Choreographing modernity: Kathak dance, public culture, and women's identity in India

The politics of identity continues to be one of the more significant social aspects of the Indian state. The rise of radical Hindu nationalism defines the current period, coincident with the increasing integration of India in the global economy. Here north Indian Kathak, a premier classical dance form, is situated in the context of identity politics. The purpose is to examine the construction of national and gender identity formation through the forces shaping classical dance. Drawing on ethonographic fieldwork and anthropology and gender theory this dissertation examines how the hegemonic national domain of classical Indian dance (or Kathak) is changing due to the emergence of a new dimension of global public culture or "public modernity" in contemporary India. Competing global, national, and local political-economic forces are radically changing the past nationalist domain of the public sphere in India. Classical Indian dance, revived as the authentic representation of Indian tradition and national culture, is a critical site for examining this on going socio-cultural transformation. The interacting forces of nationalism, regionalism, class, market, and media have combined to relocate Kathak from "high culture" to a zone of cultural mediation and democratization as middle class and lower middle class women have appropriated it.;First, I look at the nationalist resurrection of classical Kathak in which one saw an ideal representation of the Hindu women of Indian mythology, far removed from the debased 'nautch' tradition of colonial India. Next I show how the dance was institutionalized in modern India, primarily in terms of the legacy of a Brahminical past. I argue that this state-led ideological hegemony is now being perpetuated as a legacy of the past nationalist discourse on 'tradition'. At the same time alternative identities are being forged within the dominant patriarchal structure of Kathak by middle and lower middle class women dancers.;Finally, I show that these women are transforming the patriarchal, high culture of Kathak into a distinct space for expressing women's identity and agency.