In exploring dance and movement in India, I found female sexuality a common topic in the art forms we learned about and performed. India has held many contrasting stereotypes through the years, including being seen as backward yet exotic and mystical, and its women being at once sexually deviant while also being confined to traditional gender roles and lacking women’s freedoms. These stereotypes fail to capture the complexities of Indian society, and a woman’s place within it. In Bharata Natyam, Kalaripayattu, and Bollywood dance, I experienced and saw first-hand female empowerment. These dance forms play into the rapidly evolving feminist thought that is spreading through the country, redefining gender roles and a woman’s place in India.

Chennai 
Bharata Natyam, Kalaripayattu, Bollywood: these art forms have evolved and led many women to find empowerment through them. We began in Chennai, studying Bharata Natyam, a form of classical Indian dance, under the watchful and experienced gaze of Sir. Bharata Natyam requires discipline and dedication. A focus must be given to each body part in isolation, to form a complete and graceful figure. More commonly practiced by women, the traditional dance form was at one point banned. With the colonization of the British, devadasis, female temple dancers, became increasingly seen as temple whores of loose character.  Bharata Natyam then became desexualized and revamped into a “respectable” art form, and this is largely attributed to Rukmini Devi. “Refigured Bharata Natyam was a respectable accomplishment through which women of good families expressed cultural pride” (O’Shea, 117). In recent history, female choreographers like Chandralekha have been destabilizing this classicism, setting out to bring Bharata Natyam back to its roots, depicting sexuality not as shameful or nonexistent, but as empowering. By slowly parting a woman’s pelvis on stage, Chandralekha’s choreography forced the audience to confront the woman as a sexual being and challenged typical assumptions of traditional femininity. Her work Sharira“ emphasized the sexual agency of the woman, while simultaneously acknowledging her power to bring life into being” (Mitra, 6). I found Bharata Natyam to be an empowering form, aware of every part of my body in isolation as we struck elegant poses, stomped our feet, and gestured with our hands, each movement possessing meaning and helping to tell a story.

Bangalore 
We then went to Gurukulam to study Kalaripayattu, the oldest form of martial arts in the world, traditionally practiced only by men. “The women used to do nothing”, Sir, our guru, said. They had to stay in the house, cooking, cleaning, and raising children, while the men went out into the forest. The forest is where men learned the fighting stances of the animals they were surrounded by, which became the eight main animal movements now learned in Kalari. Now, both men and women practice Kalaripayattu. Kalari practicers use large clubs, swords, cow stick, hand knives, spears, shields, metal whips, and bamboo sticks to fight. But the most important lesson I took from Sir was that “my own body is the best weapon. Condition your body so that you do not need any weapons”. Many women now use Kalaripayattu as a way of self-defense, using nothing but their own body to defend themselves. One woman in the troupe told us of how she warded off strange men in the street by using her training. Violence against women in India is an issue that is growing increasing talked about and protested against, and this woman is able to feel safe and secure in her own body through Kalaripayattu, a feat many women in the Red Light districts of India, and all over the world, do not have.  From speaking with women practitioners, and the mothers of little girls, ages 9 and 10, it was clear that Kalari played a huge role in boosting confidence and gaining strength. These girls, who have been practicing since they were three years old, twist, arabesque, and fall into the splits with record precision. These girls and women feel empowered, gracefully and daringly handling swords and whips, as well as using their own bodies to kick, flip, and punch. In practicing Kalaripayattu, I learned diligence and searched for my own inner strength. My physical limits were tested, and as I strove to make the mind/body connection, I found a resilience I did not know I possessed. I continued exploring the position of women in India over a vegetarian thali in Bangalore. Over buttermilk, pineapple lassi, crystallized gooseberries, halwa, and at least twenty other dishes, Chandrika, her sister-in-law and I discussed the role of women in India, and how more and more women are entering into the workforce in the modern era, and marrying at older ages. Our instructor in Bollywood dance, Bhoomika, told us that dancing used to be looked down upon as an “unsuitable” profession for women (reminding me of the devadasis and their fall from grace). Now, however, Bollywood dancing is increasingly being seen as an acceptable profession. Bhoomika’s family became used to to the idea once they toured Shiamak’s studio and saw her work in action. Singing in Bollywood is also more acceptable for women nowadays, once an activity reserved only for men.

More freedoms and options are available to women than ever before, and women’s’ rights campaigns have spread across the country, advocating for equality and an end to sexual harassment and violence. More and more, women are confronting oppression in the face, fighting for their freedoms and gender equality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in watching the Hindi film Angry Indian Goddesses. We walked through markets full of glittering jewels and sweet smelling fruits to reach the movie theatre. At first, I thought we were seeing a happy-go-lucky movie, about a bunch of women spending a bridal shower in Goa, with a blossoming romance between an aspiring Bollywood actress and the boy next door. But halfway through, the movie takes a dramatic turn, with the Bollywood actress being brutally raped and murdered, the other women taking circumstances into their own hands and shooting the five men who did it. The movie ends with a powerful funeral scene which spoke to women brutality in India. As all the attendees stand in solidarity with the women who avenged their friend, the last to stand is a little girl, the young daughter of ones of the victim’s friends. She stared down the police officer attempting to take the women to jail. “We will not stand for this,” was spoken in her eyes. “This will not be my future”. The movie spoke to the fact that violence against women in India will no longer be tolerated and showed the tensions that take place as women fight for more freedoms, and against oppression, rape culture, and corrupt politics. It also spoke to women’s sexuality as not purely heteronormative, featuring a lesbian wedding between two protagonists. In Angry Indian Goddesses, women are not confined to a certain cultural trope. They can be businesswomen, activists, mothers, and actresses. They can be passionate, outspoken, vulnerable, and smart all in one. Angry Indian Goddesses is a socially progressive, feminist movie that rebels against common patriarchal troupes. These troupes are sometimes found in Bollywood movies, that portray a dominant male and submissive female. But more and more, Bollywood is moving towards this same line of feminist thought, portraying independent women in successful careers, having premarital sex, and taking their sexuality into their own hands, such as in the Bollywood film we saw, Tamashaa. These films and the dance numbers in them are “constructing new sites of sexual desire and female identity in India” (Nijhawan, 99). Bollywood dance emphasizes female sexuality. The gyrating hips and swaying motions of Bollywood dance allow one to “let loose” and feel free, energized, and confident. Our Bollywood classes and the Bollywood films we watched “highlighted youth, energy, and youthful sexuality” (Nijhawan, 108). While Bollywood dance sometimes plays into cultural tropes of objectification, it is increasingly depicting vivacious women with a firm grasp of their own sexuality. “A recent trend in Bollywood women allows female sexuality and desire to separate from automatic allusions of exploitation” (Nijhawan, 107).

Mumbai

In Mumbai, we visited the 200-year-old Temple of Lakshmi, amongst throngs of men and women, offering lotus blossoms and coconuts to the priests, and receiving back gifts of sweets. The temple is dedicated to the worship of goddesses, most notably Lakshmi (goddess of love and beauty), Kali (warrior goddess and feminist icon), and Saraswati (goddess of wisdom and learning). We were also able to explore a temple dedicated to Pavarti (goddess of divine strength and power). These goddesses are icons of womanhood and reside in the deepest root of Indian culture, in Hindu religion. Each possesses qualities of the ideal modern Indian woman- intelligent, compassionate, assertive, and empowered. Women in India are finding more freedoms in the face of modernity. Through dance, they expressive progressive modes of thought, and empower themselves. Dance in India has been a journey in finding inner strength, finding liberation through the art form, and becoming in tune with my body and mind. Like the women I have met and seen along the way, I find empowerment and confidence through dancing. I say goodbye to India, but I take the lessons I have learned here back with me, stronger in mind and spirit than I was before.

Amita Nijhawan. “Excusing the Female Dancer: Tradition and Transgression in Bollywood Dancing,” in South Asian Popular Culture. Vol. 7, Issue 2 (2009), pp. 99-112.

Janet O’Shea, “Women’s Questions,” At Home in the World: Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage, Middleton, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2006, pp. 104-125.

Royona Mitra, “The Parting Pelvis: Temporality, Sexuality, and Indian Womanhood in Chandralekha’s Sharira (2001)”, DRJ 46:2, 2014, pp. 5-19.