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Akshongay: Then and Now—Intercultural Artistic Duets and the Relational Practice of Collaboration
Full text linkThis article reflects on the creation, evolution, and remounting of Akshongay (Bengali: একসঙ্গে, meaning “together”), a full-length duet that unites Bharatnatyam and Western concert dance, co-created by Toronto-based dance artists Nova Bhattacharya and Louis Laberge-Côté. Their collaboration, which began in 2000, has evolved into a decades-long creative partnership rooted in critical difference, trust, and sustained inquiry. Developed across geographic, cultural, and stylistic borders, Akshongay embodies the possibilities of intercultural duet-making within the broader context of Canadian diasporic performance. In what follows, the artists reflect on their collaborative process, the work’s layered emotional and aesthetic terrain, and the embodied experience of revisiting and remounting the piece over a decade after its premiere
Puṟappāṭu: The Transforming Scene of Kūṭiyāṭṭam’s Śikṣā in Kerala
Full text linkArduous or not, training in Kerala\u27s Kūṭiyāṭṭam has undergone tremendous transformations in the contemporary times. By exploring these transformations from early medieval to the twenty-first century, this study demonstrates the shifting institutionalization of Kūṭiyāṭṭam training from the family structure to governmental and private organizations/ institutions open to non-Cākyār and non-Nampyār students, altering the training from a family vocation to a scholastic matrix. Drawing from the data collected from my pilot study in 2017, fieldwork (June-December 2019), and brief training in Naṅṅyārkūttu, the study also discusses the pedagogical strands in Kūṭiyāṭṭam, and focuses on the “intergenerational transmission” across traditional, semi-traditional and non-traditional milieus. It also explores the present Kūṭiyāṭṭam scene, fraught with tensions regarding access to repertoire and textual sources, performance opportunities, patronage and even the art’s journey to posterity. While analysing Kūṭiyāṭṭam’s pedagogical scene through the tradition-modernity framework, this study derives a core-periphery model underlining the convergence of the core (Guru-Śiṣya traditional training) and peripheral (semi-traditional and non-traditional training) pedagogies that shape the Kūṭiyāṭṭam training scene in the contemporary times
Call for Papers for Special Issue (2026–2027): Marginalized Voices and Histories
No full textWhat do we mean when we speak of the margins? Who constructs the boundaries of center and periphery—and who gets excluded from the narrative? This special issue of SADI – South Asian Dance Intersections invites submissions that explore marginalized voices and histories in dance, performance, and embodied practices across South Asia and its diasporas. In an era where global connectivity coexists with deepening borders—political, cultural, and disciplinary—it becomes critical to ask: whose voices are heard, and whose remain unseen or undocumented? This issue seeks to uncover those hidden or silenced presences, and to archive embodied resistance, resilience, and survival through multiple modes of storytelling.
We invite contributions from scholars, artists, practitioners, and cultural workers who interrogate marginalization through caste, class, gender, religion, ability, geography, and sexuality. We are particularly interested in work that not only analyzes marginality but emerges from within it—whether from within the South Asian subcontinent or the diasporic experience
Traditional Dance/Mixed Genealogies: A Study in Diasporic Odissi
Full text linkThis article reflects on a collaborative project entitled Devotions (2021), in which a small team of artists choreographed Western classical opera and oratorio songs with Odissi abhinaya. As dramaturg, I delve into the process of creating a choreo-musical language for this project and the ethical, stylistic and practical factors made among our desires, stakeholders, and extant performance possibilities. Finally, I offer a reading of our staged performance in relation to discourses that frame diasporic Indian dance today. Through Devotions, I propose a framework for understanding practices of diasporic Odissi beyond the familiar binaries of tradition/modernity, classical/contemporary, authenticity/inauthenticity that arguably impose a limit on the collective imagination of the form’s evolution. Instead, drawing from diaspora’s queer, nonreproductive and impure energies, I insist on Odissi’s existentially mixed genealogy and bring this to bear upon how we understand new works. Thus, I offer Devotions (in theory and practice) as an attempt at performing mixed genealogies – an act which subverts the racialized logics guarding dance’s (re)production by celebrating the existentially mixed and open-ended nature of all artistic genealogies
Dancing Cultural Sustainability at the Top of the World: A Hunza Wedding
Full text linkThis brief article is part of a larger body of my research since 2016 on flows of migration--physical, discursive, and digital—of indigenous (and its hybridized “modern”) performance in Pakistan, a most timely part of which is cultural sustainability in the face of climate change and irresponsible development. Here, I look at a specific ethnographic moment during my fieldwork in the spring of 2024, in Gilgit-Baltistan. This moment documents a Hunza wedding joining two prominent families residing in the provincial capital of Gilgit. As in most South Asian cultures, a wedding is often an encapsulation of the cultural ethos of a community. It is clearly apparent among members of the Burushaski community of Hunza, for whom communal celebration, comprising plenty of good food, live upbeat traditional music, and lively dance, is an integral part of their lifestyle and identity, of which there are multiple layers
SADI Cover: Cover Details
No full textThis section consists of the cover material for the fourth issue of South Asian Dance Intersections called "Pedagogies of Crossing.
Dancing for Themselves: Ritual Celebrations of Chaitra Parva in West Bengal (Photo Essay)
Full text linkChaitra Parva, a seasonal overlap between spring and summer, is celebrated annually through a series of ritual rites, many of which include dance and music, invoking Lord Shiva (a Hindu male deity). It is mainly performed by the ordinary non-Brahmans known as ritual bhaktas, who undertake perilous austerities, renunciation, and self-mortification to appease Lord Shiva. This four-day festival is known as – Falhar (fruit worship), Jagaran (night of awakening), Bhakta Ghora (wheel celebration), and Balidan (animal sacrifice). This reflection on the dance festival in writing and photography aims to visually capture how the Chaitra Parva festival embodies rural West Bengal’s cultural landscape. It also sheds light on how those ritual rites, accompanied by dance and music, connect the people with a sense of belongingness while representing a unique cultural identity
Gone in a Breath: A Visual Ode to Unnoticed Dance Devotion (Photo Essay)
Full text link“Gone in a Breath” ventures beyond the spotlight, delving into the world of artists whose dedication often remains unnoticed amidst society’s fixation on grandeur. This photo essay is a tribute to artists whose passion and commitment endure in the face of neglect and hardship, shedding light on the raw beauty and perseverance that thrive beyond the proscenium arch. In a culture that glorifies visible success, this initiative serves as a poignant reminder of the challenges faced by artists deemed inconsequential by societal norms. The unrecognized dancers within our midst embody this struggle, navigating a path often devoid of recognition and support. Through their resilience, they exemplify the profound beauty and complexity of human existence, fostering connections that transcend the boundaries of acclaim. As a retired Bharatanatyam dancer turned photographer, this endeavor holds personal significance. It merges my lifelong dedication to movement with a profound understanding of the trials endured by artists in their pursuit of true expression. “Gone in a Breath” not only captures moments of artistic finesse but also offers a glimpse into the challenges and triumphs that define the dance community. Through a delicate balance between rehearsal authenticity and performance grace, this project aims to portray the art form while honoring the indomitable spirit of artists
Spiritual Ecology of my Bharata Natyam Dance: A Peacebuilder’s Reflections on her guru’s Pedagogies of Crossing
Full text linkThis article is part II of articulation on SADI’s call, of an over two decades long reflexive journey of the author’s dance practice, body and spiritual path. Thus, it aligns with SADI’s turn to making visible subordinated knowledge that remained unarticulated and marginalized at the confluence of multiple operations of power. It not only highlights a pioneer dance scholarship project for Pakistan (Aslam, 2012) a seedling, but the ongoing process of mindful dispersal of this seed of interfaith harmony, peace-building via deeper connection to the lands in its new home of Nusantara
Memetic Disruption: How Internet Memes Challenge and Transform Traditional Power Hierarchies in the Guru-Shishya Relationship
Full text linkThis paper examines how memes function as catalysts within the Indian classical dance community, challenging entrenched hierarchies of caste, class, and authority in traditional guru-shishya pedagogical structures. Using humor and visual storytelling, memes created and circulated by anyone with access to digital platforms validate lived experiences of exclusion, foster solidarity among users, and offer an accessible yet subversive mode of resistance against pedagogical authority. Memes are treated here as participatory digital artifacts that reflect and critique the power dynamics embedded within Indian classical dance pedagogy. In doing so, the study contributes to ongoing conversations about power relations between gurus and disciples, tradition, and critique—proposing memes as tools that both contest and reimagine modes of learning and belonging