Thus, Western influence, ideology, and appropriation seemingly foregrounds much of Bharata Natyam. But is this situation as dire as insinuated by some scholars and theoreticians? A slap on the wrists for "intrusive" Westerners like St. Denis and Pavlova seems much too simplistic. These were women who loved dance and, seemingly, loved Indian dance. I believe their motives were pure and their work allowed a powerful art form to reach audiences that might have otherwise ignored its presence and complacently allowed its demise. And at the risk of Orientalist blasphemy, I wonder whether Bharata Natyam would have been allowed to die, buried alive by its "rightful owners," without the Western intervention? Dangerous territory to travel, yes, but an invested female dancer has a responsibility to pose such troubling questions, to unearth the complex paradigms, and, thereby, travel risky terrain. Once potentially constrictive and subjugating influences, ideologies, and hegemonies of Orientalism are exposed and explored, the female dancer can acknowledge, negotiate, and then exceed the confinements and inscriptions while progressing along a temporal path toward spiritual transcendence. She is not bound by this paradigm. Further, as a negotiating strategy, the female dancer can recognize the currently employed modes of ownership that may be shaping and controlling a dance so often assumed to be a liberating, empowering force for a woman. Only then can she break through its barriers, confound the East/West binary, and claim the dance as her own to perform without boundaries. In addition to her sensitivity toward these bordered significances, she must also be aware of gender inscriptions and restrictions within the art form itself. Judith Lynne Hanna has written at length regarding the gender coding and potential gender rebellion provided by dance:

Dance may be understood as a medium through which choreographers, directors and producers manipulate, interpret, legitimate and reproduce the patterns of gender cooperation and conflict that order their social world. Dance images may lead to the reinforcing of ongoing models, the acquiring of new responses, the weakening or [page 289] strengthening of inhibitions over fully elaborated patterns in a person's repertoire, and the facilitating of performance of previously learned behavior that was encumbered by restraints. Distanced from the everyday, a dance performance also permits exploration of dangerous challenges to the status quo, without the penalties of the everyday life situation.(40)

More specifically, dance sends gendered messages through reoccurring tales and themes. Here, Hanna takes Bharata Natyam somewhat to task. She states that its dancers, mostly female, send the following messages (both religious and secular) to men and women: 1) Women should "accept men's lustful, quasi-divine or symbolically one-with-the-universe freedom to wander outside of marriage;" 2) Women have a "duty to be faithful, giving, and forgiving;" and 3) Women should "serve their husbands as subordinates and bear children."(41) The canonical depiction of femininity in Bharata Natyam is somewhat dictated by its source text/bible, the Natya Shastra, whereby eight heroines are codified as "male-defined ideal women." In the resultant repertory, the woman's plight consists of "longing, hesitation, sorrow, loneliness, anxiety, fear, parting, yearning, pleading, forgiveness, faithfulness, despondency, envy, self-disparagement, depression, derangement, madness, shame, grief, and being rebuked, insulted and mocked by one's family and deceived by one's lover."(42) In addition, dancers may reinforce these "feminine" inscriptions in their physical interpretations of padam song verses. The padam is one of the most demanding and creative midsections of the Bharata Natyam recital. It is all expression (abinaya), containing devotional, narrative songs by which the dancer enacts stories of the Supreme Being and his lovers. The section's gendered themes become embodied by the female dancer as she mimetically expresses exemplary submissive sentiments such as the following: "You alone I desire, you are my protector always. [. . .] Quickly come to me! I am endowed with virtues. [. . .] With deep desire in my heart, I await you. Oh, compassionate one, do not slight me now, but come!"(43) Themes such as this one are deeply [page 290] seeded culturally in India through Bharata Natyam. Further, even the "poster goddess" of feminist dancers -- Kali -- can be inhibited and defeated by the gender-coding inherent in dance. For example, following is a legendary account of Shiva, Kali, and their dancing dynamic:

Legends say Shiva and his counterpart, the goddess Kali, compete in dance contests [. . .]. Shiva performed many dances that Kali was able to imitate perfectly. Out of frustration, Shiva exploited her sense of modesty and raised his right foot to the level of his crown and danced in that pose. Kali could have emulated this pose, but feminine modesty led her to withdraw from the contest. Kali lost not because she was an inferior dancer, but because she is a woman and affirmed her subservience in this role.(44)

Thus, the encoding by the Bharata Natyam repertory -- its tales of love for and liaisons with the Divine -- does not stop at the parameters of the performance space but creeps into the cultural, collective consciousness. Amateur dance student Shakuntala voices her desire to embody and emulate Bharata Natyam's "ideal Indian woman." She states, "The dance allows me to act the pleading, teasing, coquettish movements, and they imply female subjugation. The subjugation or deference lies at the very root of the Indian family tradition. So although I couldn't be the person in the dance, I can experience it through the dance."(45)

Although this statement may read like a "feminist nightmare," closer study also suggests female power and agency. Indeed, Shakuntala may interpret her dance as one of subjugation, but she nonetheless chooses to dance this interpretation. With the fluidity of interpretation under her control, she may just as easily choose to dance another "meaning." For implicit in Bharata Natyam performance and repertory is a dancer's agency as she embodies the text. Furthermore, in a performative paradigm, female audience members may also employ agency as they translate the dance messages. Hanna admits that many of the Bharata Natyam themes and tales are open to feminist reinterpretation as they "may evoke erotic fantasy, provide avenues for repressed and suppressed energies, and allow women temporary escape from [page 291] human toil (and, a feminist perspective might add from male dominance) through identification with the prestige and freedom of the devadasi." Furthermore, "women may imagine themselves as Gopis (milkmaids) who sport with the deity in wild carnal love."(46) In addition, padams may also include tales "of women who are not so resigned, and who vent their anger on the wayward man by taunting him and by denigrating their rivals."(47) A crucial feminist strategy when negotiating the Bharata Natyam repertoire is the engagement of multiple meanings, especially in the thematic context of divine love and longing. The reoccurring theme of the woman overwhelmed and confined by longing for her lover is just one earthly or temporal translation of what is actually "an expression of the love and longing of the human soul for union with the divine spirit." Even more important is the allowance within the padam for "an exhaustive exploration of every possible meaning of a phrase which [. . .] is repeated several times in order that the dancer may interpret every shade of meaning."(48) Through expression of theme, action, or emotion in Indian dance (abinaya), the dancer is no longer limited by the text but is freed and spiritually empowered through her own creative control and interpretative choices. Dancer Kalanidhi Narayanan describes abhinaya in Bharata Natyam as "true emotion" -- a phenomenon in which one "lives the situation" on stage. She affirms the freeing power of abhinaya which is "like catching the horizon. You have to go on and on."(49) And dancer/teacher Priya Govind declares that the freedom of the divine journey begins with the control, technique, and, therefore, power of a dancer who has discovered her "inside energy" and who has learned "to pause, to 'throw' with effect, to understate, and to use the grammar of dance" to reach divinity.(50)

The female control and agency displayed through a Bharata Natyam performance has slowly found larger representation in the social setting of contemporary India. During the [page 292] revivalist movement of the 20s and 30s, women started moving into the formerly male domain of teaching as the devadasis began instructing the new Brahmin dancers. And today, "women are beginning to participate in national political life, become priests, assume guru roles, and choreograph and teach their own dances."(51) Furthermore, Bharata Natyam may be viewed as a vital component of the socialization of many Indian girls by which they also take a public role in a nationalist project of cultural identity. Contemporary dancer and choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh (now living in the United States) recounts her parents' insistence that she take classes as a young girl: "The idea was that by doing that [taking class], we kept faith with something ancient and precious about Indian culture."(52) Yet, some material feminists would argue that a patriarchal socioeconomic structure currently exists which limits this "personal and political" potential for many women. Meduri writes:

Dance now needs money, which trusts and various arts associations are providing to ensure its continuity. [. . .] Who has the money in the present system? In a traditional patriarchal society such as India, men have always been invested with power and they have always made the rules. The female dancer, then, by returning to this system, is actually returning to man.(53)

Whereas dance once provided an affirmation of community and a means of professional achievement for the devadasi, the contemporary dance scene seems to impart the impression of a community that is competitive and somewhat fractured. India "cannot provide solo concerts for all of its dancers as the number of dancers outweighs the number of performance slots;"(54) thus, women are forced to negotiate the world marketplace, marginalizing those without economic means to compete on this scale. Meduri laments the "schizophrenic" modern Bharata Natyam dancer who must dance stories of gods on stage while competing in a "ruthless secular [page 293] world" offstage.(55) Scholars continually debate whether female freedom and spiritual agency actually exists for classical Indian dancers today. Specifically, Anne-Marie Gaston explores the still prevalent male control over the female Bharata Natyam dancer:

In some ways, the husband (or even the father) of the contemporary dancer can be said to serve the same function as the patron of the devadasi; his influence, and sometimes his financial backing, help to secure performances for his wife (or daughter). For while teaching Bharata Natyam has become a lucrative profession, there are few dancers who can support themselves as performers alone.(56)

Further, Hanna states that "few married women are permitted to pursue public performance,"(57) while Meduri deploys the all-important weapon of the feminist when decrying her object position at the hands of the male spectator: that is, the "male gaze." She writes, however, from a personal and potent perspective:

I have had critics review me as a dancer with a "graceful figure" and "a lot of glamour." [. . .] I disdained this reduced position intellectually, but I actually reinforced it in my own action, attitude, and manner. Who was I dressing for, and why? [. . .] In fact, I was taught to dance, to gesticulate, and even to feel by male dance teachers. Although there are some female dance teachers today, most contemporary women dancers are taught by men. Thus, the dancer, in the most impressionable period of her life, is taught to interpret herself and her art through the male filter.(58)

[page 294] Here, I must again intercede as I feel the shackles of objectification imposed by the "gaze" do not need to be resignedly accepted by the dancer, nor does she have to see herself complicit in this male-orchestrated strategy to sexualize and objectify her.(59) I repeat, Bharata Natyam invites assertion of agency by the female dancer. Famous dancer-choreographer Mrinalini Sarabhai recounts in Creations her "rebellion" against a male guru, asserting her own physical/spiritual claim to the dance and its transcendent power:

A particular step he taught me, my body refused to do. My mind also rejected the adavu. [. . .] I requested him to change it, which he did. [. . .] "You are a dancer from your last birth," he said. "That adavu was not for you. I took it from a film I saw. It is not really Bharata Natyam."(60)

Sarabhai represents legions of Bharata Natyam dancers who have used the dance to negotiate or negate the "gaze;" they acknowledge the mechanism and return its "stare" by examining and performing a more personal, female experience which they own -- it is their tale to tell. In one of her dances, Sarabhai depicts a young girl who dances the traditional form of Bharata Natyam; however, once the girl "is snatched away in the midst of her games and play, to be married," Sarabhai incorporates less orthodox movement. She explains: "The sollukathus of Bharata Natyam (the rhythmic syllables) became alive for I infused them with expressiveness and stressed the powerful rhythm of each beat. The hatred, the greed, the jealousy are brought out in forceful movement and desperation and sorrow in the accented syllables."(61) Other contemporary dancer-choreographers have become more radical in their use (or nonuse) of traditional Bharata Natyam elements, prompting dance critic Leela Venkataraman to plead with modern choreographers in an interview with journalist Molly McQuade: "You can bring Bharata Natyam forward and do new things with it, but please do not change it beyond [page 295] recognition."(62) Many of these dancers are critical of the lack of physical freedom they find inherent in the dance. Jeyasingh feels the body is too "constrained" in Bharata Natyam and uses modern dance in her choreographic reconfigurations. She recounts: "I wanted to make the dancers roll on the floor and embrace it in a much looser way than doing Bharata Natyam footwork."(63) Choreographer Parijat Desat (based in Los Angeles) uses some of Bharata Natyam's external techniques but "resists" most traditional aspects of the dance which she feels reinscribe female subjugation: "What draws me to Bharata Natyam is the linear clarity, from the edge of your fingertips through the whole body -- but I feel constrained by the position of the body in Bharata Natyam."(64) Probably the most renown Indian dancer-choreographer who incorporates Bharata Natyam's technique, while engaging in a critical dialogue with many other aspects of the dance, is Chandralekha. Often cited as a feminist, Chandralekha takes issue with the repertoire and themes of Bharata Natyam; she "questions the appropriateness of as basic a convention as the yearning of a female dancer for her male lover, her master, her God." Therefore, she prefers "abstract themes" conveyed through modern dance and vestiges of Bharata Natyam's basic vocabulary. Her themes often address gender roles in society. For example, "she performs a duet during which she straddles a male dancer whose head appears from between her legs [. . .]. The role reversal she expresses comes [. . .] from the concept of Shakti as an active female force."(65)

The resistance and arguments by these dancers pose significant problems for me, however. When using a "gendered" paradigm to claim power through their dance, they are also reinscribing said paradigm which may have subjugated them in the first place. Although I applaud the celebration of female presence, I believe the dance should also be recognized as having the potential to exceed the gendered body -- to move dancer and audience beyond these binary, earthly parameters. "Indians say, 'Without Shakti, Shiva is nothing.'"(66) And it must be [page 296] noted that the Bharata Natyam dancer does not solely become the woman depicted in the songs and tales of the padams and varnams. She also embodies Krishna and other male deities as she travels a gendered path to divine unity. Hanna notes that "female dancers see themselves empowered as they play both goddesses and gods. In role reversal, there is momentary sharing in power."(67) Furthermore, as the dancer moves between genders, she becomes powerful enough to rise above them, creating a new form of spiritual energy which is no longer defined by biology or gender. Barba and Savarese cites dancer Sanjukta Panigrahi who refers to the energy as "Shakti [. . .] which is neither masculine nor feminine [. . .]. A performer of either sex is always Shakti, energy which creates."(68) This complicates and somewhat challenges Chandralekha's choreographic suggestion that Shakti is an energy of only one gender -- that is, female. With both genders present, I believe the energy for the dancer and audience (female and male) becomes more inclusive, multi-faceted, tensioned and, therefore, more powerful and unrestricted by material/physical realities.

The Indian concepts of lasya and tandava also speak to this paradigm.(69) "These terms do not refer to women and men or to masculine or feminine qualities, but to softness and vigor as aspects of energy [. . .] -- interaction between opposites which brings to mind the poles of a magnetic field or the tension between body and shadow. It would be arbitrary to particularize them sexually."(70) This phenomenon is potently illustrated by Ardhanarishvara who is a manifestation of Shiva as "Lord who is half woman," i.e., Parvata. Significantly, the halves of this dancing, divine incarnation are gendered as the following song lyrics to the dance Shiva Ardhanarishwara illustrate: "Two gods in one [. . .] The female half jingles with golden arm bracelets; the male half is adorned with bracelets of serpents. [. . .] The female half is capable of [page 297] all creation; the male half is capable of all destruction."(71) But what divine, exceedant power may be manifest through this interplay of gendered energy! Within this image, one may find "expression of the reciprocal action of the male and female elements in the cosmos. The first dance created by Shiva Ardhanarishvara was crude and wild (tandava) while the dance created by his Parvati half [. . .] was delicate and gentle (lasya)."(72) Again, more than gender, the energies reflect cosmic opposition and tension -- a colliding, combustible dialectic by which a new entity is created which is free and open, enabling its mergence with said cosmos.

The above paradigm suggests incredible potential for any Bharata Natyam dancer and seems to render moot most gender arguments. For me, the critical feminist question when interrogating Bharata Natyam is as follows: What defines freedom and power for a woman in this dance? I would argue that the release from self as one realizes divine unity with the universe is an ultimate realization of freedom and power. Heinrich Zimmer writes that in Bharata Natyam, "the dancer becomes amplified into a being endowed with supra-normal powers [. . .]. The dance induces trance, ecstasy, the experience of the divine, the realization of one's own secret nature and, finally, mergence into the divine essence."(73) Bharata Natyam is situated within Hindu philosophy (as is all classical Indian dance), providing a pathway to enlightenment for performers and audience alike. The art can invoke rasa which is defined by Abhinavagupta (11th century scholar and authoritative interpreter of Natya Shastra) as "a state of union with the universal spirit which both artist and spectator achieve by transcending the pain and pleasure of everyday life." Within this dynamic, "the duality of subject and object disappear through intense introversion and, ultimately, a state is evoked unlike any empirical experience. This state is a transcendental one."(74) Yet, one does not have to ascribe to the Hindu faith to achieve this state through dance. Theorist Sondra Horton Fraleigh asserts that all dance performance, whether intentionally devotional or not, becomes transcendental; dance cannot help but be a spiritual, communal conduit due to its innate intersubjectivity:

[page 298] Because the material of dance is lived within an intersubjective field as the self escapes its boundaries toward the Other, the dancer and the audience both transcend self-limitations in the dance, the dancer in the performance of the dance and the audience in the perceptual enactment of the dance. [. . .] The dancer and audience come together for just this purpose. They seek a common ground of understanding and display a desire for communion, a communion that is tacitly undertaken and lived instantly through the body. [. . .] In one sense, they share bodily lived limitations, those of being body; likewise, they share transcendent possibilities because of the self-transcendent nature of the body.(75)

This is not to suggest that all dancers embrace Bharata Natyam's spiritual power. As previously noted, there is a female faction of the Bharata Natyam community who criticize and resist what they view as restrictive aspects of the dance. Curiously, many of these critics refer to it in purely physical terms, e.g., the contemporary choreographers Jeyasingh and Desat cited earlier in this article. Furthermore, some take issue with the revivalists who placed the dance strictly within the realm of the devotional when reconstituting the dance in the 20s and 30s. In her revivalist fervor, Rukmini Devi stated: "Like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Dhmmapada, and other scriptures, Bharata Natyam is a method of spiritual learning for human ends. Therefore, it is not to be expected to reflect modern life and its ways."(76) To this, feminist dancer Meduri retorts, "Indian dance today functions in a secular reality -- in the gap between philosophic vision and every day reality. Today's Bharata Natyam, with its danced stories of God evoked in a secular world, is analogous to a human being walking forward with his face turned backwards."(77) The spiritual debate is typified by the differing views held by many in the dance community over the presence of the Nataraja (holy figure of dancing Shiva) on the stage during performance. Devi felt that its presence was necessary to reinforce the spiritual, [page 299] devotional purpose of the dance. Early Brahmin dancer Nirmala Ramachandran does not advocate having the Nataraja on stage, citing the philosophy of Bharata Natyam pioneer Balasaraswati (a hereditary dancer of devidasi lineage) who never brought the Nataraja to the stage, declaring the temple to be "in the mind."(78) Critic Shanta Sherbeet Singh recently wrote: "Worshipping Nataraja should be private and should not be part of the show. The presence of Nataraja shows the confused state of mind of the dancers."(79)

Yet, do these arguments and criticisms negate the power of Bharata Natyam -- a power that may be accessed by a woman and shared with her audience? I submit that these arguments actually fuel the cosmos. Recognized and channeled, the tensions energize and translate the mortal dance, enabling the woman to exceed earthly limitations. Further inciting the tensions, arguments have also ensued over the sex and eroticism component of Bharata Natyam. Wenndy O-Flaherty posits that excessive energy "endangers the universe;" yet, she submits that dance, using a corporeal means (i.e., a sexual body), can facilitate spiritual engagement, control, and expansion. "Like yoga, dance channels violent but useful forces; and, like yoga, it both heightens sexual powers and internalizes them through the use of techniques of elaborately pinpointed physical control and deep concentration."(80) Therefore, Bharata Natyam would seemingly be robbed of power if denied its shringara (eroticism); this element "interweaves dance with sex to convey messages of love for God and find analogy in the bliss of sexual congress, a phase of the soul's migration, akin to mystery, potential danger, heaven and ecstasy."(81) Padams are often centered around erotic content concerning desirous women and incarnations of God. Through the dance, however, sexuality becomes spirituality, thus negating the possibility of objectification or commodification of the female dancer by the male viewer. Projesh Banerji writes in Erotica in Indian Dance: "No iota of sensual vulgarity or indecency is attached to the doings of the heavenly creatures. Sex is regarded as divine, with complete [page 300] negation of human lust."(82) And although Devi and other revivalists tried to minimize the erotic component of Bharata Natyam, other dancers stressed its importance.(83) Hereditary dancer Balasaraswati disparaged the "cleansing efforts" by the revivalists as follows: "Shringara, which is considered to be the greatest obstacle to spiritual realization, is itself an instrument for uniting the dancer with Divinity. Therefore the question of 'purifying' shringara becomes a redundancy, if not impertinence."(84)

Interestingly, even the spiritual component of Bharata Natyam has been criticized by some feminists as an impossible ideal which enslaves women as they futility attempt to attain rasa or translation through the dance. For example, Meduri writes:

The twentieth-century performing artist, living in a secular reality, struggles to embrace, emotionally and intellectually, the theoretical ideal that has been set up. If she cannot personally achieve the ideal, she repeats the theory. So theoretician and artist trace the same circle, the figure eight, in which both are held mutually captive.(85)

As stated above, the spiritual quandary seems unanswerable and unsolvable for the female dancer. But, who can measure and define such an intangible and highly personal phenomenon as spiritual translation, wholeness, and enlightenment? I believe one must simply have faith in the possibility, power, and resultant liberation of the transcendent experience. Also empowering for women are the testimonies offered by lifelong dancers who have experienced Bharata Natyam's mystical, divine unity. Balawaraswati likened Bharata Natyam to a sacred temple, with the dancer moving through great halls toward its inner sanctum where "the drum beats die down to the simple and solemn chanting of sacred verses in the closeness of [page 301] God. [. . .] The devotee takes to his heart the god he has so far glorified outside."(86) Sarabhai writes that the dance "becomes so personal and intimate an expression that the one who sees often becomes one with the one who seeks. [. . .] Even a moment of forgetfulness is the beginning of awareness. Art, at its greatest, liberates the spirit."(87) And although Meduri posits that "this theatre is an expression of just one religious world view,"(88) other teachers, choreographers, and dancers would describe the spiritual component and power of Bharata Natyam as knowing no one specific religion, God, or world view. Guru Indira Rajan declares that "any god can be there." For a Christian student's recital, Rajan "composed a varnam for her on Jesus."(89) Echoing these universal and inclusive sentiments, Mulk Raj Anand states that Bharata Natyam incites "intense awareness in those who can read behind the symbols of any faith the meaning of their own individual spiritual struggles."(90) As evidenced by these affirmations of the spiritual power inherent in the dance, women should embrace the metaphysical possibilities that refute objectification. Without Hindu ascription, the dance phenomenon alone still suggests an obliteration of the ego which facilitates a synthesis of a higher order. Fraleigh entitles this phenomenon "I-thou:"

The I-thou relation describes simple wholeness, the dissolution of objectivity. It is difficult to conceive as relation, because there is no thing -- it has disappeared. I do not live myself toward the dance when I am unified in it because I am not aware of it as a thing, I am its unfolding, with no thought about it. [. . .] As one attains her purposes in dance, the vibrant life of her dance appears. In mystical thought and art, present centeredness is valued as participation in the essence of God.(91)

[page 302] In the concept of the "I-thou," I find great inspiration, hope, and empowerment for female dancers. In Bharata Natyam, I find living evidence of the "I-thou" as testified by its practitioners. It is here I rest my argument, for if I am looking for female power and freedom through dance as my rebuttal to feminist criticism, I have found it in this paradigm, i.e., in the transcendent possibilities of Bharata Natyam.

Endnotes

1. Mrinalini Sarabhai, Understanding Bharata Natyam (Baroda: M. S. U of Baroda P, 1965) 2-3.
2. Sarabhai, Understanding 1.
3. Judith Lynne Hanna, "Feminist Perspectives on Classical Indian Dance: Divine Sexuality, Prostitution, and Erotic Fantasy," Dance of India, ed. David Waterhouse (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1998) 199.
4. qtd. Hanna, "Feminist" 201.
5. Sondra Horton Fraleigh, Dance and the Lived Body (Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1987) 141.
6. Judith Lynne Hanna, "Classical Indian Dance and Women's Status," Dance, Gender and Culture, ed. Helen Thomas (New York: Macmillan, 1993) 129.
7. qtd. in Hanna, "Feminist" 204.
8. Hanna, "Feminist" 204.
9. qtd. in Hanna, "Feminist" 205.
10. Hanna, "Feminist" 221.
11. Hanna, "Classical" 125.
12. Amrit Srinivasan, "Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance," Economic and Political Weekly 20.44 (1985): 1870.
13. Srinivasan 1870.
14. Hanna, "Feminist" 213.
15. Avanthi Meduri, "Bharatha Natyam -- What Are You?" Asian Theatre Journal 5.1 (1988): 6.
16. Rina Singha and Reginald Massey, Indian Dances: Their History and Growth (New York: Braziller, 1967) 61.
17. Hanna, "Feminist" 211.
18. Srinivasan 1872-1873.
19. Hanna, "Classical" 127.
20. Srinivasan 1871.
21. "Nautch" became a term used indiscriminately by the reform movement to lump all street dance, courtesan dance, and devadasi temple dance into the same, "low" category.
22. Srinivasan 1875.
23. Uttara Asha Coorlawala, "Ruth St. Denis and India's Dance Renaissance," Dance Chronicle 15.2 (2001): 132.
24. Rustom Bharucha, Chandralekha: Woman Dance Resistance (New Delhi: Indus, 1995) 44.
25. Coorwala 133.
26. Srinivasan 1874.
27. Janet O'Shea, "At Home in the World? The Bharatanatyam Dancer as Transnational Interpreter," The Drama Review 47.1 (2003): 183.
28. qtd. in Meduri 12.
29. Srinivasan 1875.
30. Srinivasan 1875.
31. Eugenio Barba and Nicola Savarese, A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The Secret Art of the Performer (London: Routledge, 1991) 207.
32. Coorlawala 134.
33. Edward W. Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage, 1979) 3.
34. Amy Koritz, "Dancing the Orient for England: Maud Allan's The Vision of Salome," Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, ed. Jane C. Desmond (Durham: Duke UP, 1997) 141.
35. Coorlawala 151.
36. qtd. in Coorlawala 143.
37. qtd. in Coorlawala 143.
38. qtd. in Coorlawala 142.
39. Coorlawala 124.
40. Hanna, "Feminist" 196.
41. Hanna, "Feminist" 206.
42. Hanna, "Classical" 122.
43. qtd. in Sarabhai, Understanding 4.
44. Hanna, "Feminist" 205.
45. qtd. in Hanna, "Feminist" 216.
46. Hanna, "Feminist" 218.
47. Singha and Massey 49.
48. Singha and Massey 47.
49. Naseem Khan. "Who's Afraid of Abhinaya?" Dance Theatre Journal 13.1 (1996): 45.
50. qtd. in Khan 46.
51. Hanna, "Classical" 132.
52. Shobana Jeyasingh, "Imaginary Homelands: Creating a New Dance Language," The Routledge Dance Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1998) 49.
53. Meduri 14.
54. O'Shea 184.
55. Meduri 12.
56. Anne-Marie Gaston, "Dance and the Hindu Woman: Bharatanatyam Re-ritualized," Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, ed. Julia Leslie (Cranbury: Associated UP, 1991) 155.
57. Hanna, "Feminist" 214.
58. Meduri 14.
59. One must acknowledge, however, the seriously complicated paradigm asserted by Bharata Natyam tradition and texts in which physical beauty (especially for the female) is considered a prerequisite to and measurable attribute in the dance.
60. Mrinalini Sarabhai, Creations (New York: Mapin, 1986) 29.
61. Sarabhai, Creations 62.
62. Molly McQuade, "Diaspora Dance: Bharata Natyam's Evolution," Dance Magazine Dec. 2001: 45.
63. Jeyasingh 50.
64. qtd. in McQuade 45.
65. Rajika Puri, "New Directions in Indian Dance," The India Magazine June 1986: 39.
66. Hanna, "Feminist" 204.
67. Hanna, "Feminist" 204.
68. Barba and Savarese 21.
69. Although the concepts are not considered to be gendered, they are ascribed physical denotations in Bharata Natyam. Tandav is represented by the left side of a body and lasya, the right; further, every action on the right must be mirrored on the left in the classical dance form.
70. Barba and Savarese 81.
71. Barba and Savarese 81.
72. Barba and Savarese 84.
73. qtd. in Hanna, "Feminist" 201.
74. qtd. in Meduri 17.
75. Fraleigh 61, 66.
76. qtd. in Bharucha 41.
77. Meduri 4.
78. qtd. in Gaston, "Dance" 158.
79. qtd. in Gaston, "Dance" 158.
80. qtd. in Hanna, "Feminist" 201.
81. Hanna, "Feminist" 203.
82. Projesh Banerji, Erotica in Indian Dance (Atlantic Highland, N.J.: Humanities P, 1983) 22.
83. It is important to note, however, that blatant or direct reference to sex in Bharata Natyam is forbidden. In the classical style of the dance, the leg is not often raised and never above hip level; furthermore, a pleated fan of cloth between the knees is always a component of the costume so that the crotch is never seen.
84. qtd. in Bharucha 48.
85. Meduri 9.
86. qtd. in Bharucha 49.
87. Sarabhai, Creations 6.
88. Meduri 4.
89. qtd. in Gaston, "Dance" 161.
90. Sunil Kothari, ed., Bharata Natyam: Indian Classical Dance Art (Bombay: Marg, 1979) 6.
91. Fraleigh 41-42.