of my dancer respondents are contributing towards deconstructing and reconstructing the culture of the city by ‘dancing a difference.’ They are co-constructing the changing culture of the city, which is closely linked to economic opportunities and, in turn are also constructing their own identities through their dance practices and performances. Such practices and performances represent the interaction of myriad dance forms, styles and pedagogies. This is seen in various other cultural dimensions of urban life, such as culinary cultures offering different cuisines in restaurants across the city and practices of music and theatre, where urban cultures, economies and identities conjoin to transform cultural landscapes of the city. While discussing dance practices in the city of Kolkata since liberalization of the economy, I ponder upon the relationship that gets established between people who are dwelling in the city and the city that they are constructing and re-constructing through their experience of it as a lived place and space. I conceive of practices of dance as constantly mediating between lived experiences in the city, urban spaces and associated cultural memories and meanings, and urban cultures. I follow Appadurai’s (1996) notion of the ‘scape’ by which he meant a space which is fluid, representing disjunctive and hybrid nature of culture, economy and media in a global modern world which is always under construction. I conceptualize a ‘dance-scape’ to understand the triad relationship of dance, city and identity and how there is a continuum of space-place and culture. This work is based on dance practices in Kolkata. Much like many other cities in the country, there are various dance forms practiced in the city, classical and contemporary. The unique feature of Kolkata is that it has not been a site of emergence of any particular dance form, but dance has been a prominent feature in the cultural landscape of the city. However, Kolkata has been the home of Uday Shankar, pioneer of modern dance in India, and Rabindranath Tagore, whose influence is evident in music, dance and theatre practices in the city. In the past three decades there has been a shift in practices of dance in the city indicated by the proliferation of dance schools which teach forms like Jamaican street dances of dancehall, Dominion Republic’s national dance form like Merengue, Western contemporary, break dance in the styles of hip hop, popping and locking, whacking and so on. What intrigued me in this work initially was how to explain this shift in practices of dance and what does that say about the city? How is it that Jamaican street dances are being taught and learnt and performed, besides already existing classical dances, Rabindra Nritya and other creative forms? Thus, this work is focused on understanding the practice of these new forms being taught in the city. This further leads to an understanding of the changing urban culture through changing dance practices mediated by identity de construction and re construction of the people of the city. People, place and culture thus get entangled with each other to form an interdisciplinary prism of dance studies and urban studies.