Reasons Why Dravidian Boys in Australia Do Or Do Not Choose to Learn Bharatanatyam

Home , Rajashree (actress), Tamil Brahmin

Reasons Why Dravidian Boys in Australia Do or Do Not Choose to Learn Bharatanatyam

Author Menon, Vidyakartik Vijayadas

Published 2017

Thesis Type Thesis (Professional Doctorate)

School School of Education and Professional Studies

DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/3305

Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367366

Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au

Reasons Why Dravidian Boys in Australia Do or Do Not Choose to Learn Bharatanatyam

Vidyakartik Vijayadas Menon

M.Ed (Bond University), B.Commun (Hons) (University of Queensland)

School of Education and Professional Studies

Griffith University

Gold Coast Campus

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctorate of Education

July 2016

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores the attitudes of Dravidian boys in Australia towards learning and performing bharatanatyam—a classical dance form that traces its origins to Tamil Nadu in South India. The study argues that at present, research into immigrant South Asian men’s attitudes towards performing identity through classical art forms such as bharatanatyam is highly disjointed and underdeveloped. This thesis identifies significant gaps in existing research, including the role of performing arts education in the negotiation of cultural and gender identity among immigrant men; the experiences of the South Asian diaspora in Australia; and in particular, younger members of the community; and the perceived contribution of classical bharatanatyam in the cultural preservation of diasporic South Asians. This study, therefore, investigates how attitudes towards gender and culture have shaped the way in which boys from immigrant Dravidian backgrounds have negotiated and renegotiated their gender and cultural identities in bharatanatyam spaces in Australia, and in turn, the influence this has had on the choices Dravidian boys make to engage with the art form. The investigation is centred on the following two questions: How do attitudes towards gender influence the decisions of Australian- Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam? and How do attitudes towards culture influence the decisions of Australian-Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam?

A postcolonial theoretical framework was used in this investigation to recognise and highlight the experiences and challenges marginalised social constituencies undergo when seeking representation in the face of existing powerful Western discourses. Consistent with this theoretical paradigm, 20 Dravidian men and boys in Australia were interviewed to deepen the understanding of Dravidian-Australian men’s perceptions and attitudes towards learning and practising bharatanatyam. The organisation of the analysis chapters has drawn inspiration from the way Braidotti has considered alternative visions of difference in social groups on three levels: the difference between groups, the difference among members of a group, and the differences within individual members. This has attended to the project’s need to speak of difference in a positive way and conceptualise Dravidian boys and men as a strategic group without degenerating into discourses about arrested, essentialised categories.

The narratives presented align with other literature on postcolonial masculinities that claim that men in the postcolonial world face many challenges and complexities in the way they negotiate their cultural and gendered identities. There is also a very clear indication that these challenges and complexities have a powerful impact on the choices of Dravidian boys and men to learn bharatanatyam in Australia. The findings of this study not only have a number of pedagogical implications for bharatanatyam educators and practitioners in Australia, but also include key points of consideration for the wider Dravidian community in relation to the way in which gender and cultural identities are negotiated in performing arts spaces. Finally, the study provides recommendations for further research in the field.

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.

______

Kartik Menon

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ...... iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ...... viii GLOSSARY ...... ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Part A ...... 1 Preamble ...... 1 Significance ...... 5 Part B ...... 7 Personal Motivation and Hypothesis ...... 7 Bharatanatyam: An Overview ...... 11 Gendered History of Bharatanatyam ...... 13 The South Asian Diaspora...... 16 What’s in a Name? Being Dravidian ...... 17 Tamil...... 20 Indian...... 22 South Asian...... 23 Hindu...... 24 Desi...... 25 Summary ...... 26 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 28 An Overview ...... 28 Theorising Gender: Biological, Social and Post-Structural Paradigms ...... 29 Masculinities and Masculine Theory ...... 33 The Poor Boy Syndrome ...... 34 The Power Approach ...... 35 Embodiment ...... 36 Postcolonial Perspectives on Masculinity ...... 37 Boys and Education ...... 39 Masculinity in Arts Education...... 42 Cultural Identity ...... 43 Diasporas and Cultural Identity ...... 45 South Asian Diaspora and Cultural Identity ...... 47 The Performance of South Asian Diasporic Identities through Performing Arts ...... 49 The Negotiation and Performance of Masculine Identities in Diasporic Bharatanatyam Spaces ...... 51 The Need to Investigate the Bharatanatyam Education Trends of South Asian Boys in Australia ...... 53

Summary ...... 56 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN, THEORY AND METHODOLOGY ...... 57 A Preamble: What Makes ‘Good’ Research?...... 57 The Trajectory of My Philosophical Stance ...... 57 Postcolonial Perspectives: An Overview ...... 59 Criticism and Opposition to Postcolonial Theory ...... 61 Central Notions Applicable to This Study ...... 63 Notion 1: Interrogating and Reclaiming the Sources of Knowledge Production ...... 63 Notion 2: The Other, the Subaltern ...... 66 Notion 3: Continuity ...... 69 Notion 4: Nexus ...... 70 Summary of Theory and Links to Research Design ...... 72 Research Design ...... 72 Interviews ...... 73 The Questions ...... 74 Participants, Sampling and Setting ...... 75 Ethical Considerations ...... 78 Data Analysis Framework ...... 80 CHAPTER 4: ATTITUDES TOWARDS CULTURE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON WHY DRAVIDIAN BOYS DO OR DO NOT TO CHOOSE TO LEARN BHARATANATYAM ...... 83 Part A ...... 83 An Exploration of Culture: Differences between Dravidian Boys and the Western Other and Impact upon Attitudes towards Bharatanatyam...... 83 Theme 1: Under western eyes - positioning of the Western Other and the impact the cognisance of the Western Gaze has on choices to learn Bharatanatyam...... 84 Theme 2: Speaking from the heart - A culture of values...... 88 Part B ...... 91 An Exploration of Culture: Differences among Dravidian Boys and Non-Dravidian Others ...... 91 Theme 3: Bharatanatyam in translation: Language and impact upon attitudes towards Bharatanatyam...... 92 Theme 4: Dancing with the gods—Religion and its impact on attitudes towards Bharatanatyam...... 98 Theme 5: Bharatanatyam citizenship—Nationhood and its impact on attitudes towards Bharatanatyam...... 104 Part C ...... 110 An Exploration of Culture: Differences within Dravidian Boys ...... 110 Theme 6: Coping and reconciling - Marrying multiple identities of being an Australian man, a Dravidian, and a Bharatanatyam performer...... 111 Conclusion...... 112 CHAPTER 5: ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENDER AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CHOICES OF DRAVIDIAN BOYS TO LEARN OR NOT LEARN BHARATANATYAM ...... 115

Structure of Chapter 5—Differences Between, Among and Within Dravidian Boys ...... 115 Postcolonial Theoretical Concept of ‘Nexus’ and Its Application in This Study ...... 116 Part A ...... 118 Gender and Differences between Dravidian Boys and the Western Other ...... 118 Theme 7: “An Australian Boy” – Beliefs about Australian masculinity...... 118 Part B ...... 124 Gender and Differences among Dravidian Boys and Men and Their Attitudes towards Bharatanatyam ...... 124 Theme 8: “I will be a man!” Beliefs about Dravidian masculinity...... 125 Theme 9: Dancing in the sheets – Beliefs about sexuality and impact on choices to learn Bharatanatyam...... 131 Part C ...... 142 Gender and Differences within Dravidian Boys ...... 142 Theme 10: Space travel: Negotiating gender and sexual identities through different social and geographic spaces...... 142 Conclusion...... 146 CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY, INSIGHTS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ...... 148 Summary ...... 148 Insights ...... 149 Contribution to Postcolonial Theorising ...... 151 Implications ...... 154 Implications for Bharatanatyam Institutions, Educators and Practitioners in Australia.... 154 Implications for Dravidian Communities in Australia ...... 157 Implications for Further Research ...... 159 A Final Note ...... 1593 APPENDICES ...... 161 Appendix A: Interview Schedule ...... 161 Appendix B: Participant Consent Form ...... 163 Appendix C: Participant Information Sheet ...... 165 Appendix D: Parent Consent Form ...... 169 Appendix E: Parent Information Sheet ...... 171 Appendix F: Ethics Approval ...... 175 Appendix G: Ethical Conduct Report ...... 177 Appendix H: Pilot Interview Schedule ...... 185 REFERENCES ...... 186

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1. Participants’ profiles ...... 78

Figure 1. Literature informing the conceptual framework ...... 29 Figure 2. Visual stimulus ...... 75

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GLOSSARY

Abhinaya In bharatanatyam, this term is used in reference to the art of expression.

Adavu A basic unit of bharatanatyam dance technique, combining standing position, foot and leg movement, and hand gestures.

Alarippu Usually the first dance item in a bharatanatyam recital, the alarippu symbolises the awakening and sanctification of the performance space. It is also a dedication of the dancer’s body to the divine to start the performance.

Arangetram The debut performance of a bharatanatyam dancer, marking their readiness for performing a full solo recital. In Tamil, it literally means ‘to ascend the stage’.

Aryan A self-designated term used by Indo-Iranian people as an ethnic label during the Vedic period. Meaning ‘noble’, it is also used as a cultural and linguistic reference.

Aryan invasion theory Refers to theories postulating prehistoric Indo-Aryan migrations. According to this account, India was invaded and conquered by nomadic light-skinned Indo-European tribes from Central Asia around 1500–1000 BC, who overthrew an earlier Dravidian civilization.

Bharatha Muni An ancient Indian theatrologist and musicologist who wrote the Natya Shastra.

Bhava The art of expression, the manifestation of an inner experience. Bhava is a key feature of bharatanatyam.

Brahmin Also Brahmana. In ancient India, it referred to one who had attained highest spiritual knowledge. Within the caste system, Brahmins were born to their caste and considered to be in its highest tier.

Carnatic A tradition of South Indian classical music. It is one of two main subgenres of Indian classical music.

Chola dynasty A Tamil dynasty that was established around 300 BCE. It is one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of Southern India.

Desi Evolved from the Sanskrit word, ‘Desh’, meaning country. This term is now loosely used to refer to the people, cultures and products of South Asia.

Devadasi A girl, who for the duration of her entire life is dedicated to the service and worship of a deity or temple.

Diaspora The dispersion or spread of any people from their original homeland.

Dravidian The term was adapted from the Sanskrit word ‘Dravida’ which was used in the 7th century text Tantravarttika to refer to the language and culture of native South Indians.

Guru A Sanskrit term for teacher, implying the sacred role of the giver of knowledge.

Indian sub-continent Also referred to as South Asia, it includes countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Indus Valley A Bronze Age civilisation that is situated in current day Pakistan and Northwest India.

Jeevathma The individual soul.

Kalamamani An award conferred by the Iyal, Isai Nadaga Mandram of Tamil Nadu, India for excellence in the field of art and literature.

Maratha A member of the princely and military castes of the former Hindu kingdom of Maharashtra in central India.

Margam The sequence of items in a bharatanatyam recital. In Sanskrit, it literally means the way or path.

Nadaraja The Lord (raja) of Dance (nadanam). A manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva, whose divine dance creates and destroys the universe.

Nattuvanar A dance master of bharatanatyam, responsible for training the dancers and directing their performances.

Natya The theatrical dance art of India.

Natya Sashtras An ancient Sanskrit text on theatre, arts and dance that is attributed to the sage Bharata Muni.

Nayaka The hero or male protagonist.

Nayaki The heroine or female protagonist.

NRI A Non-Resident Indian (NRI) is a citizen of India who holds an Indian passport and has temporarily emigrated to another country for employment, residence or education.

PIO A Person of Indian Origin (PIO) is a person of Indian origin or ancestry but who is not a citizen of India and is the citizen of another country. A PIO might have been a citizen of India and subsequently taken the citizenship of another country, or have ancestors born in India or other states.

Padam The deepest expressive item of bharatanatyam, it narrates divine love or the pain of separation from the beloved, usually using the device of a nayaki (heroine) talking to her sakhi (friend), about her love for the nayaka (hero), symbolising the human soul yearning for union with the divine.

Padmashri Awarded by the Government of India, it is the country’s fourth highest civilian award.

Paramathma The supreme soul or spirit.

Pandya An ancient Tamil kingdom that ruled parts of South India from 600 BCE to 17th century CE.

Punjabi A native or inhabitant of the North Indian state of Punjab.

Raga The melodic patterns used in Indian classical music.

Rigvedas An ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas.

Sanskrit A classical Indo-European language of India, in which the Hindu scriptures and classical Indian epic poems are written and from which many northern Indian (Indic) languages are derived.

Sathir A solo dance form performed for centuries by devadasis in temples and eventually in the royal courts of South India.

Sringara Rasa Love or eros, one of the nine emotions in bharatanatyam.

Tanjore Quartet The Tanjore Quartet consisted of four brothers: Chinnaiah, Ponniah, Sivanandam and Vadivelu who lived during the early 19th century and contributed to the development of bharatanatyam and carnatic music.

Thaala A pattern of rhythmic structure in Indian music or dance.

Vedic period A period of Indian history dating back to 1500 BCE. This is the period when the Vedas were composed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This eight-year project has both bettered and battered me. While I have been enriched by the experience in many ways, with full-time work, a young family, house-building, and washing dishes, to say the least, the journey has also been incredibly challenging and at times, painful. Without the constant encouragement, guidance and support of several people, this study would not have seen fruition.

First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Associate Professor Leonie Rowan. Often, I could not see the end in sight. However, Leonie always did. There were times I gave up. However, Leonie never did. I would go into bouts of hiding and procrastination. However, Leonie was always there—with a smile, incredible wisdom, and some Cadbury. Leonie, on top of being the best supervisor in the world (yes, the WORLD!) you have been my guru, my shrink, and a lifelong friend.

I would also like to thank my family and friends for their unwavering love and encouragement. To start with, I am grateful to my parents, Acha, and Amma for instilling in me a passion for language, the arts, our culture, and community—I think this work is a culmination of the things you have taught me to love.

My brothers, Keeshan and Rishik, who over the years have helped me in a myriad of ways (from babysitting the children during desperate times to pulling all-nighters alongside me to ensure I met assessment and work deadlines).

My Aunty Komala—an inspiration and fellow doctoral student, who although lives 6000 kilometres away, has been by my side the whole time. Thank you to both you and Sithappa for all the hours you have spent helping me edit and format my thesis.

My friend Anu, my number one cheerleader and sister from another mister—every person needs someone like you in their life.

Associate Professor Peter Grootenboer for his nuggets of wisdom and for agreeing to cast a final eye on this work.

Doing a doctorate can be quite a selfish exercise, and I am deeply obliged to my beautiful children Yuvadev Vinayak Menon and Sahana Vedalakshmi Menon. I am sorry for all

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the times I have sent you to bed without a story, for the times I have not been fully present to listen to your sweet and funny stories. I will make up for it.

Nothing, of course, would be possible without my best friend and the love of my life, my wife, Saraswathy Menon. You are my superwoman and my lifeline. Another dissertation is necessary to wax lyrical about everything you mean to me. I knew you were a keeper 13 years ago when you stayed up with me all night in the UQ labs to help me fix my references—looks like nothing has changed!

I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the generosity, enthusiasm and warmth of the Indian/Tamil-Sri Lankan community and in particular, the boys and men who participated in this study—without you wonderful people, there would be no thesis. I have been deeply humbled by how the community has rallied around me and how several members have gone out of their way to help me with data collection and provide me with important contacts. You have been my family away from ‘home’.

This thesis is dedicated to my Aunt Vedavalli Angappan. It was her grand idea and dream for me to complete a doctorate. Thank you for nudging me on with your persistent phone calls. I will see you at the convocation Periamma!

Lastly, I am eternally grateful to God, who has blessed me in every imaginable way.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The Alarippu is the invocation piece. Meaning ‘flowering bud’, it is the first piece performed by the solo dancer in the bharatanatyam repertoire. At this juncture, the performer offers respects and salutations to God, the performance space, the preceptors and welcomes the audience members. It awakens the dancer’s body, soul and mind to pave the way for the next few hours of performance. Likewise, this introduction is the Alarippu, the awakening and incantation of my thesis.

This introduction is divided into two parts. Part A includes the preamble and identifies the significance of this research, and Part B provides a background overview of key concepts relevant to the study and outlines the researcher’s personal motivation to conduct the research.

Part A

Preamble

Bharatanatyam is a classical dance form that traces its origins to Tamil Nadu in South India. The art form’s reputation as a ‘high art’ has increased steadily since the 1930s, and it is currently touted as “the most popular and well-known of the classical dance forms performed in India today” (Puri, 2004, p. 45). Bharatanatyam is also immensely popular among members of overseas South Asian communities and, in particular, the South Indian and Tamil Sri Lankan diaspora, who often view the performance of the art form as “a way of demonstrating a return to one’s roots and ensuring a continuation and absorption” of culture (David, 2012, p. 378). To some of those who practise bharatanatyam outside the Indian Subcontinent, learning this art form has become a manifestation of the performance of ethnic and cultural identity (Hyder, 2004). It has been suggested that fearing the experience of complete acculturation, immigrant parents see the arts as the standard vehicle for the cultural training of subsequent generations of South Asian youth whose ties to the homeland are sometimes regarded as tenuous (A. Kumar, 2006). Thus, Kumar (2006) describes bharatanatyam as the “quintessential rite of passage among the South Asian bourgeoisie” (p .82). She states that for both the immigrant South Asian and the subsequent generations of South Asians born and raised in the West, bharatanatyam

is valued as an art form that is a carrier of culture, and it figures crucially in the construction and perpetuation of Indianness.

However, this trend is noticeable primarily among the daughters and female children of diasporic families. In her paper exploring the embodied performativity and transmission of dance practices among Tamil Sri Lankans in London, David (2012) posits that bharatanatyam “is certainly viewed by most of the community as a vehicle for the enculturation of young female Tamils as it is thought to epitomise femininity” (p. 380) and that “boys are encouraged to learn classical Indian instruments rather than dance” (p. 381). It is worth noting here that the classification of bharatanatyam as a feminine occupation is not limited to immigrant communities in the West; it is also widely perceived as ‘feminised’ in India, its country of origin. In his “Playwright’s Notes” to Dance Like a Man, Mahesh Dattani (as cited in Sen, 2012) describes how the art form has become commodified in contemporary India as a pursuit for girls from affluent families to train, condition and showcase the feminine embodiment of their cultural upbringing (to improve their marriage prospects). In this context, male dancers, regardless of how professional and talented they are, are devalued and face enormous stigmas, which Dattani partly attributes to a legacy of colonial influences and societal attitudes.

Through my personal involvement and engagement with members of various South Indian and Tamil Sri Lankan communities in Australia over the past 13 years, I have observed a phenomenon similar to the situation described above. I have noticed that while a large number of Australian children from South Asian backgrounds learn the classical dance–drama form of bharatanatyam from a young age, it is predominantly and almost exclusively a feminine occupation. Unlike their female counterparts, few boys from the Australian-South Asian diaspora appear to receive encouragement from their families to learn the art form, and they are directed, more commonly, into other avenues towards culture, such as playing various instruments and studying different languages.

Interestingly, however, bharatanatyam has not, in fact, historically been considered an exclusive feminine cultural occupation. Dhanajayan (2007, p. 18), posits that in the South Indian tradition, classical bharatanatyam dancers were exclusively men and male dancers were expected to perform female roles as well. The situation has since reversed over the years: bharatanatyam has become more popular with women, and the focus is more often on the graceful and feminine aspects of the dance. Jha (2010) concurs with Dhanajayan

and states that bharatanatyam has gone from “being a stage populated by larger than life patriarchs” (para. 1) to becoming “symbolically neutered” (para. 2) (a problematic turn of phrase) and ultimately “giving way to female dominion” (para. 1).

From a spiritual perspective, Nadaraja, the cosmic King of Dance and a manifestation of Lord Siva, is represented as a masculine body (Dhanajayan, 1984). Likewise, from a historical perspective, many prominent masculine figures have been key players in the development of the art form—including Bharata Muni, the third century BC Indian theatrologist and saint who authored the Natya Sashtras (holy treatise of bharatanatyam), Pandya kings from ancient Tamil dynasties who learned bharatanatyam alongside their queens (Srinivasan, 2010), and the nattuvanars or male gurus of bharatanatyam, who played a significant role in codifying the dance (Gaston, 1996).

While it is not entirely clear why or how such a drift has transpired, bharatanatyam researchers and practitioners alike have suggested a host of reasons, such as deep-rooted fears of ‘normal’ boys becoming feminised (Sangeetha, 2013), a rejection of cultural traditions to “demystify the stereotype of the emasculated Asian man” when negotiating heterosexual masculine identities in Western societies (Dasgupta & Dasgupta, 1996 as cited in A. Kumar, 2006, p. 83), the legacy of colonial discourses and the seeping through of Western patriarchal attitudes (which have typically alienated male dancers) into the Indian psyche (Bhargav, 2012), embarrassment and discomfort with wearing costume make-up (Srinivasan, 2010), and prejudice and a lack of support from families and the community (Badrinath, as cited in Kumar, 2013). Most of these purported reasons, however, are speculative and very little research has examined why the uptake of bharatanatyam among men is significantly lower than it is for women. In particular, there is almost no research relating to the factors that influence Dravidian boys’ attitudes towards and experiences with bharatanatyam in Australia or other Western diasporic communities.

This thesis, therefore, explores the attitudes of South Asian boys in Australia towards learning and performing bharatanatyam. In particular, it investigates how attitudes towards gender and culture have shaped the way in which boys from immigrant Dravidian (the term ‘Dravidian’ is defined and discussed later in this chapter) backgrounds negotiate and renegotiate their gender and cultural identities in performing arts spaces, and in turn, the impact this has had on the choices Dravidian boys make in terms of their engagement

with the art form in immigrant communities. Drawing on the resources provided by postcolonial and post-structural theory, the thesis reports on data collected during in- depth interviews with a wide range of Dravidian boys in Australia—dancers and non- dancers. The thesis outlines the major factors that affect their choices to learn and perform bharatanatyam and contributes thereby to diverse strands of literature, including literature relating to postcolonial understandings of masculinity, understandings of bharatanatyam, the South Asian diaspora and the use of performing arts education in the negotiation of cultural identity.

The emphasis of this thesis is on charting the narratives and experiences of a selected group of participants, the 20 Australian-Dravidian boys and men I interviewed. I acknowledge that this group is highly diverse, that they are all unique individuals and that every interview, every story that has been narrated, has had an influence on this study and has nudged and tugged it in a different way. A conscientious effort has been made to avoid clumping, stereotyping and rendering the participants as a homogeneous, universal group. Instead, as supported by the framework of this research, this thesis is committed to moving beyond narrow and restrictive understandings of the postcolonial subject, and I have actively sought to value multiple stories and present a non-linear and deliberately open narrative that legitimises these distinct accounts of the male Australian-Dravidian experience with bharatanatyam.

Located within a postcolonial framework, this study will have several implications for understanding the ways in which boys and men from Dravidian immigrant backgrounds negotiate both their gender and their cultural identities through the exploration of performing art forms in the diaspora. In Dissemination: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation, Bhabha (1990) describes the concept of nationhood as a reiterative process of signification, constantly in flux as it is enacted in the present. The globalisation of culture, through the proliferation and mobility of people who are objects of cultural pedagogy as well as subjects of a process of signification, calls for a review of the way in which Dravidian boys in diasporic territories construct what it means to be a ‘Dravidian man’ in performing arts spaces. Since performance is delivered through the body of a performer who is a sexual, cultural and gendered being, the study of Dravidian men’s attitudes towards bharatanatyam in Australia is pertinent to understanding deeper issues

surrounding the construction of gender, sexual and cultural identity processes of men in the community.

As mentioned earlier, the way in which Dravidian boys and men negotiate their cultural and gender identities in diasporic communities, specifically in Australia, the impact the negotiation and renegotiation of these identities have on perceptions and attitudes towards bharatanatyam and the performance of these identities in bharatanatyam spaces shape the focus of this research project. The following two research questions were developed based on these central aims:

• Question 1: How do attitudes towards gender influence the decisions of Australian-Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam?

• Question 2: How do attitudes towards culture influence the decisions of Australian-Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam?

Significance

The focus of this thesis revolves around the two research questions stated above. The research findings of this professional doctorate will be of interest, significance and relevance to bharatanatyam educators, practitioners and researchers as well as the wider community of educators, researchers and policy administrators who are involved and concerned with the education of Dravidian boys in immigrant communities and, more specifically, Australia. Below, I address the question “Why is this research important?” and the significance of this research to various groups and contexts.

It can be anticipated that the perceived rejection of bharatanatyam by Dravidian men will have several implications for both the art form and the individual. For Dravidian men, the abandonment of bharatanatyam leads to a loss of physical benefits associated with the art form. The highly physical nature of bharatanatyam makes for great exercise, and it is considered by some an artistic strand of yoga (natya yoga) as it stimulates and energises the body both physically and mentally. Therefore, not learning and practising bharatanatyam means a loss of physical, tangible benefits such as improved muscle strength, flexibility, balance, posture, attention span, stamina, endurance and reduced stress levels (Priya, 2010).

Moreover, it is commonly argued that artistic expression or production and the transmission of heritage and spiritual beliefs go hand in hand. Through bharatanatyam, children from immigrant backgrounds are able to reflect on the maintenance of values and life philosophies of their cultural origin. Once again, refusal among Dravidian boys to learn the art form deprives them of this opportunity.

However, the primary concern of this project is to improve the understanding of the complex processes involved in the gender and cultural identity formation of boys in the Australian-Dravidian community. The literature surrounding the acculturation processes of immigrants asserts that diasporic communities are constantly faced with the challenge of self-redefinition and reinvention. When people physically move across the boundaries of their nation states, they can find it a challenge to harmoniously integrate their ‘sociocultural baggage’ with the political, economic and social life of the host society (Niekerk, 2002). However, the complexities and potential contradictions faced in the migrant world may be amplified for Dravidian boys, who not only need to try to negotiate a common ground between the cultural identities of their host country and country of origin but also need to reinvent and reimagine a homogeneous patriarchal identity to protect a sense of their gender identity and network of power in the diaspora.

Furthermore, through an examination of Dravidian boys’ and men’s perceptions and readings of bharatanatyam in Australia, this research elucidates understandings of marginalised masculinities and experiences within local performing arts spaces. In particular, this investigation adds value to existing knowledge of the gender, sexual and cultural identity processes of men in the community and their experiences with conceiving, performing and reifying constructions of ‘Indianness’ or ‘South Asianness’ through the canvas of the immigrant artiste’s body. How gender and cultural identity are constructed in a postcolonial, relocated diasporic contexts, and what part bharatanatyam practices play in transmitting, representing or reworking these gender and sociocultural categories of identity are fundamental issues in my research.

Situated within a postcolonial theoretical framework, this research also contributes to the broader postcolonial project of resisting essentialist, one-dimensional approaches when speaking about the lived cultural experiences of postcolonial subjects. Apart from disrupting the normative centre of colonial discourses, the postcolonial impetus of this

project also contributes to more diverse, richer representations of the postcolonial subject’s experiences and lived realities.

Finally, of course, the research contributes to the knowledge that informs the work of practitioners directly involved in the arts. In particular, it provides a commentary on how Dravidian boys’ and men’s attitudes towards culture and gender have implications for the practices of bharatanatyam institutions, educators and performers in Australia.

To provide the reader with a deeper understanding and clearer context of this investigation, the second part of this chapter presents an overview of the background information needed to navigate this thesis. In particular, this part of the chapter has been included to cater to the reader who has limited knowledge about bharatanatyam, the nuances of the social and cultural life of the South Asian diaspora and the cultural identity of Dravidians. This part also includes an account of my (the researcher’s) personal motivation, interest, and investment in this study.

Part B

This section provides the background to the research and has four key goals: to outline my own motivation, to introduce the dance of bharathanatyam and its gendered history, to provide a context of the South Asian diaspora and to justify the use of the label ‘Dravidian’ when describing the group of participants in this research.

Personal Motivation and Hypothesis

Of course, the ‘I’ who writes here must also be thought of as, itself, ‘enunciated’. We all write and speak from a particular space and time, from a history and culture which is specific. If the paper seems preoccupied with the diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement, it is worth remembering that all discourse is 'placed', and the heart has its reasons.

– Stuart Hall (1990) in “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.”

It is of utmost importance to consider the position and the place from which researchers speak when considering the motivation for their investigation and determining the validity of what they are saying. In line with the postcolonial framework of this study, I challenge traditional, hegemonic, Euro-Western, social science research practices that

“have traditionally refused to interrogate how we as researchers create our texts” (Fine, 1994, as cited in Chilisa, 2011, p. 23) and posit that:

• I am an agent of the context I’m studying.

• My experiences and the lenses through which I view and make sense of the world do influence the way I narrate the stories of others.

• My voice, my experiences, and my stories will surface when reporting my findings.

• I am in some ways a co-participant of the interviews I have conducted.

Simply put, I, the researcher, cannot, do not and will not exist in a vacuum, disconnected from the people I study. Below, I outline and share snippets of my story that are relevant to this investigation. They include my encounters and experiences with learning and performing bharatanatyam, my life as an immigrant in Australia and a member of the diaspora, my impressions of the Australian-South Asian community and its engagement with the performing arts, my ethos, and journey as an educator and the significance this study has for my professional practice.

From as far back as I can remember, I have been intensely passionate about the performing arts. Through the privilege of growing up in multicultural Singapore, I was exposed to various Indian, Chinese, Malay and Western performing art forms from an early age. In my family environment, the arts were admired and encouraged. My parents were both high school English teachers and their deep appreciation for language transcended to a love of theatre, drama, and other performing art forms. My father was well known in local circles for his playwriting skills and contributions to a number of regional magazines, newspapers and radio and television stations in Southeast Asia. He also played the tabla, an Indian percussion instrument. My mother played the veena (an Indian plucked string instrument), and was a Carnatic vocalist and a member of Singapore’s Teachers Brass Band. Much later in life, she learned the guzheng (a Chinese plucked zither) and was invited to make public performances. She was also a talented bharatanatyam dancer. My earliest memories include the excitement of watching her perform bharatanatyam on television and accompanying my father to see her dance at various high-profile stage events in Singapore.

It was my mother who decided I should learn bharatanatyam, and she enrolled me in Kalamandir, an Indian fine arts school, when I was seven years old. My family believed that I had a natural inclination for the art form since I was always dancing and imitating bharatanatyam steps and mudras. The South Indian cult classic movie Salangai Oli, which traces the story of a struggling young male dancer, was released a year after my birth, and my family members still recount how I used to dance intensely to the songs from the film. However, my interest and commitment to weekend bharatanatyam classes was short lived and I discontinued after a couple of months. I was also very aware that I was the only male student in my class. While my father did not object to me learning the art form, he was not particularly enthusiastic or supportive and felt boys should instead focus their time and energy on sports and academics.

During my primary and secondary schooling years, much of it in Catholic and Christian mission schools, I started developing an interest in English drama and theatre. After leaving school, I was conscripted to the Singapore Armed Forces as a combat medic. During my weekends off, I attempted to resurrect my interest in bharatanatyam and enrolled in classes with the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. Over these couple of years, I also had the opportunity to work with a few theatre companies and experimented with various other dramatic forms that incorporated elements from both Western and Indian theatre. During this period as well, I was acutely aware of the lack of men in the industry. Through conversations and exchanges I had with male peers, I came to realise that while many had an interest in the performing arts scene, they were reluctant to be directly involved in the arena for a host of reasons, including a lack of family support and the fear of being stigmatised as less masculine. Upon completing my full-time national service stint, I migrated to Australia in 2003. The move to Australia terminated my second attempt at mastering bharatanatyam.

After migrating to Queensland, I decided to give bharatanatyam another shot. While in my first year as an undergraduate student at the University of Queensland, I briefly took classes at the Nadananjali Dance School in Sinnamon Park. I found it very challenging to manage my studies, social life and a host of other extracurricular pursuits with regular dance classes. So after a few weeks, I discontinued for the third time. However, during my years at the University of Queensland, I was in a group that performed Indian folk and semi-classical dances regularly for community shows, university events and a number

of national and international conferences held in the wider Brisbane area. During my interactions with members of the local Indian and Sri Lankan communities in Queensland, I noticed that virtually all families had children who were learning at least one Indian performing art form. In many instances, children were learning more than one art form. Based on personal exchanges I had had with numerous bharatanatyam students and their families, I attributed this phenomenon to the desire of many immigrant families to preserve their cultural and ethnic heritage. In my opinion, many first- and second- generation Indians and Sri Lankans are afraid that they will lose their cultural identity in Australia since they are a minority group (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2012, approximately two per cent of all Australians are of either Indian or Sri Lankan descent) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012). However, I noticed that the gender of the children was a dominant determining factor in the sorts of classes that they were being sent to. While classes for bharatanatyam and other classical dance forms were dominated by girls, boys from South Asian families usually learned percussion instruments such as the tabla or mridangam.

This motivated me to research further why such a gender divide existed, especially since, to my knowledge:

• Bharatanatyam was originally performed by men.

• The Natya Sashtras referred to the dance form as an expression of an individual’s spiritual devotion for the divine and was clearly not gender specific.

• Bharatanatyam’s patron deity, Nadaraja, whose blessings are invoked at the beginning of every performance when artistes pay obeisance to his statue on stage, also has a masculine form.

Upon graduating from university with a teaching qualification, I gained employment as an English and drama teacher at a high school on the Gold Coast. In my first year as a teacher, there were significantly more girls than boys in my drama classes. However, within a few years, the situation reversed and some of my classes had a male student majority. While I did not teach dance, I noticed that the enrolment for all dance classes, across every level, was exclusively dominated by girls.

The culmination and synthesis of the experiences, interests, observations and curiosities discussed above propelled me towards this research. As an educator, it is in my professional interests to understand the factors that motivate students and influence the choices they make in terms of what they learn and how they learn. As outlined above, my personal and professional experiences have indicated that gender and culture play a significant role in shaping the educational choices made by young people. My personal interest and cultural affiliation with bharatanatyam churned a desire to protect the art form, to ensure that it is practised and propagated by future generations. The lack of boys and men engaging with the art form made me wonder about what seems to be a gendered disconnect and rejection of bharatanatyam. My life as an immigrant and member of a racial, ethnic and cultural minority made me reflect on the power structures that come into play when choices are made to perform difference in Australia. From this basis, I moved to a point where I wanted to research, not only the reasons why boys do or do not choose to study the art form, but to use this as a foundation for theorising around the relationship between gender, cultural identity and performance within postcolonial contexts.

At this point, it is necessary to provide some more detail about the dance form itself.

Bharatanatyam: An Overview

Bharatanatyam is a highly stylised and traditional classical dance–drama form that originated almost 3,000 years ago in Tamilakam, the country of the ancient pre-Aryan Tamil Dravidians (modern-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Northeast Sri Lanka). It is an art meant primarily for spiritual expression, and it cannot be adequately performed without reverence for technique and spiritual life. Initially known by several regional names such as dasiattam, kuthu, and sathir, bharatanatyam was performed only within the privacy of the four walls of the temples. In original Hindu tradition, sathir was considered an intimate means of worship and intense communication between the jeevathma (the individual soul, the devotee) and the paramathma (the universal soul, God), and required strict adherence to the Natya Sashtras (holy treatise about the essence of the stagecraft written by Bharatha Munir, the sage who founded bharatanatyam) (Farndon, 2007; Raman, 2001).

The name bharatanatyam can be split into two words, bharatha and natyam. Natyam is the Tamil word for dance and bharatha is named after Bharatha Munir (Kumarasamy, 2003). Another interpretation of the word bharatha is that it is the Tamil acronym of three separate words that represent the essence of the art form: bhava—expression, raga— melody and thaala—rhythm (Gopurathingal, 2001).

Learning bharatanatyam can be divided into ten stages, and bharatanatyam education is organised into a progressive series called the adavus. There are ten different types of adavus: tattadavu, mettadavu, natadavu, kattadavu, kudittamettadavu, maiadavu, mandiadavu, jati, nadai and ardi. There are 12 adavus in each type, making 120 adavus in total. However, the average bharatanatyam performer only learns between 70 and 80 adavus in his or her lifetime (Gopalakrishnan, 2008).

After learning bharatanatyam for approximately 10 to 12 years, students are considered ready to give their first public performance. This is called the arangetram (which literally means ‘to ascend the stage’) (Gorringe, 2001). In ancient times, the arangetram had both artistic and economic value since it was seen as an opportunity to attract patronage from nobles and members of the royal family. Today, the focus of the arangetram is entirely artistic, and it is seen as an occasion when both teacher and student can be judged for their standards. Among the Indian diaspora who commonly view performing bharatanatyam as the artistic representative of Indianness and Indian heritage, arangetrams are often considered the symbol par excellence of ethnic heritage (Gorringe, 2001).

Today, bharatanatyam, both within the Indian Subcontinent and among diasporic communities in the West, enjoys a high social status, and its performers and gurus are deeply revered and respected. Owing to a steady migration of nearly 30 million people from South Asia to the rest of the world since the beginning of the nineteenth century (Bardhan, 2011), the art form of bharatanatyam is currently not only widely practised and performed within the Indian Subcontinent but has also gained immense popularity among several other countries with South Asian diasporic populations (David, 2012; Pillai, 2002). Among these immigrant communities, bharatanatyam is commonly perceived as an integral part of a girl’s upbringing and is seen as a tool to solidify ties between second- and third-generation immigrants and their cultural heritage of the Indian Subcontinent (Selvi, 2002). Tamils, in particular, claim bharatanatyam as their own and take pride in

ensuring its survival among future generations. It is therefore also popular among Tamils of Sri Lankan origin (Kumarasamy, 2003).

Though it is now performed in public proscenium stages, the bharatanatyam style has remained virtually intact over the centuries (Bhavanani, 2013). It is regarded by some as the purest form of any fine art in the Tamil district and is still performed in accordance with the Natya Sashtras (Bhavanani, 2013). For many who perform it, it has immense spiritual value, and for those who learn it, the utmost dedication, discipline and respect are required. It is considered a very important aspect of Indian heritage and organisations and individuals around the world have taken efforts to ensure its preservation and proliferation in the future (Selvi, 2002).

Gendered History of Bharatanatyam

As indicated earlier in this chapter, the art form has an interesting double history. On the one hand, it traces its roots to the Natya Sashtras, the classical Tamil, and Sanskrit literary performance texts written in the second century AD by the legendary sage Bharatha Munir; on the other hand, it belongs to the oral histories and genealogies preserved by the bodily techniques and artistic practices of a group of South Indian women known as devadasis or temple dancers and was known by several regional names, such as dasiattam, kuthu and sathir. The devadasi system (literally meaning ‘servant of the deities’) involved, among other things, the customary ‘marriage’ of young girls to Hindu deities, after which the girls dedicated their lives to serving and worshipping Hindu gods through song and dance within the privacy of the four walls of the temples. Scholars maintain that this cultural system can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilisation and Vedic literature and practices (Vatsyayan, 1974).

However, the anti-nautch1 campaign of the late nineteenth century managed to submerge such practices (Meduri, 1988). In the 1930s, a series of historical circumstances, including a surge in Indian nationalism, the Brahmanisation of the performing arts and revivalist campaigns spearheaded by Western and Indian artists such as Rukmini Devi Arundale and members of the South Indian Theosophical Society, converged to bring

1 The word ‘nautch’ is the anglicised version of the Hindi word for ‘dance’. The devadasis were referred to as ‘nautch girls’ by European colonials, who viewed the concept of such female entertainers as vulgar and inappropriate. Both Christian missionaries and Hindu social reform associations sought to eradicate these nautch girls through calling for government and social institutions to boycott and clamp down on their practices.

bharatanatyam to the proscenium stage, where its performance was more widely accepted (Pillai, 2002; Vishwanathan, 1997).

As outlined earlier, while there are blurred overlaps and dichotomies in historical literature about the art form, it can be argued that in its origins bharatanatyam had a strong masculine influence, regardless of the historical line one chooses to take. While the Natya Sashtras were originally codified and performed exclusively by men; in the devadasi system, the repositories of knowledge, the nattuvanars (gurus of sathir) were almost always male.

The feminisation of bharatanatyam may have begun after the tenth century AD, when the services of the devadasis were extended to selected mortal beings. Since devadasis performed prescribed duties in the temples, they were protected by the temple institution and were bestowed gifts as part of the gratuity accorded to devotees who render important services to the Hindu temples. However, the institution was clearly exploitive. Often, these gifts were in part supplied by wealthy patrons with whom the devadasis were forced to form sexual alliances. This ensured the continued contribution to both the welfare of the devadasi and the economy of the temple (Srinivasan, 1985). During the Maratha and Chola dynasties, devadasis continued to receive great patronage from the Indian kings and began to perform in the royal courts. Over the next 800 years, bharatanatyam became an art form associated primarily with these dancing girls, who were framed within the highly patriarchal discourses of Hindu society, where art was aligned with female sensuality.

In the early nineteenth century, sathir experienced its first renaissance and acquired the form that we associate with bharatanatyam today. This momentous cultural flowering was facilitated by the revival of classical South Indian Carnatic music and the patronage provided by the Tanjore kings. During this time, sathir was codified by four brothers, Chinnaiah, Ponniah, Shivanandam and Vadivelu; collectively known as the Tanjore Quartet, their composition of the planned program called the margam is still integral to bharatanatyam education today (Banerjee, 2013). The formalisation of dance and music practices in this era began to redefine men’s role in bharatanatyam. The art was now being preserved in the exclusive custody of male teachers, who were privileged since they had the formal and articulate knowledge of the practice. Inevitably, this process of

institutionalisation resulted in the once feminine dance being reconceived as a patriarchal practice.

When the British rulers annexed the Tanjore crown in 1856, bharatanatyam practitioners stopped receiving any kind of patronage. In a desperate move to earn a livelihood, many devadasis took to prostitution and bharatanatyam fell into disrepute (Srinivasan, 1988). From then until the 1930s, bharatanatyam was considered an activity confined to socially ostracised women and was never learned by people belonging to mainstream social circles, as it came to be considered the art of a cheap profession (Meduri, 1988).

After 80 years of oblivion from the public sphere, the revival of the art form by Rukmini Devi Arundale in the 1930s marked the advent of the refeminisation of bharatanatyam. Drawn by the depth of its expression, Rukmini brought about the second renaissance of bharatanatyam by canonising it through learning its basic techniques from Mylapore Gowri Ammal (a devadasi) and building up a repertoire of systematic progression (Meduri, 2005; Subramani, 2003). A trained ballerina, Rukmini was the wife of Bishop George Arundale, the president of the South Indian Theosophical Society. In 1928, she was declared the “World Mother” by the society and was described as “the embodiment of womanhood in the occult hierarchy…and was to express the womanly side of life” (Dixon, 2003 p. 208). Meduri (1996) suggests that Rukmini Devi’s mythic constitution enabled her to seize bharatanatyam from the hands of male nattuvanars and nationalists and reinflect it into what she believed was a feminine place.

Authors and practitioners alike concede that since then, the focus has shifted to social allusions of graceful and feminine aspects of the dance–drama form and embodied past concepts of ‘Tamil womanhood’ (Gaston, 1991; O’Shea, 2001). Currently, throughout much of bharatanatyam’s narrative abhinaya dances, there appears to be an emphasis on the everyday collective discourses of the feminised social body. For example, Stiehl (2004) cites how the padam, the demanding midsection of a bharatanatyam recital that accentuates the relationship of the nayaka and nayaki (hero and heroine) includes eroticised, gendered themes of the desirous ‘feminine’. Bharatanatyam practitioners who perform the padam often reinforce desired feminine inscriptions in their physical interpretations of the love lyrics of the padam that involve submissive sentiments of waiting, longing, dressing up and preparing for the arrival of the Nayaka (hero). Therefore, learning bharatanatyam has largely become a pursuit of Indian girls from

‘good families’—families with strong religious, cultural and moral values in which the concepts of feminine grace, purity, chastity and honour play a dominant aspect in cultural identification and reproduction. This trend is no different among the South Asian diaspora in Western countries, where most South Asian boys do not seem to appreciate what might be defined as the masculine and rugged attributes of bharatanatyam and a very small number learn it alongside their female counterparts (Krishnamurthy, 2008).

The South Asian Diaspora

While the term ‘diaspora’ was originally used to refer to Jewish communities that were living outside the ‘promised land’, the term is now widely accepted when referring to a whole range of migrant communities and displaced people who “feel or maintain their connection with the origin country” (Kumar, Sarkar, & Sharma, 2009, p. 29).

More than 20 million people of South Asian origin are living in diasporic communities (Oonk, 2007). In terms of numbers, the Indian diaspora is the third largest in the world, after the Chinese and British (Sahoo, 2006). Although the South Asian diaspora is very diverse and there are differences in regional adaptations, it has been argued that in many ways, the diaspora displays a common Indian or South Asian identity that seeks to connect with original roots and reproduce various elements and components of culture in the host country (Oonk, 2007).

While Indians are one of Australia’s oldest non-European immigrant groups (Voigt-Graf, 2003, p. 142), and the Punjabis, in particular, have had a long history of migration to the continent, the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act in 1901 limited the number of Indian migrants until the early 1970s when the White Australia Policy was reversed. Since then, the number of Indians in Australia has risen sharply and has tripled within the last decade alone (Masanauskas, 2013). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012), there are over 390,000 Australians of Indian origin. The total number of Australians from South Asian backgrounds would be much larger if those who can trace their ancestry to other countries from the Indian Subcontinent were included.

Most recent migrants to Australia are professionals who have gained residency on the basis of their skills and as a collective group, Indians appear to be one of the most economically successful migrant groups in Australia. However, the community is complex, and their “migration biographies” and experiences as migrants in Australia are

very diverse (Voigt-Graf, 2003). It is important to note that apart from migrants who arrived directly from the Indian Subcontinent, the South Asian diaspora in Australia also consists of several ‘twice migrants’ who came from countries such as Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. The reasons for migrating between these various Indian communities also seem to differ. While most migrants who came directly from India seem to view Australia as a stepping stone to better career prospects and economic returns, the main motivation for Indo-Fijians seems to be related to political and economic discrimination in Fiji’s public sector and a series of coups during which violence against Indian persons and property was widespread (Voigt-Graf, 2003).

Likewise, since the early 1980s, many Sri Lankans and, in particular, ethnic Tamils have migrated to Australia on humanitarian, family reunion and skilled migration visas to escape the ongoing conflict and civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan government (Migrant Information Centre, 2010).

While most studies have used the labels ‘Indian’ or ‘South Asian’ to describe the diaspora that traces its roots to countries from the Indian Subcontinent, this thesis refers to its group of participants as ‘Dravidians’. Although this research draws from and is informed by much of the literature on the Indian and/or South Asian diaspora and all of its participants can be identified as South Asian, I found the label Dravidian a more appropriate way to describe my group of participants for the purposes of this investigation. The choice to use the label Dravidian is discussed and justified in the next section.

What’s in a Name? Being Dravidian

In this study, the descriptor Dravidian is used to collectively refer to the people who trace their ancestry to the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in South India as well as the Tamil- speaking regions of Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka. The knowledge and understanding that informed this decision stemmed from my own interpretations and assumptions of the literature I have engaged with as well as my personal, deep involvement with the cultural practices of the community I have studied.

The label Dravidian was academically established by the nineteenth-century evangelist missionary and linguist Bishop Robert A. Caldwell, who used the term in his book A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages. While it had previously been thought that all Indian languages traced their origins to Sanskrit,

Caldwell used the term Dravidian to denote the distinct interrelatedness of the South Indian languages and identify them as a major language family that is separate from the Indo-Aryan languages (Krishnamurti, 2003).

The term was adapted from the Sanskrit word Dravida, which was used in the seventh century text Tantravarttika to refer to the language and culture of native Tamil speakers (Krishnamurti, 2003). While Caldwell acknowledges that the term Dravida can be deemed vague since in some circles it is used very specifically to refer to Tamilians, he defends the propriety of adopting the term since it is the only one that “has already been used more or less by Sanskrit philologists, as a generic appellation for the South Indian people and their language” (as cited in Krishnamurti, 2003, p. 1). The term Dravidian has since been widely accepted to refer to the family group of languages, and ‘Tamilian’ has been left to signify what is considered distinctly Tamil (Krishnamurti, 2003). Owing to its encompassing nature, the term Dravidian presented the best fit for encapsulating and describing the demographic targeted in this study—people who take cultural ownership of bharatanatyam and see it as a marker and component of their cultural identity.

While the choice to use the Dravidian descriptor was made after a consideration of a range of parameters, including geography, culture, nationality, language and race, I readily admit that this was a highly subjective process. Like Caldwell (1974), I concede that the criteria for selecting the Dravidian label for this particular study are not free of ambiguity as they are not fully grounded in any particular sets of geographical, historical or sociological units. It is also not possible to define the demographic for this study using any single scientific criterion since genetic studies on hidden variations have proven that the very concept of racial purity and exclusivity is a myth and absolutely unachievable (Cavalli-Sforza, 2000). This is also congruent with the postcolonial ethos of this study, which works to contest the very idea of a fixed colonial subject defined by biology.

The use of the term can also be seen as problematic as it has been highly politicised. The history of Dravidian politics can be traced to the advent of the South Indian Liberation Federation, which was founded in 1916 by non-Brahmin politicians of the then Madras Presidency to challenge the political, economic and social power of Brahmins. These politicians self-identified as culturally and racially Dravidian and positioned themselves in opposition to the Brahmins, who were perceived as the descendants of Aryan migrants and invaders from North India. Subsequently renamed the Justice Party, members of this

movement blamed Brahmanical priesthood and Sanskrit scriptural tradition for the oppression of lower caste Tamilians and even advocated for the secession of a separate nation-state for Dravidians (Pandian, 1998).

However, South Indian Brahmins such as E. Krishna Iyer, Kumari Kamala Lakshman, Kalanidhi Narayanan and Rukmini Devi Arundale played a prominent role in reviving bharatanatyam in the twentieth century and establishing it as the dominant classical dance form of India (L. G. Singh, 2003). One of the most significant modifications made from the devadasi tradition by these ‘upper class’ exponents of bharatanatyam was the sanitisation of the sringara rasa, the erotic and sensual aesthetics of bharatanatyam. The sringara rasa was reinterpreted through a Brahmanical lens and was strictly seen as bhakti—pure love and devotion for the divine, God (Coorlawala, 2004). Some scholars argue that it is because of this Brahmanisation of bharatanatyam that it has been legitimised as a high art of India (Coorlawala, 2004). Bharatanatyam continues to be immensely popular with South Indian and, in particular, Tamil Brahmins who (as noted above) regard it as an art form grounded in religious, spiritual and cultural wisdom (Srirama, 2004). Because of their deep interests and investment in bharatanatyam, I considered it sensible to include South Indian Brahmins in this study. I reason that, despite the political implications and connotations of the term Dravidian, it is still a relevant descriptor for South Indian Brahmins and can be comfortably used in this study to include them. To start with, many Indian historians and scholars have argued that the Aryan invasion theory is merely a myth that was propagated by Eurocentric theorists during the reign of the British Raj to sow seeds of confusion and discord among the native people of India (Bryant, 2001). Frawley (1994), for example, posits that the theory of the invading light-skinned, nomadic, Indo-Europeans or Aryans was used by colonialists to “divide India along north-south, Aryan-Dravidian lines”, “denigrate the Hindu religion as a product of barbaric invaders” and “deny India any real indigenous civilization so that the idea of the rule of foreign governments or ideas becomes acceptable” (p. 3). Instead, the majority of modern academics within both India and the West are beginning to concur with early Indian philosophers and scholars such as Sri Aurobindo, who proposed that Vedic-Aryan civilisation is indigenous to India (Frawley, 1994).

In fact, it has been argued that the very concept of Aryans as a distinct racial group is inaccurate (Frawley, 1994). As defined in the Rigvedas (the ancient sacred collection of

Sanskrit hymns), the term Arya was not used to refer to people that belonged to a particular ethnic group and spoke a separate language but was a Sanskrit title that was conferred upon someone who was considered noble or honourable (Sugirtharajah, 2003). In Vedic literature, Aryanism was not a racial qualifier but a humanistic, secular characteristic that could be applied to a morally upright person of any ethnic or religious affiliation (Frawley, 1994). Frawley (1994) argues that the concept of an invading Aryan race is not congruent with the Vedic view of the universe and is instead more reflective of a European-colonialist view of humanity in which dark-skinned people with different racial features were subjugated and enslaved.

It is also worth noting that many Brahmins themselves identify with the label Dravidian, including T. R. Sesha Iyengar, the Indian historian and Dravidologist who rejected the Aryan Brahmin theory and identified strongly with the Dravidian movement (Narayan, 2007), and Indian educationist and linguist P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar, who challenged propositions of an invading and conquering Aryan group (Kak, n.d.). The chief minister of Tamil Nadu and general secretary of the All India Anna Dravidian Progress Federation right until 2015, J. Jayalalithaa, was also a Brahmin.

As part of its commitment to postcolonial theory and philosophy, this study privileges the voice of the colonised and therefore supports the revised and widely accepted scholarship that debunks the Eurocentric Aryan theory. In line with the anti-essentialist impetus of the postcolonial project, this thesis challenges fixed, arrested biological categories of racial groups and instead concedes that the use of the term Dravidian is merely a social construct that has been adopted to further the political agenda of this study: to support the momentary banding together of postcolonial subjects with a shared cultural encounter to speak of a collective experience and find strength and solace in a common space.

Having established this, I will also explain why a host of other descriptors and labels such as ‘South Asian’, ‘Tamil’, ‘Indian’, ‘Hindu’ and even ‘Desi’, which has been popularised in fields such as South Asian studies, South Asian literary studies and postcolonial studies, have not been used in this thesis.

Tamil. Bharatanatyam traces its roots to Tamil Nadu in South India and has had a long tradition of being associated with the temples of the region (David, 2012), where it not only had a

religious purpose but “also doubled-up as a space for the propagation of the Tamil culture” (Dhinakaran, 2013, p. 25).

Although many people of Tamil origin consider bharatanatyam their own, there appears to be a considerable split in the performance styles and pedagogical practices of bharatanatyam due to the politico-cultural alignment and affiliations of its two most prominent pioneer exponents - Rukmini Devi Arundale and T. Balasaraswati. While Balasaraswati emphasised bharatanatyam as a Tamil form and accentuated its connections with the traditions, literature and music of Tamil regionalists, it is argued that Rukmini Devi seemed to privilege a Sanskrit tradition that aligns with pan-Indian cultural nationalism (O’Shea, 2007). Nevertheless, despite assertions that Rukmini Devi has chartered a Sanskrit history for bharatanatyam by privileging the ancient Indian treatise of the Natya Sashtras, at no point does she deny the legitimacy of bharatanatyam’s Tamil heritage and origins (Meduri, 2009). Bharatanatyam is therefore widely recognised as a Tamil art form, and for Tamils in diasporic communities it is regarded as a signifier of Tamil identity. For members of overseas Tamil communities, the performance of bharatanatyam is seen as a way to absorb Tamil culture and return to one’s Tamil roots and ancestral duties in an urban space (David, 2012).

Nonetheless, it was not possible to limit this study to Tamilians because bharatanatyam is equally popular among ethnic Malayalees, who trace their roots to the neighbouring South Indian state of Kerala. The accessibility of learning bharatanatyam has made it one of the most popular art forms among Malayalees, both within India and in overseas communities. Many contemporary exponents of bharatanatyam, such as Rajashree Warrier and famous South Indian actress and dancer Shobana, are Malayalees; the ‘legendary dancing couple of India’, the Dhanajayans, are Malayalees; my guru in Singapore and one of the country’s most renowned dancers, Maalika Girish Panicker, is Malayalee; and I, the researcher, also identify as a Malayalee.

This study acknowledges the strong cultural investment that Malayalees have in bharatanatyam and has included them in this research. However, since Malayalees identify as a separate ethnic group to Tamils, it would be inappropriate to apply the label ‘Tamil’ to describe the target group.

Indian. According to a 2012 report by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, there are nearly 22 million people of Indian origin living outside of India. In terms of sheer numbers, the Indian diaspora is the second largest in the world (Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, 2012). People of Indian origin constitute more than 40 per cent of the population in Fiji, Mauritius, United Arab Emirates, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, and there are significant minorities (numbering over one million each) in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada (Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, 2012). The Indian government considers the Indian diaspora “very special to India” since a large proportion of Indians overseas have been highly successful economically and have become well known for their seminal contributions to the development of many sectors of the new economy around the world (Indian Ministry of External Affairs, 2004). Owing to their relatively comfortable financial situation and the resources necessary to maintain aspects of identity, the Indian diaspora is often capable of being reproducers of Indian culture in their new host countries (Lin, 2006). However, before attempting to examine the relationship between elements of Indian culture such as bharatanatyam and the Indian diaspora, it is crucial to define the term ‘Indian’. Who and what is an Indian? How can the Indian diasporic community be characterised as Indian given that it comprises such diverse groups as Anglo-Indian Christians of Australia, Punjabi Muslims of the United Kingdom and Gujarati Hindus of Africa? A lack of horizontal links between Indians due to cultural and social divisions such as religion, caste, language, class and regional origin makes this a very challenging task. The Indian government groups overseas Indians into two categories: Non-resident Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs). The term NRI is used to refer to a person who is a citizen of India (in common usage, it also includes Indian-born individuals who have taken dual citizenship in other countries) and the term PIO refers to a person of Indian origin who is not a citizen of India. The Indian government considers anyone of Indian origins up to four generations removed to be a PIO (Sahoo, 2006).

However, other countries have chosen to use the term ‘Indian’ in a broad, generic sense to include all persons with ethnic origins in the Indian Subcontinent. For example, in Singapore, the National Registration Department includes Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and 12 other ethno-linguistic groups in the ethnic category of Indian, which is reflected in the identity cards carried by citizens and permanent residents (Sahoo, 2006).

Although the majority of the boys who were interviewed in this research are from Indian backgrounds, the term Dravidian has been used to facilitate the inclusion of Tamil Sri Lankans (also known as Ceylon Tamils), who, despite having cultural practices and experiences that are very similar to their South Indian counterparts, do not use the label Indian to describe their cultural identity.

There is still little scholarly consensus about the presence of Tamil people in Sri Lanka. While some theories state that Tamil Sri Lankans are foreign descendants of South Indians who only started to permanently move to Sri Lanka from the tenth century AD (Indrapala, 1969), other sources contend that Tamils have been in Sri Lanka since prehistoric times (Guneratne, 2011). In any case, regardless of whether they consider themselves descendants of Indian immigrants who arrived 1,000 years ago or natives of the island, Sri Lankan Tamils would not typically identify with the label Indian.

Therefore, the term Indian was not used since, although bharatanatyam traces its roots to the nation state of India, the Tamil people of Sri Lanka also consider this art form their own because of their shared kinship with the Tamils of South India. Tamil Sri Lankans, however, do identify as Dravidian (Perera, 2001). While the exclusive claim of the Dravidian label by Tamil Sri Lankans has been challenged by a number of Sri Lankan academics (Guneratne, 2011; Perera, 2001) and is described as a myth and a political tool used in Tamil nationalist discourses to create a binary with the Sinhalese people, who have been represented as Aryans, I argue that the use of the label Dravidian for the purpose of this project is suitable since it is not used in a biological, essentialist sense, but rather serves as a social construct to speak of a shared experience between a group of people.

South Asian. The term ‘South Asian’ is most commonly deployed in academic fields to refer to people who trace their roots to countries and territories in the Indian Subcontinent. It is considered “an important corrective to nationalistic thinking”, and is viewed as an attempt to shift away from Indian centric labels and be inclusive of the experiences and identities of diverse people from South Asia (A. Singh, 2007, p. 13).

However, there are a number of problems with using this label for this study. To start with, the term South Asian is rarely used comfortably by those it intends to identify and,

therefore, is always subject to being a misnomer (A. Singh, 2007). While the label South Asian is popularly used in academic, political, social and economic organisers, the significant diversity and vast differences in language, religion, class and a host of other cultural components among members of this group makes it an ineffective tag when speaking of a shared cultural experience (Võ & Bonus, 2002). Furthermore, given the postcolonial character of this research and its “critique of Eurocentric frameworks for producing knowledge, it seems counterproductive to insist on recreating a category based on geographical coincidence and a dubious sense of cultural similarity” (A. Singh, 2007, p. 26).

In particular, in the context of this study, bharatanatyam as an art form is most popularly performed in South India and Sri Lanka and is not very well known in other South Asian countries such as Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Bangladesh or even in other states of India. To speak of a broad South Asian investment and relationship with bharatanatyam would, therefore, result in this investigation losing focus and shape.

Finally, despite the idealism behind the move by post-nationalist thinkers to use the South Asian label, it has been claimed that there are limitations to the effectiveness of the South Asian regional identity because of the “inevitable centrality of India” (A. Singh, 2007). India’s dominance in the region means that the idea of South Asianness and a South Asian character, identity and sense of being has not entered the consciousness of people from the region and, when used, is seen as merely a synonym for Indianness. The label of South Asian was therefore deliberately not used in this study so as not to undermine the importance of smaller South Asian countries and regional players (in particular, Sri Lanka) that have a stronger sense of cultural connection with the art form.

Hindu. Bharatanatyam traces its roots to Hindu temple traditions and is grounded in the concept of bhakti, or devotion to God (Raj, 2008). Through expressions and movement, bharatanatyam performers narrate the stories of Hindu deities in a temple atmosphere where the art form is seen as a spiritual offering to Hindu gods and goddesses (Zubko, 2006). Hindu spiritualists have likened the performance of bharatanatyam to a “ritual puja” where the performing devotee gains access to communicate and reach “a state of union with the deity” (David, 2009, p. 222).

While there is no denying bharatanatyam’s Hindu-spiritual roots, it has to be acknowledged that many of its performers and practitioners do not identify as Hindu. For example, there is an increasing interest in the art form among Indian Christians, and attempts have been made to bring bharatanatyam into Indian churches and Christian worship (Raj, 2008, p. 137). Likewise, there are a number of Muslim bharatanatyam exponents around the world, many of whom, such as Zakir Hussain, Ramli Ibrahim, and Shamna Kassim, have pursued the art form as a career, won accolades and gained international fame. Leela Samson, the previous director of Kalakshetra and recipient of both the Padma Shri and Kalaimamani awards, has a Judeo-Christian background. Seen as an icon of bharatanatyam in Tamil Nadu and around the world, Samson has also advocated downplaying the religious aspects of bharatanatyam and promoting it as a secular art (The Times of India, 2014).

Correspondingly, although many of the participants in this study did claim a cultural connection with bharatanatyam, they did not identify as Hindu. Therefore, the decision was made not to use the label Hindu to identify the target group for this research.

Desi. The word ‘Desi’ has gained increasing popularity as an identifier of people from South Asian backgrounds in Western diasporic communities, and its usage is particularly common when speaking about “South Asian diasporic cultural forms and practices” (Kim, 2011, p. 557). Shankar (2008) describes the emergence of this category as a “significant moment for South Asian diaspora studies” since it “signals the shift of South Asians as immigrants longing to return to a homeland to public consumers and producers of distinctive, widely circulating cultural and linguistic forms” (p. 4).

There appear to be two explanations as to how the term was derived. On the one hand, it traces its roots to the Sanskrit word desh, which means ‘of the homeland’, and the label Desi is used to refer to one “from/of the country” (Steinberg & Kehler, 2010, pp. 86–87). On the other hand, Desi is also seen as an abbreviation of the Hindi word pardesi, which means ‘foreigner’ (Sharma, 2011, p. 129). Therefore, depending on how it is used and by whom it is used, Desi has a dual meaning of referring to members of the South Asian diasporic community as ‘here/within’ or ‘there/outside’—it is either used as a term to connote the oneness and shared identity of people from the same geographical region and home or it is applied to refer to the otherness of immigrant South Asians who are living

as foreigners in Western lands and their subsequent generations, who will become foreign to the land, people and ways of their ancestors.

Despite the increasing popularity of the term Desi in South Asian literary and diasporic studies, I chose not to use it for this research for a number of reasons. To start with, it appears that the usage of the term Desi is more popular among bhangra music circles, which predominantly have a North Indian and, particularly, Punjabi influence. South Indians, Muslims and South Asians from other, smaller countries seem to be less represented and visible in Desi spaces. In his paper “Names Can Wait: The Misnaming of the South Asian Diaspora in Theory and Practice”, Singh (2007) posits that the term Desi can be problematic when used as an umbrella term for all South Asians from immigrant backgrounds since the word Desi does not exist in Dravidian languages. In light of how “South Indian communties have resisted the hegemony of North Indian languages since the 1950s” (p. 15 ), Singh argues that South Asians from South India and Sri Lanka may not feel comfortable with the term and may want to articulate their shared identity and political will in a different way. In his paper, Singh refers to the comments made by ‘Vivek’, one of the participants from an Internet forum debate who describes the South Indian point of view:

I did not start using the term ‘Desi’ until the last couple years or so, and to be honest, it doesn’t feel natural or comfortable coming from my mouth. My parents have never once used the term and if memory serves me correct, during my childhood, I only heard North Indian people refer to themselves as Desi. I’ve noticed how people…refer to India as Desh or Bharat—both very distant terms to me. If my family refers to India, they just use ‘ooru’ or ‘amooru’.

Given that all the particpants of this research are from South Indian or Sri Lankan Tamil backgrounds, it would not be suitable to use a label that the participants do not particularly identify or feel comfortable with.

Summary

This chapter provided an overview of the study reported in this thesis. Part A introduced the context and identified key areas of concern, listed the research questions and stated the significance of the study. Part B included an overview of key concepts and the researcher’s personal motivation and interests in this study. The content of the other five chapters is structured as follows.

Chapter 2 examines contextual literature that shaped the development of the project and demonstrates the significance of the research. It begins by examining notions around gender and culture. The review then merges these two threads to evaluate existing discourses on postcolonial perspectives on masculinity and examines the performance of masculine identities in Australian diasporic bharatanatyam spaces. The chapter also outlines limitations of existing studies and presents a case as to why some of these gaps need to be addressed.

Chapter 3 includes an overview of postcolonial theories that are relevant to this study. It also describes the research design for this qualitative study, including the profile of the research setting, participants, and data gathering tools.

Chapter 4 presents findings on how Australian-Dravidian boys construct and position their cultural identities and, in turn, the way this has influenced their choices to learn bharatanatyam. Chapters 4 and 5 are structured to reflect each other. These chapters are organised into three main parts that present narratives exploring differences in attitudes between Dravidian boys and the 2Western Other, among Dravidian boys and within individual subjects.

Chapter 5 examines how attitudes, perceptions and expectations of gender roles and norms have influenced the choices of Dravidian boys to learn or not learn bharatanatyam.

Chapter 6, the concluding chapter, discusses the overall findings and implications, and recommends the direction for future research.

2 The term ‘Western Other’ is a deliberate counterpoint to and disruption of the assumption that ‘otherness’ can only be ascribed to a non-white body.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

An Overview

As stated in Chapter 1, this thesis aims to understand the ways in which Dravidian boys and men negotiate their cultural and gender identities in Australia and examines the impact these processes have on perceptions and attitudes towards bharatanatyam and, in turn, motivations to learn or not learn the art form. The introductory chapter traced the trajectory of bharatanatyam’s gendered history and established the discourse of Dravidian identity used within the thesis. By doing so, Chapter 1 revealed why the contextual understanding of the label ‘Dravidian’ is crucial for navigating discourses of the social and cultural life of the diaspora and also set the scene of the complexities involved for Dravidian boys and men in Australia in learning bharatanatyam under the duress of prevalent societal attitudes and a hangover of colonial influences.

In line with the splitting and merging of discourses that explore gender and culture, this literature review initially examines notions of gender and gender relations before moving on to reviewing literature on discourses concerning the negotiation of ethnic, race and cultural politics. However, it is important to acknowledge that the body of literature relating to each of these themes is enormous, and it is beyond the scope of this thesis to outline them in exhaustive detail. Since this thesis is positioned within the realm of educational professional practice, when exploring gender, I have elected to focus on educational explorations of gender and, in turn, masculinity theory. The next section of the review therefore specifically examines intersecting themes such as masculinities and masculine theory as well as boys’ education and the performing arts. For the review of discourses on culture, the focus is on the performance of South Asian diasporic identities through the performing arts and, in particular, the impact of bharatanatyam on the performance of Dravidian diasporic identities. The review then merges these two threads to evaluate existing discourses involving postcolonial perspectives on masculinity before funnelling down to examine the negotiation of masculine identities in diasporic bharatanatyam spaces—in particular, Australia. I then outline the limitations of existing studies on bharatanatyam educational trends of boys in Australia and present a case as to why these gaps need to be addressed. The course taken in this review is outlined in Figure 1.

Theorising Gender Theorising Cultural Identity

Masculinities and Postcolonial Perspectives on South Asian Diaspora and Masculine Theory Masculinity Cultural Identity

Boys and Education The Performance of South Asian Diasporic Identities through Performing Arts

The Negotiation of Masculine Identities in Diasporic Bharatanatyam Spaces

Figure 1. Literature informing the conceptual framework

The purpose of the funnel down model of this chapter is to highlight that although significant research already exists in diverse fields that explores multiple issues relating to masculinity, with much literature looking at theories of postcolonial masculinity (A. Kumar, 2005; Stanovsky, 2007) and masculine identities vis a vis performing arts education (Gard, 2008; Risner, 2007), little has been documented on the nexus between the two studies and even less has been said about this within the contexts of Australian and bharatanatyam spaces.

Theorising Gender: Biological, Social and Post-Structural Paradigms

Until the 1960s, the term ‘gender’ was considered a somewhat “marginal part of social and cultural analysis” (Ghaill & Haywood, 2007, p. 19) and was treated as nothing more than a narrow, “technical term specific to the study of grammar” (Tripp, 2000, p. 3). However, in 1968, American psychoanalyst Robert Stroller facilitated a definitive shift in the way in which the term ‘gender’ is currently conceptualised by differentiating the term from ‘sex’ and arguing that gender is “culturally determined and learned postnatally” (Tripp, 2000, p. 4). The resurgence of Anglo-American feminism in the 1970s saw the adoption of this newly available analytical category by writers such as Germaine Greer, Ann Oakley and Kate Millett, who sought to use the term gender not only to emphasise the social and cultural construction of masculinity and femininity but also to draw attention to the power relations that constitute gender and the way in which gendered inequalities are manifested through these cultural constructions (Tripp, 2000). Since then,

gender has emerged as a key concept within sociological and cultural studies frameworks (Ghaill & Haywood, 2007; Jackson & Scott, 2002) and is used as a critical tool in understanding social changes and processes “across various cultural arenas” and contexts (Ghaill & Haywood, 2007, p. 19). The study and exploration of gender dynamics, influences, relations and identities is now a central aspect of the social sciences in the twenty-first century and plays a pivotal role in contemporary explanations of social structural phenomenon as well as the lived, embodied, everyday interactions of men and women (Jackson & Scott, 2002).

However, Tripp (2002) points out that, although feminism has made a profound contribution to the way in which the Western world makes sense of gender, the feminist movement has never been represented as a single, unified entity, and likewise, the ‘theory of gender’ is highly complex and there is a “complicated relationship between theoretical frameworks (and) methodological strategies” in this field (Ghaill & Haywood, 2007, p. 19). Therefore, while the term gender has become widely accepted, it is a concept that continues to be controversial and contested within different cultural, sociological, psychological and educational theoretical frameworks despite many years of debate. This section of the review pays particular attention to a range of ways in which gender has been theorised and examines the impact of these multiple and often competing discourses.

At the forefront of this gender discussion is the attempt to position gender within the ‘nature or nurture’ continuum of ideological discourses—essentially, a debate on whether gender is biologically inherited or culturally constructed. The two polarised positions of this argument can be labelled as either ‘biological determinism’ or ‘social constructionism’ (Stanley, as cited in Jackson & Scott, 2002). Some authors categorise these approaches and mindsets to gender as being broadly ‘essentialist’ and ‘anti- essentialist’ (Rowan, Knobel, Bigum, & Lankshear, 2002). The essentialist label is applied to those who approach gender with the mindset that there are biological and psychological attributes that are fundamentally different in terms of the way boys and girls act, think and feel; those classified as ‘anti-essentialists’ perceive differences in behaviour and interests between the genders as being produced by complex and fluid social and cultural conditionings and contexts (Rowan et al., 2002). The way in which the same behaviour, practices and rituals are interpreted will also vary between those starting from the different essentialist or anti-essentialist camps (Rowan et al., 2002).

While “both biological essentialists and social constructionists claim that the weight of evidence is on their side”, there generally seems to be a trend “towards a much greater acceptance of constructionist ideas about biological sex” and much research concerned with exploring the differences between the genders acknowledges that gender identities are influenced by social control mechanisms and often internalised during childhood (Stanley, as cited in Jackson & Scott, 2002, p. 36). However, despite being widely critiqued within scholarly publications for perpetuating narrow and limiting understandings of what genders are like, essentialist models have continued to dominate discussions in some contemporary institutions such as schools and the media. This includes discussions which at times acknowledge the influence of socialisation but view it as combined with the underpinning logic of biology (Rogers, Rowan, & Walker, 2014; Martino & Kehler, 2007). Proponents of the essentialist approach to gender are particularly evident in the subfield of masculinity studies—especially in relation to masculinity politics and the ‘men’s movement’ (Beasley, 2005). Often, the focus here has been on analysing the perceived ‘crisis in masculinity’, which in this literature is evidenced by indicators such as school performance data, depression and suicide rates, and risk-taking behaviour (Beasley, 2005; Bly, 1996). The next section of this review delves into this in further detail.

On the other end of the spectrum, proponents of the ‘socialisation’ and related but theoretically distinct post-structural perspectives contend that gendered identities, performances and expectations are shaped and constructed by social processes, discourses and institutions such as the family, education system, peer group, workplace and media (Wearing, 1996). Those from the ‘nurture’ camp (Maccoby, 1998; Salisbury & Jackson, 2003) argue that males and females are essentially born the same but develop differently because of social and environmental conditioning. Influenced by feminist movements, proponents of such anti-essentialist approaches to sexual and gender difference actively critique the masculine bias of mainstream Western thinking and point out that femininity and masculinity cannot be assumed to be ‘natural’, as what appears to be desired ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ gendered behaviour varies with cultural and historical differences (Beasley, 2005; Tripp, 2000). Martino and Kehler (2007) also caution that subscribing to such essentialist mindsets is highly problematic as it could result in a loss of opportunities “to address the detrimental impact of dominant constructions of masculinity and the significance of the complexity of gender relations for specific groups of boys and girls”

(p. 411). However, while the focus on socialisation is on the influence of environmental factors and champions ‘free choice’, post-structuralists emphasise the need to be more analytical and reflective of how ‘choice’ is always constrained.

The analysis of these differences has further prompted feminists to highlight that even within individual subjects, gender is not something that is acquired and fixed but, rather, it is subject to a series of negotiations and is “never settled or complete” (Tripp, 2000, p. 10). Through drawing upon the theoretical resources provided by post-structuralism, recent waves of feminists have attempted to problematise the notion of identity as singular, fixed and controlled by either biology or society. Instead, efforts have been made to draw attention to the ways in which a sense of gender identity—or subjectivity—is always negotiated at the intersection of multiple and competing discourses. In addition to this, attention has increasingly been drawn to the fact that gender does not exist in isolation, but is always shaped by intersections with other factors such as cultural background, socioeconomics, sexuality and physical ability.

Defined by Beasley (2005) as ‘postmodern feminism’ (and interchangeably referred to as ‘post-structuralism’ in other texts), since the 1990s, this anti-essentialist feminist position recognises the impact of cultural context but goes further than socialisation research to emphasise how gender is constructed and negotiated. This literature has been investigating the way gender is understood as a performance that is not fixed in time or place, but always contingent upon the specific circumstances within which an individual is located. Postmodern feminists attempt to destabilise the very notion of binary gender identities and powerless subjects of socialisation and instead, emphasise differences that exist not only between, but also within, groups and individuals. Within such a framework, there is no definitive truth to gender expressions—instead, gender is merely a masquerade and a product of social power dynamics (Beasley, 2005): a perspective that acknowledges the power or agency of any individual man or woman, but locates the opportunity to exercise this agency within wider social and discursive contexts. Power creates multiple and fragmented selves, and power in itself is not a singular, monolithic process (Beasley, 2005). In the words of Beasley (2005), “Postmodern feminism, in short, is an anti- generalist, anti-humanist and strongly anti-essentialist position” (p. 24).

As reflected in this discussion, it appears that recent feminist movements have conceptualised gender as more of a ‘relation’ than an essence or even an identity—in any

context, femininity is articulated through its relation to masculinity and vice versa. Therefore, new definitions and understandings of what it means to be a woman would also affect the construction and performance of masculinities (Tripp, 2000). The next section examines literature that analyses men as a politically gendered category—studies of men as a “complex, plural, protean cultural product” rather than as something singular, monolithic and synonymous with universal humanity (Tripp, 2000, p. 12).

Masculinities and Masculine Theory

Research on the construction of masculinity has moved through many waves of critical enquiry (Farganis, 1994). Since the 1950s, it has drawn on several theories, including psychoanalysis, structural functionalism, Marxism, critical structuralism and, more recently, post-structuralism and other theories of the postmodern, including feminist scholarship (Whitehead & Barrett, 2001). Sanders (2003) reasons that “the diverse multitude of research on the construction of masculinity in our society suggests that this is undoubtedly a complicated and dynamic area of discourse” (p. 28).

However, traditional narratives about men and men’s lives have been located outside discourses on gender relations and politics (Ghaill & Haywood, 2007). Historically, masculinity has been represented as the human norm, and conventional masculine qualities and experiences (such as courage, independence, and vigour) have been touted as universal for men (Tripp, 2000; Wearing, 1996). Therefore, as outlined in the previous section, recent feminist movements have attempted to disrupt this “concomitant assumption that the male experience is the universal one” (Wearing, 1996, p. 57). Gender as an analytical category has thus been used by feminists not merely to highlight the social and cultural construction of masculinities and femininities but also to emphasise the power relations and inequalities that come into play in this construction. These redefinitions and reconceptualisations of what it means to be a woman have had a knock- on effect on understandings of masculinities and have prompted an interest in understanding the complex and changing cultural constructions of what it means to be a man (Kimmel, 2010; Lingard, 2003; Tripp, 2000). Through attempting to bring about a state of gender justice, feminism has influenced the way in which men perceive their gender and experiences in the world (Keddie, 2006). As pinpointed by Whitehead and Barrett (2001), “one of the direct consequences of feminist thinking and action has been

to expose and highlight the power, position and practices of men” (p. 2), and in doing so, feminism has put men and masculinities in a critical spotlight. Simply put, it can be argued that the feminist movement (in all its diversity) has propelled some men to survey themselves and emerge as gender scholars (Tripp, 2000).

However, various approaches to men’s studies have taken different trajectories regarding how they have approached and responded to these issues concerning gender differences and inequities. Tripp states that while some have been carried out complementarily to feminism or in the service of it, others represent “a hostile reaction to what have been seen as feminism’s emasculating effects” (Tripp, 2000, p. 11). Lingard and Douglas (1999) describe this latter representation, which construes men as the victims of feminism, as ‘recuperative masculinity politics’—a desire to return to a societal arrangement that is believed to have existed before feminism. Wearing (1996) was one of the first feminists to argue that early masculinist responses to issues raised in feminist theories could be categorised in three different ways—the ‘poor boy’ approach, the power approach and embodiment. These different approaches are summarised below.

The Poor Boy Syndrome

The poor boy syndrome is based on the premise that male lives are truncated by their gendered construction and therefore advocates that men should transform this social construction to eliminate them from being disadvantaged. Wearing (1996) cites Messner’s work where he explores how male identities are developed through sports. Messner states that sporting spaces are used by men as a means to regroup and solidify a masculine identity through the exclusion of women. However, there are no sanctions for men who fail to attain these standards and those who are not able to achieve success struggle with their gendered identities. The poor boy approach, therefore, concludes that masculine identities are very fragile as they are constantly under threat from fear of failure and changing gender power relations in society (Tripp, 2000).

Wearing (1996) also draws parallels between Messner’s articles and the works of Seidler, who argues that men have been disadvantaged by appropriating rationality and logic as their preserve and positioning these qualities as oppositional to emotion and intuition. Seidler (1989) states that by relegating these qualities into a feminine domain (in

opposition to reason and logic), men have become estranged from their emotional lives and struggle to build meaningful relationships with both men and women.

Wearing (1996) suggests that there are weaknesses in the arguments posed by authors using the poor boy approach as they do not sufficiently address issues concerning power—especially in relation to women. There seems to be little interrogation of how traditional forms of masculinity continue to privilege men over women, even for men who do not fit the mould of what it means to be an archetypal dominant and successful man.

The Power Approach

Wearing (1996) describes the work of Raewyn Connell and those who have collaborated with her as a “sophisticated analysis of gender from a masculinist perspective” (p. 62). Wearing cites Connell’s (1987) book Gender and Power as a definitive text in the field for including insights from men who have not typically fit with moulds of hegemonic masculinity—in particular, gay men. Connell (1987) also refers to the ideas of post- structuralists such as Foucault who support the deconstruction of rigid gendered identities and instead emphasise the existence of varied and diverse masculinities and femininities.

Connell (1987) argues that neither the sex-role theory nor the socialisation theory are sufficient explanations for male–female differences and, instead, calls for the need to scrutinise power differences in a patriarchal society to dismantle the status quo and dominance of men. In particular, Connell (1987) states that the gender regime needs to be interrogated and reconstructed through the structures of power, a division of labour and cathexis (the construction of emotionally charged, social relations with ‘objects’).

While Connell (1987) has been commended for shifting the gender debate through highlighting the relative powerlessness of those who do not conform to hegemonic masculinity, emphasising the diversity of masculinities and arguing that there is more intra-gender than inter-gender diversity, Wearing (1996) states that there have been criticisms that Connell appears more invested in securing a good deal for ‘good men’ than dismantling the male privilege that all men carry, including those who do not conform to the ideologies of hegemonic masculinity (Wearing, 1996). Nonetheless, Connell’s contribution to this literature remains vital and significant.

Embodiment

In post-structural feminism, ‘embodiment’ explains how men and women experience lives through their engendered bodies (Wearing, 1996). The key idea is that there are specific meanings inscribed in the bodies of men and women that depict the social, cultural, economic and political values of their context and experiences. By the virtue of possessing a male body, men are inscribed with power that is culturally positioned in opposition to the female body with its inscription of “otherness, lack, weakness (and) inferiority” (Wearing, 1996, p. 70). For women to gain bodily power, they have to attempt to embody characteristics that are typically associated with men—however, when doing so, women often experience ridicule and ostracisation. This illustrates that even the same actions are read differently when they are performed by different bodies, under varying contexts.

Wearing (1996) refers to the work of McCrohan, who argues that the embodiment of maleness is taken for granted, is assumed natural and is “unobtrusively powerful” (p. 68)—while not all men will experience it the same way, they are so steeped in their privilege that they are never able to recognise it fully. In order to achieve reciprocity between the sexes, Wearing (1996) draws upon Irigaray’s concept of ‘wonder’ and posits that men should examine the differences between themselves and women with a sense of ‘surprise’. The notion of wonder is deemed the ideal way to regard others as it occurs prior to judgement and is, therefore, free of hierarchical relations. Thus, women are not understood through a male paradigm and the proposed model to understand the sexes involves an approach of surprise and acceptance that not all is known about another sex. While differences are honoured, such an approach seeks to disrupt discourses that position male bodies as powerful and, in opposition, female bodies as weak and negative.

Wearing (1996) concludes by acknowledging that while “difference without discrimination and inferiorisation is the ultimate goal” it is a long and challenging process that will require the work of “both men and women, at personal and political levels” (p. 70).

The latter two post-structuralist responses have contributed to greater discussions on the need to recognise the plurality and fluidity of masculinities (Connell, 1987; Seto, 2013). This includes calling for more attention to elements such as class, ethnicity and historical

relations of economic and political supremacy when exploring dominant masculinities and gendered practices (Connell, 1987; Lingard, 2003). This, in particular, has paved the way for descriptive research and applied studies that contribute to the broader project of mapping multiple masculinities and disrupting normative and hegemonic representations (Connell, 1987; Lingard, 2003; Seto, 2013).

Literature relating to these issues has grown dramatically in recent years. The next section of the thesis explores some of the key developments within scholarship focused on postcolonial perspectives on masculinity.

Postcolonial Perspectives on Masculinity

Philosophers and advocates from both the ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ (culture) camps of the gender theory debate acknowledge that the development of masculinity is intrinsically complicated since it is linked to a diversity of knowledge, symbols, styles and subjectivities within distinct cultures (Sanders, 2003). Several writers have highlighted the need to understand different cultural contexts of masculinity and to be aware of the variety and complexity of ways of ‘being a man’ (Cleaver, 2002; Connell, 2000; Cornwall, 1997; Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2003). Authors on masculinity theory have advocated the importance of considering factors such as class, ethnicity and historical relations of economic and political supremacy when exploring dominant masculinities and gendered practices (Cleaver, 2002; Cornwall, 1997).

As part of this focus on differences, postcolonial theory has come to play a crucial role in informing discussions on gender and masculinity in postcolonial contexts. It emphasises the need to consider specific gender conditions of postcolonial worlds when aiming to understand and theorise on the enormous range of masculinities that are currently produced and experienced in contemporary societies. This includes the hybrid masculinities that are created through the cultural fusions of global diasporas (Stanovsky, 2007).

Some of the earliest foundations of postcolonial theory can be traced to the influential writings of Fanon (1961), who provides a keen insight into the production of gender and distortion of masculinities in colonial contexts. He does this by exploring the impact of colonisation on the masculine identities of both the colonised and the coloniser. In his

psychoanalytically framed arguments, Fanon (1961) highlights the gendered nature of consciousness and posits that both the circumstances of colonisation and its ‘overthrow’ affect the production of masculine identities and consciousness. In particular, Fanon (1961) illustrates the psychopathological impact of colonisation on the ‘native’ man through a rendering of the way in which he expresses internalised, sexualised identifications and fantasies of rape and aggression.

However, the principal inspiration for postcolonial theory stems from Edward Said’s work, which at its heart is concerned with the politics of representation. Through employing a Foucauldian notion of discourse, Said (1978) explores the function of Western representations of the Orient in producing and sustaining imperialism and colonialism not only in the West but also in the East itself. Said (1978) contends that since the Orient is not a representing subject in its own right but rather a subject represented by the West, representations of it create an arena for the dissemination of colonial control as well as resistance to these Western discourses and representations.

The seminal works of Homi Bhabha (1994) and Spivak (1988) further expand on these issues by exploring the voices and experiences of what they refer to as the subaltern. While Bhabha (1994) investigates strategies such as mimicry and hybridity used by subaltern subjects to enact moments of resistance, Spivak (1988) questions the very ability of the subaltern to speak and be heard within the confines and impositions of ‘First World’ discourses.

Researchers who use a postcolonial theoretical framework draw upon the discussions of these representations as they are central to the study of postcolonial masculinities. Through informing the understandings of myths about the creation, perpetuation, reinforcement and framing of marginalised, subaltern masculinities within Western discourses, writers such as Said, Bhabha and Spivak have paved the way for other researchers to reflect on the plurality of lived postcolonial masculinities around the world and the way in which they are appropriated in the peripheries of colonial Western discourses (Stanovsky, 2007). Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003, p. 4), for example, draw upon mestiza feminist and postcolonial theories to use the metaphor of the ‘borderland’ to describe the way in which boys from the margins construct and negotiate masculinities in in-between spaces at Australian schools.

Some authors have also reasoned that postcolonial theories of masculinity have strong links and affinities with queer theory since, like queer identities, postcolonial masculinities are positioned and regulated by the performance and repetition of pre- existing cultural scripts (Butler, 1993 in Stanovsky, 2007).

Regardless of the work through which one chooses to explore postcolonial masculinities, there seems to be a common assumption that men in the postcolonial world face many challenges and complexities in their lives (Morell & Swart, 2004). However, several writers have come to the consensus that theoretical and meta-theoretical attention given to postcolonial situations of men can empower them to understand their own marginalisation and respond to it in a creative manner; by shaping innovative ways of ‘being a man’ in a third world context (Morell & Swart, 2004; Stanovsky, 2007).

As a whole, postcolonial theories of masculinities have contributed to the growing attention to and research on boys and men in non-traditional spaces and the factors that affect their experiences. The next section of this review looks at one such non-traditional space for men—the world of performing arts.

Boys and Education

The exploration of the relationship between education (in diverse contexts) and gender is another key literature area that this thesis engages with. In particular, this section of the chapter pays due attention to the broad field of boys’ education and examines the literature on how competing discourses on masculinity and schooling (and, specifically, the pedagogical practices of performing arts education) influence the way in which boys negotiate their identities within educational contexts.

In the past two decades, works by feminist researchers and scholars have brought about a reassessment and re-evaluation of educational practices and policies for both girls and boys (Keddie, 2009; Nicholson, 1995; Walkerdine, 1990). In Australia, despite criticism of deterministic intervention models in academic literature, the issues concerning boys’ education and discussions on how to best support disengaged, alienated and at-risk boys have seemed to dominate the gender education agenda because of extensive coverage by the mass media and a surge in pop psychology style books about boys (Mills & Keddie, 2005). Several authors who have investigated the areas of masculinity, boys’ education

and the arts have put forth the notion that, educationally, boys are facing complex and troubled times and that a reassessment of pedagogical practices is crucial to ensure equity in institutions of learning (Hawkes, 2001; Pollack, 1999; Sanders, 2003).

However, these voices seem to be divided in their attitudes and opinions in regard to the course of action to take. Certain sections of the boys’ lobby see boys as the new victims of modern schooling and have argued that soaring divorce rates, changes in the orthodox family structure and the immense success of the women’s movement have resulted in the disenfranchisement and identity crisis of boys (West, 1996). These groups have stated that institutions and classroom practices need to change to accommodate the needs and interests of boys (Donnelly, 2004; Pollack, 1999). However, other authors have criticised the limitations of such gender-based reforms that purport to explain what boys are ‘really’ like and what they really need (Rogers et al., 2014). This group advocates for anti- essentialist reforms and posits that men are not the victims of the feminisation of education and that the focus should instead be on how the cultural and economic influences of hegemonic masculinity have shaped attitudes towards schools (Martino & Rezai-Rashti, 2012). Some of the latter group of authors believe that “boys are their own worst enemy” and that the real problems lie in traditional constructions and cultural expectations of masculinity (Mills & Keddie, 2005, p. 3). Grounded by feminist and social justice principles and paradigms, these authors have maintained that established Victorian models of masculinity such as muscular Christianity and imperial manliness that are supported in many Western educational institutions are not only archaic and irrelevant; they also have a tendency to demean and devalue activities that are considered feminine (Chalmers, 2001; Connell, 2000; Keddie, 2006).

The recommendation offered in this literature is that educators neither reinstate nor pander to a narrow and conventional ideal of masculinity but instead aim to construct sustainable pedagogies that facilitate a broadening of boys’ understanding of masculinity to be more inclusive of difference and diversity (Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2003; Mills & Keddie, 2005). In particular, educators have been asked to support a “pedagogy of emotions” that identify affirmative spaces that challenge typical masculine stereotypes and encourage boys to explore and value the “world of feelings” (Keddie, 2006, p. 107).

Simply put, these emerging voices are calling for revamped strategies in boys’ classrooms that facilitate the development of both academic and emotional aspects of education

(Pollack, 1999). However, this is by no means an uncomplicated or simple objective; a number of these scholars who focus on investigations into educators and gender have pinpointed that there is still significant resistance among schools and teachers when it comes to engaging with ideas and material about these new and emerging perspectives (Jones, 1997; Titus, 2000). The challenge of disrupting longstanding and culturally ingrained beliefs about boys and gender behaviour as well as practitioners’ lack of familiarity with these new resources that stem from feminist and post-structural perspectives have been cited as some reasons for this resistance (Jones, 1997), with teachers lacking what Martino, Lingard and Mills (2004) describe as essential “threshold knowledge”. It has also been suggested that there is reluctance among some educators to engage with gender-based research because of persistent stories about ‘failure’ in gender reform that are contributing to a “confronting and depressing” climate in the field (Rogers et al., 2014, p. 2).

Rogers et al. (2014, p. 2) state that while there is clear and ongoing value in recording narratives of failure (as they contribute to the knowledge base of educators and demonstrate the need for continued investment in gender studies at all levels of education) and in ongoing analysis of how interventions may work to reinscribe narrow essentialist versions of masculinity, it is equally important to circulate stories of ‘hope’ that “remind us of the possibilities that exist for change” (Rogers et al., 2014, p. 2). They draw on the work of Kenway (1994), Giroux (2003) and Braidotti (1994) to advocate for ongoing research that supports alternative discourses of hope and recommendations for positive transformation. Likewise, this project aims to contribute to the field of boys’ education through presenting stories that showcase the subjective, varied and anti-essentialist nature of masculine identities and performances. In doing so, it hopes to encourage and empower educators to create responsive environments that cater to this diversity and fluidity in masculine expressions.

The next section of this review examines literature on how masculine identities and expressions are negotiated in arts education—a non-traditional masculine space that provides a fertile plain for positive transformation and the creation of multiple possibilities of being.

Masculinity in Arts Education

Researchers across different performing arts strands have argued that the arts are a powerful medium in leading the way for boys to explore alternative gendered realities and identities in educational spaces. However, there appears to be a consensus that research on boys in arts is rather limited and that arts researchers, practitioners and educators need to be more engaged in discussions on the schooling of boys (Imms, 2006; Risner, 2008; Sanders, 2003). The discussion below outlines dominant themes that have emerged from research on boys’ experiences and their negotiation of masculine identities in various arts strands.

Sanders (2003) contends that the drama classroom is a potent space for male voices to be heard in liberated and empowering ways since through its creative and aesthetic dimensions, boys are able to consider and toy with the multiple possibilities of masculine identities that exist outside their own lived experience. Likewise, in a comprehensive study conducted by Wesley Imms (2006) on the role of art education in constructing concepts of gender among teenage boys, it was observed that participants perceived art as a subject that encouraged risk-taking and facilitated non-conformist and flexible ways of thinking in what would otherwise be considered a very rigid and traditional schooling environment. Imms (2006) emphasises the importance of the role of curricular support in celebrating diversity among masculine identities and posits that a subject such as art provides an apt platform to do so. The study concluded that the gender identities and performances of boys are not static and that boys already have the impetus to explore multiple masculinities—however, there are significant cultural barriers that prevent them from doing so within hegemonic, traditional educational structures. Imms (2006) then recommends that through their aesthetic and creative elements, subjects in the arts can remove these barriers and encourage boys to explore alternative definitions of manhood.

Dance, in particular, has been identified as an arts strand that is dominantly viewed as feminine within the Western cultural paradigm, and boys in the field are prone to “social stigma, heteronormative assumptions, narrow definitions of masculinity, and internalised homophobia” (Risner, 2008, p. 139). It is denigrated and relegated as belonging to a female domain and is cast as a binary opposition to masculine activities, which are purported to be more intellectual and sophisticated (Risner, 2008). This in turn denies subjects such as dance full recognition as an intellectual pursuit or a medium for education

(Ferdun, 1994). However, like their counterparts in other arts forms that have been discussed earlier, researchers on dance education have argued that the arts play a crucial role in boys’ education as it provides a much needed platform for boys to investigate multiple masculine expressions and identities (Fisher & Shay, 2008; Risner, 2008). Unfortunately, current research indicates that boys and men in dance continue to face dehumanising discourses, social isolation and a lack of community support (Risner, 2008). It has therefore been recommended that dance educators and practitioners who seek to empower and enrich the educational experiences of boys in dance re-evaluate their own cultural assumptions about masculinity and challenge limiting cultural definitions and social structures of masculinities (Risner, 2008).

The first half of this review has explored issues relating to boys’ education, masculinity and performing arts. Literature relating to each of these fields has played a significant role in shaping this research project. The next section of the review focuses on literature relating to what I will loosely refer to as ‘culture’. This part of the review begins with an examination of literature on cultural identity before delving further to explore the performance of South Asian cultural identities within performing arts spaces.

Cultural Identity

Traditionally, in fields such as anthropology and historical research, cultural identity has been regarded as a static and objective approach to conceptualising race, ethnicity and a sense of nation-state-based unity among a group of people (Chiang, 2010). However, with the strengthening forces of globalisation and the overwhelming flow of capital, technology and people across imagined nation states, these traditional paradigms of culture are being destabilised (Chiang, 2010). More than ever, borders of countries and the bounds of cultures are seen as fluid, contested and volatile—this in turn has raised critical philosophical questions in various disciplines about the control and predictability of human behaviours and social lives. What we instead see is a growing refutation of positivist, scientific methods of knowledge and truth that imply that elements such as culture, identity and social life are a set of shared, static routines that are constituted within representational discourse (Chiang, 2010).

Stuart Hall (1996, p. 3) influentially described identity as “a process of articulation” and discursive work produced within specific historical and institutional sites to persistently

bind and mark symbolic boundaries. Hall posits that unlike what has been commonly stated in essentialist frameworks, cultural identities are constituted by specific enunciative strategies within, not outside, representation, and while they may give the illusion of invoking an originary past, cultural identities are more about questioning the resources of history, language and culture to engage with the idea of ‘what we might become’ rather than ‘who we are’ or ‘where we came from’. Hall, therefore, contends that the concept of identity is not at all essentialist, but one that is strategic and positional.

Although identity evokes a sense of belongingness and is often associated with people sharing with others fixed and collective experiences and categories such as homeland or kinship, postmodern authors have argued that difference is as crucial to the formation of identity as sameness (Chiang, 2010). Central to Hall’s discussion on cultural identity theory is the concept of Derrida’s play of différance—the interaction of opposites and hence the constant displacement of meaning. This engagement with difference requires the consolidation process of cultural identity to consider what is constituted on the outside—the cultural Other. While Freud (1921) refers to social identity as “the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person” (Fonagy, Person, & Sandler, 2011, p. 105), Hall (1996) draws on the ideas of Derrida to argue that the connotations of unity and homogeneity that are seen as fundamental in the term ‘identity’ are not natural but a constructed closure of that which is different: “it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks…that its identity can be constructed” (p. 4).

The discussion of cultural identity being relational and contingent on its dynamics with the Other has to include the exploration of the imbalance of power. Hall (1996) asserts that in traditional, essentialist research frameworks, identity has been used as a way to assign collective meanings to groups as a means of actively sustaining the historical binary position of the researched subjects as primitive and the researchers as the privileged and civilised repositories of knowledge and control. While maintaining such a fixed notion of identity may provide comfort and political solidarity for some, “the reduction of identity to a simple sameness, in a postcolonial and transnational context” can be problematic and merely serves to replicate the power structures and controls that were in place during European colonialism (Chiang, 2010, p. 31). Chiang (2010) therefore states that when labelling identities and subscribing to such fixed notions, it is critical to

question “Who defines whom and for what purpose?” (p. 31). In any case, sustaining such an essentialised paradigm is fairly ambivalent as it is grounded in imagined claims of authenticity that require the constant work of manipulating, creating, including or excluding cultural symbols to invent and maintain the projected versions of culture, tradition and belongingness (Clifford, 2000).

As outlined above, these aspects of an anti-essentialist approach to cultural identity describe it as one that is fragmented, fluid and constantly in flux. Identities are never complete, singular units but are messy and constructed across intersecting and even antagonistic discourses and positions (Chiang, 2010). Therefore, Hall (1997) proposes that when engaging with the concept of identity, it needs to be viewed as a site of production rather than “an already accomplished fact” or “a sort of collective of ‘one true self’” (p. 53).

Diasporas and Cultural Identity

The review of the literature on cultural identity theory would not be complete without paying due attention to what has been discussed about diasporas and the negotiation of identities of people who have moved across geographic boundaries and nation states. Since identity is typically conceived to be influenced, shaped and sometimes bound by geographical and territorial categories, the process of moving goods, information and people across these borders and boundaries would inevitably have implications for the construction of identity (Chiang, 2010). Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffen (2002) therefore state that diasporas involve not only the geographical movement of human bodies but also the dispersal of “identity, memory and home” (p. 218).

The term diaspora stems from the Greek word for ‘dispersal’ and refers to the processes of groups of people crossing borders but remaining “transitionally linked with a real or symbolical homeland” (Chiang, 2010, p. 36). Early studies on diasporic experiences often focused on Jewish communities and “their capacity to preserve ‘the law’ outside the ‘Holy Land’ [and] to live a life according to the commands of the Torah despite strong assimilative pressures from the ‘host’ society” (Baumann, 2010, p. 19). However, the term diaspora is now also widely used in discourses that speak of the migrancy and settlement experiences of various other ethnic, cultural, religious, political and national groups or peoples (Vertovec, 2000). Much of the current diaspora studies is concerned

with exploring the consequences of imperial dominance and the cultural dislocation that people from diasporas face (Ashcroft et al., 2002). Often, diasporas are linked to forced displacements that occur in a space of violence and conflict and are grounded in systems of inequality (Clifford, 1997).

Brah (1996) states that central to the concept of diaspora is the imagining and remembering of a home that exists at a distance, both temporally and spatially. The dynamics of the relationship between the diaspora and the home may vary. This ‘place of origin’ may be one that belongs to a past and may cease to exist or it may still be figured as a home in the present and could be a point of frequent returns, departing from this home may have happened recently or generations ago, the relationship with the remembering could be romanticised and nostalgic or it may be a source of nightmares, and returning to this home could be welcoming and familiar or strange and inaccessible. In any case, the home is situated in the present within the discourses and narrative representations of the diaspora’s imagination. Since identities for people in diasporas are mediated through the representation of narratives that are “usually partly in the imaginary, and inevitably politicised”, the return to the ‘ancestral past’ is complex and non-linear (Chiang, 2010, p. 39).

In 1987, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) introduced the concept of the rhizome and drew upon the metaphor of roots to describe the complexity of diasporic identities. As migrants increasingly maintain their lines with the nations they come from while establishing roots in the countries they settle in, the rhizome becomes a useful motif to conceptualise the continuous process of diasporic identities that create “complex networks of unpredictable shape that are in constant process of flowing” (Wade, 2005, p. 606). Identities in diasporas are therefore always in flux and more of a process of imaging and curating, of “‘making’ of one’s home than a fixation to a ‘homeland’” (Voicu, 2014, p. 19).

The negotiation of cultural identities through the experience of migration and settlement may lead to a sense of ambivalence and the creation of a third, mixed space, which is referred to as ‘hybridity’ in Diasporic studies. While the term is used and interpreted in different ways by various authors and in its simplest form exists as a convenient category descriptor for cultural mixture or a frontier of contact for people in diaspora, this study has found Homi Bhabha’s (1994) exploration of hybridity in the interface of cultural colonialism the most useful. Bhabha sees hybridity as a form of political confrontation,

as its ambivalence and unpredictability undermines and disrupts colonial and dominant cultural authority and essentialist discourses of cultural purity and power. Chapter 3 explores these postcolonial perspectives of identity negotiation in greater detail.

The next section of the review specifically looks at literature on how the South Asian diaspora has attempted to negotiate cultural identities in diasporic communities.

South Asian Diaspora and Cultural Identity

When people physically move across the boundaries of their nation states, they invariably carry with them what has sometimes been referred to (often negatively) as ‘sociocultural baggage’, which can involve an awareness of particular understandings of social identity—an understanding shaped by factors that relate not only to the country of origin but also to related religious beliefs and practices, and to dominant frameworks of norms and values governing family, kinship, food habits, dressing styles and language (Bhat, Narayan, & Sahoo, 2002). A major challenge facing any immigrant or diasporic community is to integrate this sociocultural baggage into the political, economic and social life of the host society, without jeopardising its cultural identity and heritage (Sahoo, 2003). Thus, Gardner (1995) suggests that migration involves a constant process of self-redefinition and reinvention. Some scholars feel that this makes the world of migrants complex and full of potential contradictions (Lin, 2006): a perspective that is, of course, consistent with wider discourses positioning identity as complex, fluid and always negotiated at the intersection of multiple and competing discourses.

Overseas Indians and other South Asians are no exceptions to the case. It has often been argued that in an attempt to fortify their identities in their host countries, Indians in diasporic communities have consistently relied on a selection of cultural components that they believe will maintain their Indianness. The literature on the Indian diaspora identifies cultural elements, including language, religion, clothing, food, cuisine, performing arts and cinema, as criteria the community uses to construct their cultural identity and strengthen links to the homeland (Lin, 2006; Sahoo, 2006). However, researchers on the diaspora concede that development of cultural identity among diasporic people is neither homogeneous nor “a heterogeneous blooming of independent identities distinct of one another” (Rayaprol, 2001, p. 164). The ambiguity of the notion of the Indian identity is highlighted in the way various authors have attempted to discuss how it can be measured

in a diasporic context. While Aditya Raj (2004) describes the self-identification of Indians as a “curious emotional cord to a shared geographical space” (cited in Rafael & Sternberg, 2009, p. 529), Yan Lin (2006), a New Zealand-based Chinese-Singaporean, re-narrates how an Indian resident in Singapore authorised the Indianness of the author because of her affinity to various components of Indian culture:

Yan, you speak Hindi, play cricket, watch Bollywood movies, eat and cook Indian food, own Indian outfits, have an Indian boyfriend, have been to India. You’re very much an Indian! (p. 29)

Other authors have added to this complexity in the discussion of South Asian diasporic identities by positing that these conversations should not merely revolve around how immigrant South Asians assimilate in the host culture but should also recognise their agency in shaping the cultural landscape of their new homes. Kuortti (2007) states that it is important to acknowledge that through new voices and definitions of identity, the South Asian diaspora actively reshapes the cultural identities of the so-called host countries and in the process even challenges the concept of nationhood. This conceptualisation of nation states in such fluid terms is supported in Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) work on international cultural flows, which uses the term ‘ethnoscape’ to argue that the global flow of people has disrupted essentialised ideas of the character of a nation and, like a landscape, is dependent on the perspective of who is looking at it. Appadurai (1996) then posits that diasporic identity groups are not mere passive entities in the transnational ethnoscape but rather are fuelled by the forces of globalisation, and shifting positions of power are increasingly resisting assimilation and transforming the ethnoscape of their host culture and country.

However, the process of asserting their cultural identities in new countries is by no means an unproblematic and smooth process. Although many members of the South Asian diaspora in the West have become prosperous in their new homes, economic success has not always translated into cultural acceptance and feelings of belonging (Shukla, 2003). Often these attempts to represent cultural identities and mark the ethnoscape of the host country are contested and South Asian immigrant narratives frequently speak of experiences involving prejudices, overt and covert racism, segregation and discrimination (Kuortti, 2007).

The next section of the review examines literature on how the South Asian diaspora uses performing arts spaces as a means of negotiating and meditating cultural identities.

The Performance of South Asian Diasporic Identities through Performing Arts

Assisi and Pothen (2005) say that “there are new voices emerging in the [Western world], representing the forefront of a new artistic movement and redefining what it means to be young, South Asian, and American” (para. 2). Using the resources of popular youth culture, some second-generation Indian youths in Western societies are renegotiating the politics of ethnicity, race and gender and are redefining the role of cultural beliefs and practices in their daily lives (Menon, 2009). In particular, through the hybridisation of cultural elements such as music, dance and style, young second-generation South Asians in countries such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted to recreate social spaces that negotiate multiple social realities and structures (Maira, 2002).

This literature explores the potential for performing arts to play a vital role in the meaning making of marginalised youth. Frith (1992, p. 177) says that for young people, music and artistic expression “probably has the most important role in the mapping of social networks, determining how and where they meet, court and party”. In other words, in societies with commercialised popular cultures, mediums of artistic expression such as music and dance have become an important ritual in the socialisation of youth.

Much literature about the South Asian diaspora explores the ways in which its youth negotiate identity through the performing arts (Singer, 2014). With the migration of South Asians to countries all over the world, Indian music and dance has undergone “the process of transmutation into global dance music” (Gera, 2004, p. 199) by fusing with other forms of music such as American rap, techno, jungle and reggae (Singer; 2014; Maira, 2002). This is seen most distinctly with the new form of bhangra, which first emerged among British born South Asian youth in the mid-1980s and has since become immensely popular in urban United States, for example, in Chicago, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, which have large Indian populations (Gopinath, 1995).

Through examining the trajectory of South Asian performing arts such as bhangra, authors in this field have explored the ways in which acculturation has influenced the practices, rituals and socialisation processes of South Asian diasporic youth. Since the 1990s, the number of changes bhangra music and dance has undergone in the West is endless. Apart from integrating with other forms of Western music, bhangra is now danced by both men and women (it was previously performed exclusively by men), does not include traditional musical instruments such as the dhol, has incorporated other languages such as English and Hindi, does not have a traditional Punjabi costume code and has established itself as a form of club and discotheque music. Furthermore, with bhangra artists signing with international recording labels and promoting international brands, bhangra music has become a mainstream feature of the Western party scene.

Literature that has contributed to this area contends that it would not be an exaggeration to say that through the creative use of elements from popular culture, bhangra music culture has become a staple part of popular Indian youth culture in the West. In conjunction with the fusion of musical genres, this subculture displays the construction of a culturally hybrid style, such as wearing Indian-style nose rings and bindis with hip hop clothing and performing ethnic identity through dance, as in the borrowing of folk dance gestures from bhangra while gyrating to club remixes (Maira, 2002).

One question that is then posed by authors in this domain is, Why do Indian youth in Western societies borrow elements from other American cultural music genres, in particular, mixing popular African-American music with their own traditional Indian music and dance forms such as bhangra? Banarjea and Banarjea (1996) argue that American-South Asian subculture is not only engaged with essential definitions of what it means to be truly Indian but also invests this ideal with definitions of what it means to be cool and to be ‘young, urban and black’. Maira (2002) says that Indian youth turn to hip hop and other popular African-American music forms because it is key to marking their belonging in the multiethnic urban landscape of large cities in the Western world. Some also argue that popular African-American music subcultures appeal to many Indian men because they connote a certain image of “racialized hypermasculinity that is the ultimate definition of ‘cool’” (Maira, 2002, p. 58). In his work on East Asian hip hop artistes, Wang (1997, p. 6) argues that “Asian Americans use hip hop as a space to reshape their own self-image, to lay claim to a long denied masculine and sexual character”. It is

possible that young Indian-American men are also drawn to symbols of ‘tough’ black masculinity to counter the popular construction of South Asian men as somehow emasculated (Thangaraj, 2015).

However, the ways in which Indian-American youth make meaning of this sort of subculture reveal paradoxes that challenge unified notions of what popular bhangra culture signifies. Hebdige (1979, p. 3) emphasises that “the meaning of subculture is, then, always in dispute, and style is the area in which the opposing definitions clash with most dramatic force”. For many second-generation Indian-Americans, authenticity is still tied to a vision of India that is based on classical arts, selected historical traditions and religious orthodoxy (Maira, 2002). A desire to preserve an authentic Indian dance and music culture overseas has led to many young Indians wanting to learn traditional and ‘pure’ classical dance forms such as bharatanatyam and kathak.

Thus, while a hybrid popular culture circulates in the Indian diaspora, such as bhangra remixes that are often a cultural pastiche, a parallel transnational circuit has helped reify images of Indian identity among Indian immigrant communities in the West (Prashad, 1997).

The Negotiation and Performance of Masculine Identities in Diasporic Bharatanatyam Spaces

As outlined in Chapter 1, although bharatanatyam is often represented as the exclusive domain of women, men have also been involved historically in the cultural production of bharatanatyam as teachers, choreographers, and performers (Krishnan, 2009). Literature shows that there have been shifts in the expectations of how masculine identities are conceptualised and performed in bharatanatyam spaces. The repackaging of sadir kacheri as bharatanatyam in the twentieth century under colonial and upper-caste nationalist frameworks resulted in the male dancer being re-imagined as a hypermasculine, spiritual and patriotic icon for the emergent nation (Krishnan, 2009). With the official outlawing and disappearance of devadasi practitioners from the public sphere in the nineteenth century, male performers played a significant role in transforming the representation of masculinity in bharatanatyam (Krishnan, 2009). In his article “From Gynemimesis to Hypermasculinity”, Hari Krishnan (2009) outlines how this “state-endorsed invention of the male performer of dance” (p. 7) rejected allowances for gynemimetic performances

by male dancers and instead borrowed from other art forms such as kathakali to favour representation of hypermasculine icons such as the god Shiva Nadaraja, the King of Dance.

However, even with these adaptations, the performance of new Indian masculinity in bharatanatyam is not free of tension and ridicule in contemporary society. Krishnan (2009) highlights that Orientalist narratives of the art form that circulate in the public sphere still represent bharatanatyam as a “temple dance of the handmaids” (p. 9) and male dancers continue to be devalued and dehumanised. While bharatanatyam may have gained increasing popularity among the Indian bourgeoisie, it is still largely considered appropriate only as a recreational activity for women, and professional male dancers face discrimination and prejudice and are often not treated seriously (Sen, 2012). Some authors have suggested that even Indian nationalist discourses are heavily influenced by British value systems, which expect ‘real men’ to be engaged in what is considered to be serious, productive work—work that enables them to earn enough to be the family’s breadwinner. A profession of dance, however, is dismissed as one that would not enable a man to earn enough to fulfil this role adequately (Krishnan, 2009).

The experience of performing bharatanatyam by men in diasporic communities in the West appears to be similar to that in India. Arun Mathai (as cited in Fisher & Shay, 2008), an Indian-American bharatanatyam dancer, speaks of how from the onset, gender differences are marked in a pronounced way within bharatanatyam spaces:

There are a number of differences between the way men and women perform. One example is the very first position a bharata natyam student learns. A male dancer places his hands palm down on his waist, with his fingers in an L shape. However, a female dancer places the top of her hands on her waist, with all fingers together and pointing backward. While this is a very elementary example of differences between male and female dancers, it sets the tone for differences that show up throughout the form. (p. 398)

Mathai’s experiences and challenges of negotiating masculine identities through bharatanatyam align with what has been discussed earlier—that being a male bharatanatyam dancer is not easy because of the social expectations of ideal representations of masculinity. The performance of masculine identities in bharatanatyam spaces in the diaspora is also highly challenging and is a site of tension and resistance. Mathai stated (in Fisher & Shay, 2009):

Growing up, nearly everyone commented on the makeup I wore, and how feminine it appeared. I can’t say I blame them—to see me out of context, I’m sure I looked like a drag queen in training. Bharata natyam makeup is applied heavily, with an emphasis on thickly lined eyes, blushed cheeks, and very red lips. And while it never became a specific mission of mine, I did take satisfaction in showing Malayalees who assumed bharata natyam was a ‘girly dance’ how powerfully masculine it could be.

The next section of the review outlines some of the gaps in the current literature and presents arguments as to why I chose to address these gaps in this study.

The Need to Investigate the Bharatanatyam Education Trends of South Asian Boys in Australia

The literature above suggests multiple factors can influence Dravidian boys’ attitudes and decisions about learning bharatanatyam. However, none of this literature is based on empirical work with multiple Dravidian boys in an Australian context. In particular, I did not come across a single paper that accounts for the study of all the following areas: the role of performing arts education in the negotiation of cultural and gender identity among immigrant men, the experiences of the Indian diaspora in Australia and the perceived contribution of classical bharatanatyam in the cultural preservation of diasporic Indians. Sanders (2003), for example, looks at the importance of the role of boys’ education, dramatic practices and the renegotiation of masculine identities but does not explore the experiences of the boy from an immigrant background, where the negotiation of identity is more complex since it deals with both cultural and gender lines. Authors such as Maira (2002) and Banarjea and Banarjea (1996) have investigated the way in which young people in migrant communities have hybridised traditional Indian dance and music but their focus was solely on countries with well-established Indian communities such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Very little research has been conducted on the experiences of Indian youth in Australia.

Furthermore, most authors who have examined the relationship between cultural negotiation and the performing arts in immigrant Indian communities have centred their research on the transformation of North Indian folk dance and music such as bhangra. There was a strong possibility that the reception and influence of rigid and stylised classical art forms such as bharatanatyam would be significantly different. Therefore,

there was a need for research that combines all the mentioned areas with a focus on the experiences of Australian-Indians.

In particular, the extended investigation needed to address the five gaps outlined below.

1. What do the children and young people think?

It is important to acknowledge that children and young people are not passive recipients of cultural messages, whether mainstream or marginal, and that they have the capacity to make choices about their relationship with cultural practices. However, the majority of studies that focus on the cultural reproduction of immigrant communities in host countries occur within an anthropological theoretical framework where very little attention is given to the thoughts, opinions and attitudes of children or youth. Hirschfeld (2002) argues that a lack of appreciation for the scope and power of children’s culture in shaping adult culture and an “impoverished view of learning that overestimates the role adults play and underestimates the contribution that children make to cultural reproduction” (p. 611) are to blame.

There is hence a need for research that is more student and child centred since the inculcation of ‘cultural ways of being’ among children in diasporic communities is not simply a reproduction of culture but a hybrid negotiation of cultural elements.

2. How does performing arts education affect the negotiation of gendered cultural identities among boys in immigrant communities?

As mentioned earlier, the study of the relationship between masculine identities and arts education is complex in the world of immigrant communities since boys in diasporas have to deal not only with the need to renegotiate and reconstruct their gender identities in a foreign setting but also with the need to find common grounds to combine it with their cultural identity. Confusion over what might be positive, acceptable masculine identities can, therefore, be amplified among boys in an immigrant community.

While several studies have been done on issues surrounding gender in arts education and cultural identity formation in immigrant communities, there is little that brings these two areas together.

3. What about Australia?

Most research on the South Asian diaspora in the West focuses on more established communities in countries such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The experiences of Australian-Indians and their endeavours to construct a new cultural identity away from the Indian Subcontinent is often overlooked or assumed to be similar to those of Indian immigrants in North America and Europe. This assumption is highly problematic since the historical, economical, educational, social and cultural encounters and practices of South Asians in Australia are significantly different from those of overseas South Asians in other countries. There needs to be an awareness that the Australian-South Asian community is unique.

Research on the practices of identity negotiations in the Australian-Indian community is now more important than ever before since the size of the community has been increasing rapidly. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, between 2004 and 2014, the proportion of Indian-born Australian residents increased threefold and now numbers nearly 400,000, while Hinduism has been identified as the fastest-growing religion in the country.

4. How do youth in the Indian diaspora use highly stylised and ‘authentic’ classical art forms such as bharatanatyam to reinvent and redefine their cultural identity in the diaspora?

Unlike bhangra and other communal folk dances that are more easily accessible, performing bharatanatyam requires immense discipline and strict adherence to the Natya Sashtras and rigid, stylised techniques. While the emphasis on the reverence for technique and spiritual life makes the art form a symbol of Indian authenticity and cultural excellence, there is little scope for it to be hybridised with music and dance forms of other cultural backgrounds. The question that is then left unanswered is, How do young people in immigrant communities use the art form to renegotiate their cultural identities in their host countries? There is insufficient research on how components in the world of bharatanatyam such as production, choreography and pedagogy are manipulated to suit the needs of children of the diaspora.

5. How do the reasons for learning bharatanatyam differ for South Asians from various subsets of the community?

The Indian community is highly diverse. As cited in the literature, a lack of horizontal links between Indians because of divisions such as religion, caste, language, class and regional origin makes the community culturally and socially varied. Therefore, a simplistic treatment of the community as one homogeneous entity is not appropriate. Research that involves the Indian diaspora and issues of identity need to take into consideration that cultural factors such as ethnicity, place of birth, religion, nationality, period of stay in Australia and native language influence the way in which diasporic South Asians cope with the impact of cultural and social elements on their identities.

Summary

To sum up, this chapter initially examined the literature on gender theory and masculine theory before delving deeper into exploring postcolonial perspectives on masculinity. Since this review was centred on the realm of professional educational practice, it then moved on to look at the literature on boys and performing arts education. The second half of the review focused on theories about cultural identity and, in particular, investigated literature on the way in which the South Asian diaspora has negotiated cultural identities within performing arts spaces. The merging of these two threads on gender and culture and the research focus on bharatanatyam finally culminated in an examination of the literature on how masculine identities are negotiated within diasporic bharatanatyam spaces. While the review provided the groundwork to explore some themes relevant to the research questions on how attitudes towards gender and culture influence the decisions of boys and men to learn or not learn bharatanatyam, it was evident that there were still gaps in existing literature. In particular, I identified five areas that needed to be addressed in an extended investigation—the need to consider the opinions of young people, the ongoing need to explore how performing arts are used to negotiate masculine identities within the South Asian diaspora, the need to consider Australian contexts, the need to investigate how bharatanatyam is used as an instrument to reinvent cultural identities among diasporic youth and, finally, the need to pay closer attention to how reasons for learning bharatanatyam may differ within various subsets of the Australian- South Asian community. In the next chapter, I outline the philosophy, design and methods used for furthering the investigation in this thesis.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN, THEORY AND METHODOLOGY

A Preamble: What Makes ‘Good’ Research?

Approaches to research are clearly influenced by philosophical and theoretical perspectives and by particular beliefs about epistemology, ontology and methodology. Differences in the way researchers have historically made sense of research and research data are often mapped in terms of a distinction between objectivist and subjectivist approaches. These differences have led to those in the field talking about ‘paradigm wars’ in which subjectivist and objectivist approaches to research—and the qualitative or quantitative approaches that they are commonly associated with—are seen as incompatible and warring factions (Verma & Mallick, 1999). Other researchers have categorised research into different kinds of paradigms, using competing understandings relating to ontology, epistemology, methodology and axiology to differentiate between paradigms labelled variously as positivist, post-positivist, interpretivist, constructivist, socio-critical, post-structural, postmodern or transformative (Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006).

These differing perspectives have implications for the approach made to the exploration of the particular topic, the quality and nature of evidence required and the methods employed to gather that evidence. Therefore, it is vital for a researcher to identify a clear and definite epistemology before embarking on an investigation.

The Trajectory of My Philosophical Stance

Through most of my academic life, I have been exposed to traditional, dominant scientific research paradigms associated with Western philosophy that espouse the virtues of ‘objective’ research that is not tainted by researcher bias, ambiguity of language and other possible threats to validity. In fact, beyond the academic sphere, in regular everyday experiences and discourses, I have been bombarded by various institutions such as the media that produce texts with statistical, quantifiable results that purport to be objective, free from the interpretations of the human mind. This conditioning of what ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ is led me to approach this project with every intention of carrying out research grounded in positivist, statistical analysis that would enable me to draw straightforward, clear links between different variables.

In contrast to the dominant assumptions held by extreme subjectivist researchers, I believed that research that is highly interpretive in nature may eschew the criterion of validity. This I thought to be dangerous because dismissing the notion of validity prevents the rejection of invalid conclusions and conceptions. In the words of Ratner (2008), “Invalidating validity validates invalidity” (p. 275). I believed that researching within an objectivist paradigm would be suitable for my project as it would ensure control over external factors and enable me to make a stronger claim by attributing causality. I therefore saw myself conducting research characterised by large-scale quantitative surveys that I could ultimately subject to ‘rigorous’ and ‘objective’ analysis to produce valid and reliable findings.

However, in the early stages of my doctoral studies, through reading works of authors identified in my literature review, I underwent a personal paradigmatic shift in my philosophical approach to research. I began to see that realities are ultimately unknowable and that ‘truths’ are socially constructed systems of signs that contain their own contradictions. Through an introspective analysis of my own thoughts, attitudes, value systems and beliefs, I came to realise that contrary to the dominant assumptions held by positivist and so-called objectivist researchers, I believed that people should not be regarded as mechanical, empty responders to stimuli since the human mind plays an active role in research findings.

I quite liked the idea that, unlike methodologies guided by an objectivist perspective, subjectivism corrects the tendency to mechanically associate independent variables, with no consideration for the subject’s active interpretation, comprehension and anticipation. I also began to see that it corrects erroneous social reductionism (also known as ‘greedy reductionism’), a viewpoint that regards one phenomenon as entirely explainable by another and tends to simplify or ‘explain away’ complex systems and processes by failing to gain additional understanding of subjects (Ratner, 2008). I started to appreciate the fact that qualitative studies are able to overcome the simplifying and discounting of complexity and variation of an objectivist approach through acknowledging that not all variables have quantitative dimensions (e.g. love, self-conception and wisdom).

This paradigm shift transformed the way in which I viewed my own ethos and pathos as a researcher, and I began to see my role as one that is primarily concerned and interested in deconstruction. Like postcolonial theorist Spivak (1988), I began to realise that I was

no longer interested in producing ‘positive knowledge’ through establishing an ‘authoritative truth’ but was more keen on “revealing the assumptions, strategies and rhetoric…through which a given (text) is grounded and mediated” (Moore-Gilbert, 1997, p. 84).

My current philosophical and epistemological assumptions of research are guided by the following:

• While there could be a real world that sets boundaries to what we can experience, reality is local and there are multiple realities.

• The structure of the world is created in the mind through interaction with the world and is based on interpretation.

• Symbols are used to create reality. They are products of the cultural influences and conditionings of the mind.

• Meaning is the outcome of an interpretive process and depends on the knower’s experiences and understanding.

(Vrasidas, 2000, p. 7)

All these perspectives are shaped by analysis of postcolonial literature. As these perspectives are central to the research design, it is necessary to provide a brief introduction to a number of key concepts here:

Postcolonial Perspectives: An Overview

Postcolonial studies provide the primary theoretical framework of this investigation. Through acknowledging and addressing the legacy of colonialism imposed by Western efforts to dominate the world, postcolonial studies aim at reinterpreting and redescribing events and developments related to colonisation and its aftermath (Ghandi, 1998; Young, 2001). While a multiplicity of voices co-exist under its label and it is characterised by an “eclectic mix of theories and positions”, it is important to acknowledge that within much of its scholarship, there is “an explicit commitment to the marginalized” and an attempt to recover the subject position of the colonised (Abrahamsen, 2003 p. 197). The interrogation of power structures and the exploration of the relationship between

knowledge and political processes pose a commonality that allows postcolonialism to be spoken of (strategically) in the singular (Abrahamsen, 2003).

It is because of this broad intellectual treatment and conceptualisation of power and its concern with political efficacy that postcolonialism is located alongside intellectual traditions such as post-structuralism and postmodernism (Gikandi, 2004). Like perspectives presented in many post-structuralist and postmodernist theories, postcolonial discourses view “power as productive of identities and subjectivities” (Abrahamsen, 2003, p. 198). The production of knowledge and rationality in postcolonial scholarship is therefore viewed as highly subjective, and there is an absolute rejection of any aspect of the human experience as a positivist and objectivist science since it is dependent upon power relations and the identities of those conducting the investigation (Abrahamsen, 2003).

This approach to the creation and assembly of knowledge has led to an explicit interrogation of and attention to the method, context and proprietors of knowledge production (Abrahamsen, 2003). A postcolonial perspective seeks to redress the colonial processes and implication of knowledge production and power relations through challenging the attempts existing power structures of Western modernity make to essentialise diverse societies into one universal form (McLaughlin, 2001). By doing so, postcolonialism also seeks to reclaim the moral and emotional high ground of knowledge production by placing the marginalised as a “key repository of a radical and subversive political standpoint” (Darby & Paolini, 1994 p. 379). Likewise, the framework that governs this research shares a political, social and moral interest in the way in which the history and legacy of colonialism continue to shape colonised subjects’ life, well-being, opportunities and experiences.

In this regard, Gandhi (1998) states that although “the poststructuralist critique of Western epistemology and theorisation of cultural alterity/difference is indispensable to postcolonial theory” (p. ix), this political motivation of the postcolonial project seems most grounded in structuralist and materialist philosophies such as Marxism. Gandhi (1998) then goes on to assert that it is on account of its commitment to synthesise, integrate and negotiate theoretical discourse with intellectual political concerns that the postcolonial project commands academic attention.

Criticism and Opposition to Postcolonial Theory

At a surface level, Marxist and postcolonial theories appear to be natural allies because of some of their apparent similarities. To start with, both Marxism and postcolonialism show an interest in wanting to change the world rather than merely understand it.

Both theories also share a broad concern with George Hegel’s master–slave dialectic. In Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel (1998) begins his discussion with the myth of ‘the initial encounter’, in which the first steps of consciousness develop between two people when one asserts dominance over another and both parties comply with the master–slave relationship. The idea here is that human consciousness is a social process and ‘consciousness’ is ascertained when it is mediated through another entity. While the dominant affirms his3 existence and gains recognition of his personal achievement through the slave’s perspective, the slave’s awareness is in his recognition that he is in a subservient position—a position that burdens him. Hegel (1998) describes this relationship as being problematic and states that the slave has to either rebel or surrender to ‘unhappy consciousness’—stoicism. Both postcolonialism and Marxism seem to be aligned in their interests in advocating on behalf of those who have been historically oppressed and positioned as the slave (Halloran, 2012).

However, there has been considerable tension between the two schools of criticism (Halloran, 2012). While Marxists see this dialectic as relating to a class struggle and dismantling of the capitalist system, postcolonial theorists such as Fanon (1967) reject this particular binary construction of power and argue that Hegel’s dialectic underestimates the dominance of the white oppressor over the black subject. From a postcolonial perspective, the white master does not need the approval of the black subject but rather completely mocks and discounts it. The oppressor is disinterested in the black subject’s recognition of his superiority; he only wants the subject’s labour. The European coloniser is a whole onto himself and ‘whiteness’ becomes the normative centre from

3 I would like to acknowledge the persistent use of male pronouns in much postcolonial literature. The language I have used in this discussion is borrowed and not reflective of my own opinions on how these pronouns should be applied. While I would have personally preferred to use ‘his/her’, I have retained the use of male pronouns to respect the historical development of post-colonial thinking by not altering the pronouns used; a position which also acknowledges that, over time, the use of the pronouns has changed.

which those of other skin colours are judged, benchmarked, controlled and eventually subordinated. There is no craving for reciprocity (Halloran, 2012).

This negation of the black colonial slave’s consciousness by the colonial master results in the colonial slave being unable to come to terms with his position in the colonial condition. Therefore, unlike the Hegelian slave who after the initial encounter and subordination is able to define the master as an object and find liberation in his work and stoicism, the black colonial slave never ends up objectifying the colonial master. This inability to perceive the colonial master as an object results in the black slave becoming fixated with the identity of the coloniser as he frantically tries to be like the colonial master and establish his own status as a subject (Villet, 2011). Unlike the Hegelian slave, the colonial slave is enslaved not by the perception of the coloniser but by his own mind and his own perception of the subordinate standing of his race, by his black skin that is assigned moral codes and judgements that render him the inferior ‘other’—the preconditions of the colonial dialectic. Fanon (1967) posits, “I am the slave not of the idea others have of me but of my own appearance” (p. 116). However, the ideas and perception of the white master do play a role in destabilising the identity of the black slave. The colonial education and the black slave’s desperation to be like the colonial master poison the slave’s mind to a point where it inherits the inherent racist ideologies of his oppressors—while the slave’s skin is black, his mind is European and he accepts the racist ideologies of his oppressor (Halloran, 2012).

Marxist critics of the theory posit that postcolonialism’s fixation with challenging essentialism and exploring manifestations of uneven power structures has become fetishised and has divorced it from concrete social determinations (San Juan, 1998). San Juan (1998) argues that postcolonial theory’s interest in exploring in-between spaces, hybridised identities and overlaps in domains of difference has made it an elaborate cultural performance that is now removed from its initial concern with the asymmetry of power between hegemonic blocs and colonised subaltern groups. Instead, in Marxist terms, it appears that postcolonialism is aligning and complying with, rather than contesting, the shackles of colonisation and the ‘ideology’ of the contemporary West (Halloran, 2012). This is particularly evident in the way its dominant themes of “hybridity, border crossing, migration, the deconstruction of identity and the critique of nationalism” seem to fit with the interests of global capitalism (Halloran, 2012, p. 1)

The term ‘postcolonial’ is, however, one that is widely contested, and controversies over its meaning and “political implications have engaged both supporters and critics” (Geeta & Nair, 2004, p. 11). In definitional debates that have spanned over two decades, some critics of the theory have dismissed the term as misleading since the ‘post’ in postcolonialism seems to connote the demise of colonialism and undermines its ongoing “economic, political, and cultural deformative-traces” in the present world (Shohat, 1992, p. 105). Proponents of the theory, however, argue that such criticisms are tenuous as they misrepresent the usage of the term and its definition in postcolonial studies (Geeta & Nair, 2004). Shome (1998), for example, makes a case that postcolonialism does not signify the end of colonialism but rather presents a larger playing field for the postcolonial researcher to engage with the continuing and persistent impact of colonial practices as well as to explore “the new complex political, economic, cultural relations and conjunctures of the contemporary times” (p. 206). This study adopts the definitional approach of the latter as it accommodates the diversity of colonial experiences and recognises that the “legacies of colonialism manifest themselves today in different colonial trajectories, their modes of administration…the extent of participation of subject populations in the political economy and the production of knowledge” (Grovogui, 2014, p. 36).

However, acknowledging that the postcolonial enterprise has several different legacies and has many different directions means that, even within the field and among its supporters, postcolonialism is by no measure unified, and some authors have proposed that it might be more sensible to discuss ‘postcolonialisms’ in plural rather than suggest it is one coherent field. Nevertheless, despite its multiplicities and apparent irreconcilable differences, the field can still be mapped and identified by some common divergent aspects and ‘family resemblances’ (Desai & Nair, 2005).

Central Notions Applicable to This Study

Notion 1: Interrogating and Reclaiming the Sources of Knowledge Production

Tracing much of its roots to anti-colonial activism, of central importance to the postcolonial project is its interrogation of the consequences of colonialism. Within postcolonial scholarship, there is a consciousness that colonised subjects’ engagement with their own past and sense of identity has been mediated by colonial interpretations

and historiography. Premised on a clear binary of the enlightened Westerner versus the primitive, non-European, the ‘civilising mission’ of colonialism has sought to reject and destroy the cultural identity of colonised subjects. Through interrogating colonialism and locating the problems associated with colonial rule, postcolonialism attempts to reclaim the culture’s/nation’s sources of knowledge production (Nayar, 2012).

The need for the exploration of the colonial perspective when researching the cultural identity of its signifiers stems from the works of Frantz Fanon (1961, 1967), who in his texts “Black Skin, White Masks” and “The Wretched of the Earth” highlights the difficulties faced by colonised subjects when forging an identity that is free from the trappings of social indictments. Fanon states that the colonial perception and impact on the black man, plays an important factor in destabilising his identity.

Fanon (1961) argues that not only is the act of colonisation violent but so are the forces of institutionalised racism, which are exerted by colonial powers to subjugate and maintain hegemony of the native people. Fanon (1961) then posits that decolonisation, the process of freeing from the shackles of the colonial powers, would be a violent phenomenon in which the native culture deliberately and conscientiously overthrows the coloniser: “decolonisation never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally” (p. 28). Violence as defined by Fanon, a psychiatrist, is not limited to physical acts but also includes the infliction of harm on the native’s spirit, intellect and mental order. Therefore, Fanon (1961) warns that, even upon physically removing the colonial invaders from native lands, the intellect and cultural life of the native continues to be colonised as it becomes incapable “of great ideas or inventiveness” and attempts to be an “obscene caricature” of Europe (p. 141). In “Black Skin, White Masks” Fanon (1967) describes how his European education has plagued his mind: “I discovered my blackness, my ethnic characteristics; and I was battered down by tom- toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetichism, racial defects, slave-ships, and above all else, above all: ‘Sho’ good eatin’’” (p. 112). Although his skin is black, Fanon perceives his thoughts to be colonised, poisoned by European powers, and therefore, he continues to carry the essential racisms of his oppressors. However, while Fanon (1961) asserts that his own subjectivity as the colonised other has been shackled by the imposition of white cultural and social norms, he neither rejects nor denies the colonised black people’s agency to reclaim their past and erode the colonialist ideology that has

devalued their identity. Instead, Fanon (1961) calls on his countrymen to stir to action and reclaim its own voice and character: “Humanity is waiting for something other than such imitation” (p. 254). The colonised is therefore not seen as a passive victim of the process but as a free agent whose psychic dimension has been oppressed and silenced by colonisation—not lost (Cornell & Fahlander, 2007).

Bhabha (1983) highlights that Fanon then calls for a deeper reflection and rescrutinisation of the self (by both the colonised and the coloniser) in relation to the colonial experience to confront the paradox of its own making and disavowing an image of itself as an originary past or ideal future. This proposition is also reflected by Bhabha (1983), who in his discussions about colonial discourses describes how the normalising of stereotypes plays a central role in the ‘othering’ of the subaltern. By denying the complexities and differences between members of the ‘other’, stereotypes in colonial contexts become power agents in controlling fixed, arrested notions of ‘established realities’. This prevents members of the colonised from intervening in the resultant dominant discourses and representations about them. Bhabha (1983) then, in his analytical recollection of Fanon’s works, reiterates the idea that there is a need to bring about a revolutionary awareness of the colonial experience and condition by privileging the psychic dimension of the oppressed.

Edward Said (1978) further seals this notion by arguing, in his canonical text Orientalism, that all systems of Western descriptions are deeply contaminated with “the politics, the considerations, the positions and the strategies of power” (p. 327). His questioning of the insistent relationship between the Western representation of knowledge and its political power drive led to the transformation of earlier studies about colonial empires and decolonised regions. Through redressing the West’s homogenising and simplistic treatment of world historical schemes, developments, cultures and people, Said rejects the traditional understanding of the humanities as the pursuit of pure, disinterested knowledge (Moore-Gilbert, 1997). Instead, he describes such practices as being deeply affected by the producers of these texts because they would be subjected to particular institutional and ideological affiliations and leanings. Said (1978) consequently argues that cultures, histories and ideas cannot be studied seriously without paying equal attention to their sources and configurations of power. Therefore, research conducted using postcolonial methodology also places an expectation and responsibility on

researchers to provide an insider’s outlook (Smith, 1999). It addition, it foregrounds the concept of reciprocity by focusing on the connections between human participants, especially the researcher and the researched (Smith, 1999). Having learned bharatanatyam myself and being a man who belongs to the Australian-South Asian diasporic community, I believe that my insight into the research issues strengthen the quality of the observations and interpretations. In many instances, I, the researcher am also the other. Not only am I the researcher, I am the researched. Although my experiences within subaltern discourses have cut the lens with which I view fellow others and this could be perceived as an advantage in this investigation, it is crucial to note that it would be impossible for me to capture a fixed, arrested representation of the subaltern’s voice since human subjects are not fixed essences and “human identities and subjectivities are shifting and fragmentary” (Loomba, 2005, p. 72).

Notion 2: The Other, the Subaltern

The concept of ‘Otherness’ is fundamental to postcolonial theory. All human interactions entail encounters that involve the negotiation (or lack) of power relations and often competing agendas with an Other (Olson, 1998). The colonial experience presents an archetypal display of this supposition where the contact and its aftermath between people(s) are foregrounded by clashes of highly asymmetrical power relations and radical inequality. The other in this case is made voiceless and pushed out of established, hegemonic political representation by colonial sources of power.

The term ‘subaltern’ is then used by postcolonial theorists to refer to this ‘othered’ marginalised group that is seen as being rendered without agency by their social status. Initially used by Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci to describe the dominance of one group over others, not through force but by the very consent of those others, the usage of the term subaltern to describe those excluded and silenced by hegemonic social discourses was later popularised, in the 1980s, by the Subaltern Studies Collective, which applied Gramscian perspectives to explore Indian history (McEwan, 2009). However, the theoretical and philosophical usage of the term has been disputed among members of this collective. While some theorists use the term to refer simply to marginalised groups and lower classes (Young, 2003), others such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak have criticised such a broad application of the concept (Bier, 2010). In her famous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Spivak (1988) argues that a simplistic intellectual treatment of the

subaltern as one that is oppressed and denied a “piece of the pie” is flawed. Instead, Spivak (1988) makes a clear distinction between the subaltern and the rest of the marginalised others who are empowered enough to speak through using and manipulating hegemonic intellectual discourses. Spivak (1988) contends that the subaltern is unable to express its authentic self within Western constructs of academic thought and is in actual fact left inoperative within the systems of Western knowledge acquisition and investigation.

Spivak (1988) then goes on to reason that not only is the subaltern doomed to eternal silence, it can also not be ‘represented’, in all meanings of the concept of ‘representation’—neither in a political sense of ‘speaking for’ (Vertretung) nor in an art/philosophy sense of re-presenting (Darstellung). To start with, the problem of Vertretung arises because no one would be able to speak on behalf of the subaltern without being a subaltern. However, since the true subaltern is unable to speak, the subaltern cannot be represented in this sense. Regardless of how oppressed the researcher is, by the very virtue of being Western educated and programmed, and thus being able to speak and function within the dominant discourses, the researcher is disqualified as a representative voice of the subaltern. In particular, Spivak (1989) highlights the need to acknowledge and differentiate the privileged, non-subaltern Other who is able to speak and act with vested interests to gain status and power through new colonised spaces. In her essay “Who Claims Alterity?”, Spivak (1989) draws caution to the “indigenous elite”, the Westernised and acculturated native subject whose subalterity has been effaced by colonial texts but who continues to align with the subaltern and act as “at best, native informants for first-world intellectuals interested in the voice of the Other” (p. 79). Furthermore, the very act of studying and reporting on the subaltern subject requires the intellectual to define the subaltern as a binary opposition to the researcher. Through the use of colonial discourses that operate within the structure of their writing, intellectual enunciators have to constitute the subaltern as external others.

From a Darstellung perspective of representation, Spivak (1988) rejects a positivist- empiricist type approach to knowledge representation by the researcher since it is impossible to divorce the researcher, the signifier, from the theory, the signified. While researchers may attempt to re-present (darstellen) the subaltern experience through their research, they would never be able to capture the subaltern’s true voice since the course

of locating the subaltern’s voice through the voice of the researcher would in itself alter and mute the subaltern. In this sense, Spivak (1988) contends that the very process of research acts as a neocolonial, epistemologically violent force—an “imperialist project”, where the research arena is defined as “the concrete experience” in which the intellectual owns, dictates and diagnoses the meaning of the interaction. Furthermore, Spivak (1988) emphasises the need to recognise that “the colonized subaltern subject is irretrievably heterogeneous” (p. 79), making it impossible to capture and re-present the narrative of an entire class or group based on the experiences of a select few. Owing to “the uneven character of regional economic and social developments”, the element that is weak in one area may find moments of power and dominance in other areas. For example, because of the “phallocentric tradition(s)” and “the ideological construction of gender [that] keeps the male dominant” within “both as object of colonialist historiography and as subject of insurgency”, men would have a better opportunity to speak. On the other hand, the subaltern as female who is “denied the structure of exploitation” and is “compounded by patriarchal social relations” is doubly colonised and left even more deeply in shadow (Spivak, 1988, pp. 82–84). Spivak (1988) also refers to Deleuze’s argument that even within any given individual person who speaks and acts, there is multiplicity, and therefore, it is impossible for any external entity to capture the full character of (represent as Darstellung) or speak in full confidence on behalf of (represent as Vertretung) the subaltern.

While one has to understand the experiences of the most repressed and marginalised to appreciate subaltern history, Pandey (2006) emphasises that although the subaltern is a position in a relationship, it is not one that is always defined by a condition that requires relegation to a perpetual, wholesale state of being wretched and downtrodden. Just as the subjugation and subordination of the subaltern is historically produced, elements of it can be altered by history.

Nevertheless, these demands for equality should not be mistaken as synonymous with a demand for sameness. A long struggle by the oppressed and being subordinated for the same entitlements such as voting rights, pay and welfare has made it appear that the subaltern endeavours solely for the right of ‘sameness’. However, in recent times the battle has extended to a demand of difference—a call to recognise, value, accommodate and even celebrate the diversity and the richness of the ‘other’s’ human experience.

Therefore, while the dynamics of the power relations between the colonised and coloniser may change, the otherness of the colonised does not. Regardless of however empowered the colonised subjects may become, they never lose their mark of difference (Pandey, 2006).

As Young (2001) puts it, the proliferation of postcolonial perspectives can now “emerge on different sites, in any region: the academic, the cultural, the ecological, the educational etc.” (p. 58). In reading between these borderlines, we see how the concept of ‘people’ emerges within a range of postcolonial discourses. As Kumar (2006) describes, “the people are not simply historical events or parts of a patriotic body politic. They are also a complex rhetorical strategy of social reference” (p. 74). Once people are perceived as signifiers of the new nation state, they are treated as the pedagogical representation of the nation state, as a timeless and essential object, constantly in change as it is enacted in the present—the performative.

Therefore, through interviewing Australian-Dravidian boys, the very signifiers of the community, I would be able to follow bharatanatyam’s performative and pedagogical rendering of race, gender and nationhood among this group.

Notion 3: Continuity

In their book, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literature, Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (2002) point out that a central notion of postcolonialism is its emphasis on the idea of continuity - that the world as it stands today still bears the mark of colonialism. It should be underscored that the postcolonial interest of this project extends beyond a mere examination of colonial relations and the impact of its aftermath on colonised lands and their people since the ‘post’ in postcolonialism does not imply that the world has moved on or is beyond the social implications of colonial legacies but rather focuses on emergent, new configurations of inequities that are exerting their distinctive effects (Hall & du Gay, 1996). The primary concern of this project is to use perspectives from postcolonial scholarship to inform investigations about the experiences of those who have descended from the inhabitants of these previously colonised territories and the negotiation of their identities as immigrants in Australia—the perceived domain of the coloniser. Such an approach was adopted because the colonised experience has transcended the geographical restrictions of previously colonised spaces with the advent

of globalisation and the fluid movements of people across geographical spaces (Fechter & Walsh, 2010). McConaghy (1998) conceptualises the new face of colonialism as “a place of multiple identities, interconnected histories, shifting and diverse material conditions” and a place “in which new racisms and oppressions are being formed” (p. 121).

The ‘post’ in ‘postcolonial’ is therefore not interpreted within this research and analysis in temporal terms and should not be perceived as ‘the period after an age of colonialism’ but rather an exploration of the impact of colonisation from the moment it begins. It is grounded on the premise that the postcolonial era has been unable to rid itself of the strong grip of its colonial legacy. This can be seen, for example, in the persistent status of English in postcolonial India, where the language is widely perceived as a modernising force and is still venerated as the language of higher education and governance, leading to uneven empowerment, increased polarisation and social fracturing between the different classes that have and have not been privileged with what is widely considered an elite, English- medium education (Faust & Nagar, 2001). The notion of postcolonial continuity may also extend to an interpretation of globalisation as another more ‘evolved form of colonisation’ since increasing corporate expansionism, ideological missions to export the concept of democracy and ongoing strategic military interventions by ‘more developed’ countries have meant that people of marginalised lands continue to be subjected to imperial invasions (Krishna, 2009; Manzo, 1997).

Notion 4: Nexus

This interlocking of the various trajectories of the postcolonial experience necessitates the analysis of other complex social relations, beyond race. This requires a recognition that as a theoretical framework, postcolonial studies should be understood as a field that seeks to address problems that may go “beyond the scope of colonial experience[s] as such” (Toivanen, 2010, p. 28). This is not to deny colonial legacy or discount the experiences of the colonial subaltern but rather to draw attention to the structures of ‘new colonialism’ by acknowledging other mechanisms of oppression such as class, age, gender and other social relations.

This gap in some postcolonial enquiry was identified by black feminist scholars who reject the postcolonialists’ tendencies to clump the colonised within a single category.

They seek recognition of the fact that colonial oppression affects men and women differently: the female subaltern is often discriminated against and “doubly colonized” by “authoritative phalluses” for being both a colonised person and a woman (Ladele, 2009, p. 70). Therefore, to explicate the complex nexus of everyday meanings and realities in the neocolonial world, there is a need for an inclusive analysis that explores the simultaneous forces of oppression such as class, race and gender within postcolonial scholarship.

If we are prepared to consider these various mechanisms of oppression when applying postcolonial theory, it is also important to acknowledge that, at times, the claims made within a given postcolonial scholarship could be challenged by the postcolonial subject because of their different and potentially incongruous lived experiences (Spivak, 1999). A lack of understanding of the condition of the postcolonial subject could mean that the subject would challenge the application of the theory and, in turn, reframe and redefine its limits. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, this study deems it appropriate to discuss postcolonialisms in plural—firstly, owing to the diversity of the postcolonial experience and, secondly, to recognise that postcolonial texts have the agency to communicate their own new theories through their commentaries. This research therefore aims not to privilege one theorist over another but instead chooses to accept Toivanen’s (2010) definitional approach of postcolonialism as “a flexible set of ideas that are to be placed into dialogue with one another” (p. 34). By doing so, this study openly concedes that the subjects being discussed are multifaceted and can be open to several different readings.

Acknowledging the multitude of postcolonial experiences through the exploration of specific, contextualised conditions is highly relevant to this research because Australian- Dravidian boys, the subjects of my study, are not a homogeneous entity but are very diverse in terms of their socio-economic and sociocultural backgrounds. The ‘colonial question’ within the postcolonial framework of this study therefore extends beyond a basic interrogation of the influence of lingering Eurocentrism—it also seeks to address and illuminate other contemporary problems that are emerging in postcolonial spaces.

The next section outlines some of the significant research design decisions that were made based on the key theoretical concepts that have been discussed above.

Summary of Theory and Links to Research Design

A postcolonial theoretical framework underpins this study for two main reasons. To start with, it acknowledges the need to respect the voices of, and generate more awareness regarding, the experiences of marginalised social constituencies. In the case of this project, it applies to the way in which boys from the minority diasporic Australian-South Asian community negotiate their cultural and gender identities within dominant Western discourses and cultural frameworks, in particular, through the performative rendering of traditional art forms such as bharatanatyam. The overarching philosophy here is that the study of colonised subjects’ self-conceptualisation must recognise the existence of powerful Western discourses in attempting to represent and speak on behalf of the subaltern. Secondly, postcolonial theory takes into account the long history of exploitation and misappropriation of knowledge in the academic research of colonised peoples. Therefore, the credibility and trustworthiness of the research is enhanced when it involves a researcher such as me who is also framed within the same discourses as the researched.

Research Design

Consistent with the theoretical principles outlined above, the study sought to identify the perspectives of diverse Dravidian boys on bharatanatyam, and on why they would, or would not (or did and did not), choose to study this art form. The research design involved detailed interviews to listen to the voices of postcolonial subjects and examine multiple dimensions of the stated problem and issues. Interviews were used not only to deepen the understanding of Dravidian-Australian men’s perceptions and attitudes towards learning and practising bharatanatyam; they also served as a vital tool to investigate and explore the thoughts, opinions and feelings of family members, members of the broader community and bharatanatyam practitioners.

Through these interviews, I drew personalised, contextualised responses that helped me to gain a keener appreciation of the way in which Dravidian boys in Australia have attempted to navigate through discourses about the negotiation of cultural and masculine identities in bharatanatyam spaces.

Interviews

Interviews are particularly useful for obtaining the story behind a participant’s experiences and are widely used in research into gender, postcolonialism and performing arts. Through pursuing detailed information about the topic, researchers may be able to describe central themes and meanings in the worlds of their participants (Kvale, 1996).

In this study, I interviewed 20 Australian-Dravidian boys and men using a semi-structured interview process to investigate at a deep level their attitudes and perceptions towards learning bharatanatyam as well as the way they have conceptualised their cultural and masculine identities in relation to it. I chose a semi-structured approach since it would afford me the flexibility to further probe where desirable and allow me to explore the narratives presented by certain participants in greater depth at my discretion.

An initial draft schedule of questions (see Appendix H) was drawn out and two pilot interviews were conducted. Based on the experience of conducting these pilot interviews as well as on feedback that was given by the participants and their families, it was decided that the following changes had to be made:

• Language and, in particular, the vocabulary used when asking the questions had to be made more accessible for younger participants. Items that used unfamiliar words and colloquial language were also removed to prevent confusing the participants.

• It was agreed that an assumption could not be made that all participants had been exposed to or had a good understanding of what bharatanatyam was (without essentialising the population at the centre of the study). Therefore, at the very start of the interview, there had to be opening questions that checked for the participant’s level of understanding of what bharatanatyam was, (or what it is commonly perceived to be within dominant discourses) and if no prior knowledge was evident, the interviewer would provide participants with a brief overview.

• Visual aids were included as a central feature in the interviews (detailed in the next section).

The Questions

All interviewees were asked a set of identical questions, but additional questions were at times used to elaborate, probe and expand on particular topics. This enabled me to ensure that important and salient topics were not excluded from the interview, and also ensure comparability of responses.

In line with adopting a child-centred qualitative research approach, visual aids were incorporated in the interview to extend the modalities in which I was able to connect and see eye to eye with younger participants (Clark, 2010). In a pilot interview, I noticed that in the absence of visual stimulation and prompts, the interviewee (aged 12) found it extremely difficult to recall, describe and connect with ideas about bharatanatyam. Using pictures of bharatanatyam dancers, however, not only boosted the confidence of participants and gave them stronger material to bounce off; it also made them more at ease and improved the quality and depth of conversations. A total of five pictures were therefore selected and used across all 20 interviews as visual stimulus, refer to Figure 2. They included:

• Picture 1—A collage of a female dancer, posing for an arangetram photo shoot

• Picture 2—Five male dancers in a formation pose

• Picture 3—A very muscular male dancer, face partially hidden

• Picture 4—A dancing male and female couple, striking a Shiva-Sakthi pose

• Picture 5—A single male dancer, wearing a white top

Apart from being asked to describe the five pictures, participants were also asked to rate and rank them in order of how much they liked the pictures. They were then further probed and asked to explain and justify their responses.

Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3

Picture 4 Picture 5

Figure 2. Visual stimulus

The schedule of questions that was used to guide the interview process is included in the Appendix A.

Participants, Sampling and Setting

A total of 20 boys and men were interviewed for this study. To allow diversity in responses and perspectives, the participants were split into two main groups. The first group (Group A) consisted of 10 participants who had not previously learned bharatanatyam and the second group (Group B) consisted of participants who were either current practitioners of the art form or had experience of learning it at some stage in their lives.

The basic criteria for all participants were:

• They had to identify as being a man or boy.

• They had to identify as being Dravidian or be willing to acknowledge that at least one of their parents had Dravidian ancestry.

• They had to be Australian citizens, permanent residents or long-term residents of Australia at the time of participation in the study.

• They had to be able to communicate in either English or Tamil.

In addition, the following specific criteria were applied when selecting participants in each group:

• Participants in Group A had to be between the ages of 12 and 18 and not have had any prior experience of learning bharatanatyam.

• Participants in Group B had to be either current practitioners of bharatanatyam or have had some previous experience learning the art form.

Participants were recruited through the following means:

• Some participants were approached through personal friends who knew of people who fit the criteria stated above.

• Some participants were approached through various cultural organisations, bharatanatyam academies and Tamil language schools in Australia.

• Some participants who were above the age of 18 were identified and contacted through social media sites.

• Some participants were referred on through others who were interviewed at an earlier phase of the research.

The 20 participants were from six urban Australian cities. Nine were residents of the Gold Coast, four were from Brisbane, three from Sydney, two from Perth, one from Melbourne and another from Toowoomba. All 14 participants from Queensland as well as two others were interviewed in person. All 10 participants from Group A were from Queensland. Apart from the Gold Coast, where I am based, I travelled to Brisbane, Sydney,

Toowoomba and Chennai, India, to conduct interviews (mainly with participants from Group B). The other four interviews were conducted through Skype conference calls. Most of the 14 in-person interviews were conducted in the homes of the participants. Although one interview started in the participant’s home, because of the participant’s busy schedule, I had to follow him on the move, and parts of the interview were conducted in the participant’s car and a McDonald’s café where he had stopped for lunch. One participant was interviewed at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus and another was interviewed in a hostel in India. Nineteen of the 20 participants were in Australia and one was based in India at the time of the interviews.

Seventeen of the 20 participants identified Tamil as their native language. Three of these 17 participants identified a second native language: English, Sinhalese and Malayalam. Eight of the Tamil participants identified as Sri Lankan Tamils and the others were of Indian ancestry. Three participants identified Malayalam and one participant identified Fiji Hindi as their native languages. Of all participants, only three identified Australia as their place of birth; the others said they were born in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. A number of participants also identified other countries (Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Sudan and New Zealand) with which, although not their place of birth, they still had a connection as they had grown up or spent a large period of their childhood there. Though not all participants considered themselves practising Hindus, 19 of the 20 participants were born in Hindu households; one identified as Catholic.

Table 1 Participants’ profiles

Place of No. Participant Pseudonym Age State Native Language Religion Birth Group A 1 Jeremiah 12 Queensland Tamil Singapore Catholic 2 Prakash 18 Queensland Tamil India Hindu 3 Thiru 12 Queensland Tamil Sri Lanka Hindu 4 Kamal 13 Queensland Tamil Singapore Hindu 5 Nikhil 14 Queensland Tamil USA Hindu 6 Naren 15 Queensland Tamil USA Hindu 7 Raveen 18 Queensland Fijian Hindi Fiji Hindu 8 Balram 13 Queensland Tamil Sri Lanka Hindu 9 Rupesh 18 Queensland Tamil Singapore Hindu 10 Irainiyan 13 Queensland Tamil Australia Hindu Group B 1 Suneeth 28 Western Australia Tamil Australia Hindu 2 Seenu 28 New South Wales Tamil UK Hindu 3 Eshaan 23 Queensland Tamil UK Hindu 4 Krishna 27 New South Wales Tamil Sri Lanka Hindu 5 Gopi 27 Victoria Malayalam India Hindu 6 Vishal 13 Queensland Malayalam India Hindu 7 Keeshan 22 Queensland Tamil India Hindu 8 Charlie 23 Western Australia Tamil-English Australia Hindu 9 Kavyan 21 Queensland Tamil- Malayalam Singapore Hindu 10 Venu 30 Victoria Tamil-Sinhalese Sri Lanka Hindu

All interviews with participants below the age of 18 were held within the vicinity of their parents. With the consent of participants and their parents, all interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

Ethical Considerations

All high-quality educational research needs to take propriety and ethical factors into consideration. While what is thought of as being ethical or morally acceptable is often open to challenge, the Australian Association for Research in Education stipulates the following four basic principles (Bibby, 1997):

• The consequences of a piece of research must enhance general welfare.

• The researchers should recognise that educational research is an ethical matter and its purpose should be to develop and contribute to the ‘good life’ of human beings.

• No risk of significant harm to an individual is permissible and public benefit, however great, is insufficient justification.

• Respect for the welfare, dignity and worth of persons takes precedence over self-interests of the researcher.

Likewise, the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) foregrounds the need for ethical equality and respect for human beings. It states that the values of respect, research merit and integrity, justice and beneficence should form the framework for the principles that guide the design, review and conduct of any research involving humans.

Guided by the principles mentioned above, and the broader principles associated with post-colonial literature, the following steps were taken to ensure the ethical integrity of this study:

• Participation by respondents was entirely voluntary and no one was forced or coerced into being a part of the research. All participants were explicitly informed about the expectations of their involvement in the research. This followed the ethical principle of informed voluntary consent.

• Participants were assured confidentiality. It is important to note that de- identifying participants in this study was a complicated process since the South Asian community in Australia and, in particular, the population of male bharatanatyam dancers is very small and it was important to be careful about how they were represented.

• Therefore, when reporting findings, pseudonyms were used to protect privacy. Data provided by participants were handled and reported in a manner such that they cannot be traced and associated personally with them. Given

the small size of the Australian-Dravidian community, where necessary, other potentially identifying features were removed.

• Data that were stored by the researcher were de-identified immediately after each interview. To protect their privacy, participants were not required to provide any personal information that was irrelevant to the research and were assured that the information they had given would be used solely for academic research purposes. Participants were also made aware that they had the option of pulling out of the research if they deemed it necessary.

• None of the questions in the interviews contained any issues that might cause harm or distress to the participants. Since some participants were below the age of 18, letters of explanation were sent to parents, school representatives and potential participants themselves before they were approached to take part in the study. Appropriate consent forms were also drafted and permission was sought from parents before their children were included in the research. All aspects of data collection were clearly discussed with the participants to ensure transparency and, where possible, to accommodate and modify any modes of working that they might feel uncomfortable with.

Ethical clearance for this project was granted by the Griffith University Human Research

Ethics Committee. The protocol reference number for this project is EBL/65/09/HREC.

Data Analysis Framework

A data analysis framework was developed to guide both data collection and analysis. The framework was centred on the objectives of the research questions—to examine the attitudes towards gender and culture of Australian-Dravidian boys and men and, in turn, the impact of these attitudes on choices to learn bharatanatyam.

The framework was based upon the theoretical principles of postcolonialism outlined earlier. These principles were used to analyse data relating to gender and to culture: the focus of the study’s research questions. The organisation of the analysis chapters was inspired by the way anti-racist feminist theoretician and contemporary philosopher Rosi Braidotti mapped her scheme of feminist nomadism. In an effort to take into account the “bodily roots of subjectivity and the desire to reconnect theory to practice”, Braidotti

(1994, p. 158) articulates an anti-racist feminism that attends to difference on three levels: the difference between the sexes, the difference among women and the differences within each woman. By considering alternative visions of difference, Braidotti (1994) manages to affirm the collective efforts of women in the feminist movement to critically oppose phallogocentric, pseudo-universal notions of the subject, as well as acknowledge women’s desires to create “new images of female subjectivity” (p. 158). In a world that has typically equated difference with being devalorised and lacking, the feminist project, in Braidotti’s terms, attempts to redefine readings of difference as positive. Simply put, the act of establishing difference or differences is not problematic in itself; rather, it is by who it is done, under which terms dissonance is illustrated and the intentions behind it that are of primary concern. In contrast, the political and strategic postulating of difference can be empowering to people who are often conceptualised as living in the margins. Likewise, within a postcolonial context, making provisions for colonised subjects to speak of difference can be a positive, value-adding process. The intention of the postcolonial project has never been to ape, demand sameness and become one universal force with the coloniser but rather to be in a position to be able to speak of differences and label them in new terms, that of the previously colonised. It is a bid to recover the subject position that was never afforded to the colonial subject.

Braidotti (1994) posits that the three parts of her feminist nomadism project are not meant to be categorical distinctions; depending on the context, they can co-exist chronologically. She argues that they are all options for strategic and theoretical practice. The way in which Braidotti’s anti-racist model of nomadic feminism examines difference appeals to my own need to speak of difference in a positive way and conceptualise Dravidian boys and men as a strategic group without degenerating into discourses about arrested, essentialised categories. Therefore, I adopted this model of looking at difference when setting up the structure and context of my analysis chapters and profiling the themes that emerge.

Using Braidotti’s framework in this investigation has also been particularly useful as it has dismissed the need to search for a ‘singular’ voice or ‘truth’. This is necessary given the heterogeneity of the group of participants. In particular, as discussed in the later part of this thesis, differences in age have had a clear impact upon how participants read and

respond to ideas relating to the negotiation and representation of cultural and masculine identities in bharatanatyam spaces.

From the textual data of transcribed interviews, emerging regularities and patterns in thematic content were observed. Based on the research questions, these themes were initially broadly divided into those relating more to gender and those with a stronger focus on culture. As mentioned earlier, the exploration of ‘difference’ was kept at the forefront when identifying emerging themes, and the themes within the categories of gender and culture were further grouped to explore differences between (the Dravidian participants and the Western Other), among (the group of participants) and within (individual participants). Once the themes were sorted and summarised in a framework chart, relationships between the themes were identified, and as a postcolonial researcher, I developed descriptive and explanatory accounts of the data in each of the identified thematic categories.

A total of five thematic categories were identified for discussion under ‘culture’ and a further three were selected for ‘gender’. The descriptive and explanatory accounts of these central themes are presented in the next two chapters.

Before moving into these data analysis chapters, a final point has to be made about the way they have been structured. As noted earlier, the data is discussed with reference to Braidotti’s emphasis on the political importance of mapping differences between, differences among and differences within. This work highlights diverse ways in which gender and culture shapes attitudes towards bharatanatyam and decisions to learn or not learn the art form. The analysis also speaks to postcolonial literature more broadly; consequently, each data presentation both uses and then speaks back to various postcolonial concepts in order to contribute to the ongoing project of highlighting, embracing and celebrating the power of postcolonial frames.

CHAPTER 4: ATTITUDES TOWARDS CULTURE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON WHY DRAVIDIAN BOYS DO OR DO NOT TO CHOOSE TO LEARN BHARATANATYAM Introduction

This chapter explores how Australian-Dravidian boys’ attitudes towards their own cultural identity and the way in which they construct and position their culture in relation to the Western Other have influenced their attitudes towards bharatanatyam and, in turn, their decisions to learn or not to learn the art form. As discussed in the previous chapter, while this thesis intentionally and actively moves away from an essentialist, one- dimensional approach when speaking about the lived cultural experiences of Dravidian boys and men, it values the strategic articulation of a collective and embodied identity. Therefore, this chapter draws inspiration from Rosi Braidotti’s work to purposefully and explicitly maintain the sociocultural and political interests of this group while still conceptualising cultural identity as dynamic, complex and continuous. This is demonstrated in a structure that focuses, first, on the boys’ understandings of how they are positioned as ‘different’ (Part A) from non-Dravidian boys, second, on the differences between the research participants (Part B) and, third, on the ways in which individual participants’ sense of self changes over time (Part C). In addition to this, each section of analysis reflects explicitly on the way postcolonial concepts have facilitated the analysis conducted.

Part A

An Exploration of Culture: Differences between Dravidian Boys and the Western Other and Impact upon Attitudes towards Bharatanatyam

Part A looks at the way in which Dravidian boys and men conceptualise their difference in relation to the Western Other. By analysing strategic stories about the experiences of their minority racial and cultural status in Australia, I map the narratives Australian- Dravidian voices present about how their sense of otherness and rendering of difference between themselves and the Western, white Australian Other have influenced their decisions to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. The discussion on how impressions of difference have affected choices to learn bharatanatyam is centred around two themes: firstly, the cognisance of the Western gaze and, secondly, the conceptualisation of cultural

values in relation to the Western Other. These themes have been investigated using the postcolonial concepts of ‘O/othering’ and ‘Continuity’.

In Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said (1993) speaks of how colonial discourses, through vocabulary such as “‘inferior’, ‘subject races’, ‘subordinate peoples’, ‘dependency’, ‘expansion’ and ‘authority’” (p. 9) have constructed the colonised savage man as animalistic and base, devoid of a moral, ethical and spiritual soul. In colonial discourses, the colonised subjects were seen as lacking in moral character and were not held to the same standard as the higher, more evolved colonising races because of their perceived lack of moral reasoning (Manzo, 1997). This thesis actively challenges such racist theories by capturing and representing the Dravidian boys’ renderings of values, ethics and moralities that they described as being central and specific to their cultural identity. This was often a focal point of discussion when the boys who were interviewed were asked to speak about how they differed from Westerners in relation to their choices to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. Many of the boys did allude to a moral essence, a sense of cultural integrity and a culturally influenced ethical core that marked their difference to the colonising Other. This is why I have devoted a space in this thesis to acknowledging and paying due attention to Dravidian boys’ articulation of their culture- specific ethical sovereignty.

Theme 1: Under western eyes - positioning of the Western Other and the impact the cognisance of the Western Gaze has on choices to learn Bharatanatyam. When participants spoke about their own cultural identity and the influence of bharatanatyam on their culture, in many instances, there was a strong sense of speaking for a Western audience. While I did feel that the participants accepted me as being ‘one of them’, as a person with a similar cultural background and investment, there was an implicit acknowledgement that I was reporting for a Western audience, supported by a Western academic framework.

When asked the questions “What is bharatanatyam?” and “Can you describe it?”, Eshaan, a 23-year-old medical student and a practitioner of the art form from the age of five, responded with:

I guess if you’re explaining it to the Western world, you can say it’s a cross between ballet because it’s a classical form with lots of poses and graceful moves…

Although I made no reference to this research being positioned for a Western audience, Eshaan saw the need to cater to and explain bharatanatyam to the Western world. His attempt to compare bharatanatyam with ballet and contextualise it for a Western audience demonstrates a deep awareness of being culturally different from ‘mainstream Australia’, a recognition that life in Australia is structured to privilege the white Australian majority, that new knowledge was being produced for the benefit of Westerners and that unlike those from the Western world, he had the cross-cultural experience to bridge the gap— and therefore, a self-imposed responsibility to provide a cultural education for those from the Western world.

This aligns with Fanon’s (1952) discussion of the postcolonial situation where, unlike the Hegelian slave, the colonised is unable to objectify the oppressor and, instead, in a bid to recover his own subjectivity, becomes embroiled with the identity of the coloniser, obsessed with becoming like him and fixated with the need to be recognised by him.

Even the performance of bharatanatyam in Australia seems to be increasingly catering to the tastes, sensitivities and expectations of the Western audience. Gopi, a 27-year-old Melbourne-based business consultant and a regular performer in local dance circles, spoke of how he packages his shows to make it more appealing and “digestible” for a Western audience.

We second-generation, I should say, diaspora kids are able to package bharatanatyam in a way that it is more digestible. So what is presented by me is going to be very different to what is presented by a visiting artist from India…So admittedly, when I present a piece here, I’m very, very cognisant of all the gaps I need to fill in the knowledge…I will remove some elements of the choreography which are too abstract; there are particular mudras which mean things that we know in Western society is not even used as hand signals in daily life. I mean, the way we ask “why?” with our hands in an Indian context is very logical but makes no sense here. So I do tweak some of my hand gestures…I don’t create any new gestures or behaviours on stage at all. I just remove. I remove what is abstract. What is too foreign….but you can remove, you can minimalise. I mean, even simple things like, a normal piece is anywhere between 10–20 minutes long. A four-minute piece is more digestible for a Western audience if you remove a lot of that foreign aspects. And we get very obsessive as bharatanatyam dancers in showing how technically competent we are in various things. So we do a piece like a jathiswaram and because it is a jathiswaram we will do 15 minutes…and that’s great for someone who is a connoisseur…but when it comes to a Western audience, there is something about not repeating a gesture too many times, always giving it a new piece, a new bit of movement and cutting anything that is more than 10, 15 minutes down to seven, six, five. So you can

do short things with them and package differently and then they’re instantly captured and it’s done and the art form is sold.

Once again, Gopi has demonstrated how Dravidian bharatanatyam performers in Australia are constantly aware of the gaze of the West and find a compulsive need to please and pander to it. There is an expectation and an obligation that as a member of an ethnic minority and an Australian born child of the diaspora, Dravidian boys and men have to use their knowledge of the dominant group to ‘sell’ bharatanatyam to the Australian centre. Gopi’s comments indicate that this involves stripping the art form of what is too “foreign” and alien, but at the same time, still ensuring that there is a plethora of consumable, exotic movements on display for the entertainment of the West. The packaging and selling of the art form may also be a reflection of how Dravidian boys and men live their cultural identity in Australia—they have to be entertaining, exotic and interesting to capture the attention and patronage of the Australian centre, without appearing to be completely aloof and out of the box—an expectation to play and perform on the fringes without leaving the boundaries of ‘normality’.

Gopi’s comments were mirrored by Kavyan, a 21-year-old undergraduate from Brisbane and a bharatanatyam student. When asked what attributes were needed by a good bharatanatyam performer in Australia, Kavyan said:

You have to hold a very broad perspective. It [bharatanatyam] teaches you how to tailor to different communities. Our Indian community might be able to appreciate bharatanatyam easily but we can’t expect that from the other communities. They might have difficulties understanding what bharatanatyam is all about.

For these bharatanatyam dancers, being successful in Australia seems to require the approval and ‘winning over’ of the white Australian. The art form has to be made easy, palatable, “digestible” and, most importantly, sellable. Dravidian bharatanatyam performers are not only conscious of the gaze of the Western Other, they are also aware that they need it.

In some ways, this seems reminiscent of bharatanatyam’s journey with the devadasis, where it went from being a devotional art form performed for the gods in the temples to a court dance for Maratha kings between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. To ensure the ongoing gaze and, in turn, the patronage and financial survival of the devadasis and the art form, the content of bharatanatyam was sometimes modified to make the king

the centre of adoration, rather than a god (Sarkar-Munshi, 2010). Likewise, Rukmini Devi’s sanskritisation of bharatanatyam was a bid to make the art form more appealing to the affluent and upper and middle classes of Indian society, to ensure that it would be valued and supported in the public space. It appears that as much as bharatanatyam practitioners and performers strive to preserve the purity of the art form, the terms and conditions of its survival are dictated by the economic limitations of its carriers and the hegemonic culture of the society where it is situated.

The benchmarking of bharatanatyam’s value against the approval of the Western audience was also reiterated by Dravidian boys and men who are not performers of the art form. When 18-year-old Prakash, a recent migrant from Tamil Nadu, was asked if bharatanatyam was important to his culture, he said:

In Tamil Nadu, when you need to show an ad, for tourism or something, they show bharatanatyam…so the art is a representation of the culture so it’s definitely important.

While Prakash agreed that bharatanatyam was important for his culture, it is worth noting that he too linked its value to economic and financial benefits. In this instance, bharatanatyam’s importance to culture was not because of the intrinsic value it brought to the performer or the community but rather the income that it generated from tourism. It appears that in his opinion, as well, bharatanatyam’s role was to perform the exotic and bait the Orientalist imagination of the cash-strapped Other.

While there is no denying bharatanatyam performers in Australia need to capture the gaze of the Western Other to be successful, finding the best way to go about doing this can be tricky. The paradoxical challenge lies in being different enough to intrigue the Western Other without being too different, foreign, boring and hard. All these stories highlight that the game of playing difference or the state of being different is not easy and does affect the choice to learn bharatanatyam. Seenu, a 28-year-old Sydney based bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and teacher, articulated this clearly in the excerpt below:

Can I ask you a question? How far do you think you can go?...How far do you see yourself going in any particular field? For example, if you wanted to be the prime minister of Australia, do you think you’d be able to do that? Are you able to go that far in Australia?...You think there is a genuine chance that a Tamil person can one day turn around and become the prime minister of Australia?...As a Tamil person in Australia, I don’t feel I can be my maximum and reach my maximum point in whatever I want to do…I don’t feel

discriminated because of that but I understand that if I had my own country, if I was in Tamil Eelam, whether it was my art form or any other goals that I had, I would be able to pursue it to my maximum point of whatever I want to do. But I don’t feel that same thing in Australia. Even if you take the art form, in bharatanatyam, if I wanted to get a grant for Indian classical dancing, it’s very very hard to get a grant for it and it’s very hard to get grants altogether. But if this was Tamil Eelam, there will be more of a push, there already is a push…If you want to tour, even if you’re the best dancer in the world, or if you want to do something big as a bharatanatyam dancer in Australia, you’re never going to have that maximum opportunity. If you have Tamil Eelam, you’ll have that opportunity.

Being a minority and operating in a space that is far removed from what is considered mainstream has real consequences for the male bharatanatyam performer in Australia. Although Seenu stated that he does not feel discriminated against and is not resentful about his circumstances, it is clear that he feels his oppression as a Tamil bharatanatyam dancer in Australia and is very cognisant that he will always be disadvantaged regardless of how talented he is.

The first theme analysed in this part of the chapter indicates that the choices Dravidian boys and men make to learn or not learn bharatanatyam and their perceived value of the art form is to some extent determined by the influence the Western Other has on Australian-Dravidian cultural identity and consciousness. Bharatanatyam as an art form and the performance and expression of Dravidian culture is neither completely removed nor isolated from Western cultural influences. It is clear from these discussions that many of the boys and men who learn, perform and practice bharatanatyam in Australia clearly recognise the power of the Western Other in shaping the cultural identity of Dravidian subjects and, in turn, the manifestation of bharatanatyam itself in Australia.

The next theme illustrates what could be considered positive ways in which the Dravidian participants conceptualise their difference in relation to the Western Other.

Theme 2: Speaking from the heart - A culture of values. While the participants were conscious of the Western Other’s gaze and in some instances appeared keen to solicit and gain their approval, the way in which the participants positioned their cultural identity and difference in relation to the Western Other was not always described negatively by the participants. Conversations with participants indicate that many of them frame their subjectivity and conceptualise some of their differences as a point of advantage. In particular, a number of the participants claimed that the values,

morals and mores that they have inherited from their culture make them better, more sophisticated human beings and set them apart from the Western Other. Some of these ‘values’ identified by participants are respect for others and self, generosity, kindness, hospitality, selflessness, filial piety and community spirit. The excerpts from interviews that appear below highlight some of the ways in which the participants distinguish themselves from Australians of Western cultural backgrounds.

One thing you find in Tamil culture is this collective sort of responsibility to do something. The community in itself will be a part of everything. That is part of the Tamil way, part of the Eela Tamil way. A lot of people in the West won’t understand why Tamils in May 2009 took to the streets protesting left, right and centre. I’ve never seen that with any other culture. (Seenu, aged 28)

Another difference they…not really sure, but they…they’re more...self- concentrated. They’re not yeah…well, it’s hard to explain, it’s like, they like think only about themselves, not other people…Yeah and yeah, that’s it. [Indian boys] they’re more respect to elders…But to Australians they don’t do that, they don’t care. (Vishal, aged 13)

Interestingly, many of the participants, including those who have and have not learned bharatanatyam, posited that these values that make them better people are not culture specific and can be considered universally accessible human values. While they credited their cultural background with instilling and preserving these values and specifically stated that it is the moral values they learned from their culture that define their cultural identity, there was a sense that these values are not exclusive to a specific cultural group. When 18-year-old Raveen, a first-year engineering student, was asked how he would describe his cultural background, he said:

I’d say ‘peaceful’. Like with the religion itself, like every text in it promotes peace. It [the culture] doesn’t define me but most of the values and beliefs that I hold dear are derived from ‘Indian’. Like, for example, I don’t go out and break the rules. For example, like being peaceful and stuff. I don’t go out there and start fights and so on. I respect my elders, like when people are talking, I don’t just jump in and, yeah, I don’t know, just common values to be honest. Just behaving like an orderly member of society.

A similar sentiment was expressed by Rupesh, another 18-year-old first-year university student:

Kartik: So what is important in culture?

Rupesh: The values.

Kartik: What are the values?

Rupesh: Erm, you know basic things like respect to parents, take care of your parents, things like that.

Like Raveen, Rupesh seemed to suggest that the moral values he holds in high regard and considers pivotal in shaping his cultural identity are fundamental and “common” to all of humanity. For these non-bharatanatyam dancers, the performance of difference, to learn and perform an art form such as bharatanatyam, was not seen as crucial in defining their cultural identity. However, both the participants who had learned bharatanatyam and those who had not agreed that bharatanatyam was an effective tool in inculcating cultural values. When asked what some of the benefits of learning bharatanatyam were, Seenu said:

You can also learn a lot of traditional values and cultural values through this art form.

Likewise, participants who had not learned bharatanatyam also agreed that the art form had a role to play in preserving cultural values. When asked to identify the value of bharatanatyam, Rupesh said:

I’d say preservation of culture…The traditional Indian culture…Also keeps people towards their roots. Make sure they don’t forget their, you know, past and tradition and social values.

In the same vein in which cultural values have been identified as being common and universal, bharatanatyam itself has been described (even among its practitioners) as an art form that is accessible and available to all of humanity. This can be seen from the similar comments made by three different male bharatanatyam dancers when asked “Who does bharatanatyam belong to?”

You don’t have to be Hindu or Indian but anyone can relate to the story you are trying to perform or trying to tell. It could be white, or it could be Asian or it could be Indian or whatever. (Suneeth, aged 24)

Man, anyone that is exposed to bharatanatyam can be interested in it. It’s not limited to any group. It’s the people’s art. Art is for people. Anyone around the world, regardless of which country they come from, what their background is, can be interested in bharatanatyam. (Krishna, aged 27)

I won’t say ‘belongs’, I would say ‘originate’. ‘Belongs’ is a strong word because bharatanatyam can be taught to anyone. Anyone can learn bharatanatyam. It’s not as if you have to be Tamil to learn bharatanatyam.

You can’t say it belongs to Tamil people and nobody else can do it. (Seenu, aged 28)

In summary, while the participants felt that they were culturally different to the Western Other, they were quick to emphasise that these cultural values and even bharatanatyam itself is a universal entity that can be accessed and experienced by all of humanity. A parallel can be drawn between the way these Dravidian participants assert the universalistic centrality of their cultural values and art with the way European colonisers co-opted the colonial subject into their own power structures by imposing a universal cultural model and objectivised patterns of cultural expression. While the participants seemed generous in extending bharatanatyam and their cultural values to the Western Other and presenting them as universal or common, they revelled in the knowledge that they have the upper hand—the blessing of being more evolved, ‘cultured’ and enlightened human beings. The discourses here suggest that the Western Other is not merely culturally different but is, in fact, culturally less.

This presents a paradox in terms of the choices Dravidian boys make to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. On the one hand, there is a greater impetus to learn the art form as it presents an opportunity to be a higher, more culturally sophisticated human being. The cultural values that the participants learn from bharatanatyam set them apart from the Western Other and give them a subjective sense of being a higher entity. However, for the Dravidian participants who had chosen not to learn bharatanatyam, there was a sense that these values are easy to access. In some ways, it is seen as a cultural inheritance and entitlement, a way of being that has been enshrined from birth. Therefore, there is no pressing need to learn bharatanatyam to distinguish them from the Western Other. The performance and the earning of points to be better a person is not required since moral values and the knowledge of how to be a better person is part of Dravidian people’s cultural capital.

Part B

An Exploration of Culture: Differences among Dravidian Boys and Non-Dravidian Others

Part B of this chapter explores how cultural differences among Dravidian boys have influenced attitudes towards bharatanatyam and, in turn, choices to learn or not learn the

art form. By highlighting the subjectivities and diversity of boys within this group, this thesis rejects essentialising Western power structures that make global statements about racial and cultural groups. When exploring cultural differences, this part of the thesis focuses on the themes of language, religion and nationhood. Three postcolonial concepts which help to draw attention to the way in which gender and culture influence attitudes towards decisions to learn or not learn bharatanatyam include; reclaiming the source of knowledge production, challenging essentialising Western power structures and reconstituting the experiences of the postcolonial subject.

Theme 3: Bharatanatyam in translation: Language and impact upon attitudes towards Bharatanatyam. Theme 3 examines how differences in factors such as identified native language, attitudes towards linguistic identity and the perceived connection of one’s native language to bharatanatyam have influenced choices to learn the art form.

Of the 20 participants, 14 identified Tamil as their native language. Of these 14, three said they were from a mixed ethnic heritage (Tamil and another group) and provided a double-barrelled response when asked to identify their native language (Tamil and Malayalam, Tamil and Sinhalese, Tamil and English). For reporting purposes, all 17 participants who identified as being fully or partially Tamil have been referred to as ‘Tamil participants. Two participants identified Malayalam as their native language, and one participant stated Fijian Hindi.

The way in which Tamil participants articulated their cultural connection with the language and their motivations for learning bharatanatyam can be classified into the four groups listed below.

Group One (No connection): Those who felt that their native language is irrelevant in shaping their identity and has little value to their lives in Australia. For this group, their native language had no bearing on their choices to learn or not learn bharatanatyam.

Group Two (Bharatanatyam for Tamil ethnic identity): Those who felt being Tamil is not merely about fluency in the language but rather a sense of identity that stems from a cultural way of being and a feeling of solidarity with other Tamilians. For these participants, choices to learn bharatanatyam were linked to a sense of cultural

identity and a means to connect with the rituals and practices of being Tamil rather than a motivation to learn or be connected to the actual language.

Group Three (Bharatanatyam for Tamil Language): Those who were particularly concerned with the semantic and literary aspects of the language. For this group, being Tamil was predominantly about being proficient in the language and the motivation to learn bharatanatyam came from a desire to connect with the Tamil language at a deeper level. In this case, the value of bharatanatyam was directly linked to the value it added to the Tamil language.

Group Four (Tamil Language for Bharatanatyam): In contrast to Group Three, those in this group were only interested in the Tamil language because of the value it brought to the performance and practice of bharatanatyam.

Eshaan would fall into Group 1. While both of Eshaan’s parents are Sri Lankan Tamil migrants who speak predominantly Tamil at home, Eshaan speaks only English and at times even struggles to understand his parents when they speak in Tamil. Eshaan also explicitly acknowledged that he felt a sense of disconnect with the language and was disinterested in improving his command of it.

Kartik: Is Tamil important to you?

Eshaan: Not really, no. I’m happy—I mean I would love to be able to speak other languages but I wouldn't go out of my way to learn Tamil now when I could learn more music or more dance…I don't refer to myself as being a Tamil person. If somebody asked me, “Are you from the Tamil community?”, I’d say “Yeah, I’m from the Tamil community”. But I wouldn't say—being Tamil doesn’t really affect my identity at all and I don’t say that I’m a Tamil person.

Not only did Eshaan express a sense of disconnect between the Tamil language and his identity, he also felt that it was not critical in informing his practice as a bharatanatyam dancer. For Eshaan, time could be put to better use mastering his skills as a performing artist, and learning Tamil would merely be an unnecessary distraction.

It has to be mentioned that Eshaan was in the minority. Most of the participants who specified Tamil as their native language did express a very strong affinity with the language and were categorised in Groups Two to Four. These participants stated that

Tamil played a dominant role in shaping their cultural identity—even among those who lacked proficiency in the language.

Fifteen-year-old Naren and 14-year-old Nikhil would be categorised in Group Two. These American born brothers who recently migrated to Australia with their Sri Lankan born Tamil parents were not able to speak Tamil fluently. However, they still regarded Tamil as having significance in their lives and felt that the survival of the language is an important priority. While Naren and Nikhil were non-bharatanatyam performers, Group Two consisted of both participants who performed bharatanatyam and those who did not. For these boys, being Tamil was not merely about having knowledge or fluency in the language; it was also attached to a sense of having a shared history, a feeling of solidarity with other Tamilians, a way of life, a reverence for its moral values and an appreciation of its rituals, practices and arts.

Although Naren and Nikhil had never learned bharatanatyam, they still felt that the art form is an integral part of Tamil culture and that it plays an important role in maintaining the identity of diasporic Tamils.

Kartik: Do you think bharatanatyam is important for the Tamil language and Tamil culture?

Naren: Yes, I think it’s important to Tamil culture because it’s an important part of what it is. So it’s what makes it up—so if you take out bharatanatyam, it’s like removing a piece of Tamil culture.

Kartik: So the loss of bharatanatyam would be a loss to the Tamil culture?

Naren: Yeah.

Kartik: Do you feel the same way, Nikhil?

Nikhil: Yeah, because it is part of what we do and if you take away something we do, we’ve lost something.

For participants such as Nikhil and Naren, bharatanatyam exists as a component of Tamil culture and identity. In this case, the loss of the art form is seen as an erosion of Tamil culture in itself. For these boys, ‘Tamilness’ is not merely about the spoken or written language; it is also about its various cultural elements, including the practice and performance of bharatanatyam.

While participants in Group Three also communicated that being Tamil was a very strong part of their cultural identity, the emphasis was more on the value of the language in itself rather than its accompanying cultural components such as its practices, rituals or artistic elements. It is worth noting that all the participants in this group were non-bharatanatyam dancers who were fluent Tamil speakers, and unlike their counterparts in Group Two, these participants viewed the role of bharatanatyam as serving the Tamil language rather than being one of its foundations or building blocks. For those in Group Three, bharatanatyam was seen as a tool to help with the propagation, preservation, and promotion of Tamil—in this instance, the value of bharatanatyam was only recognised when it was able to benefit the Tamil language.

When asked if bharatanatyam is necessary for the survival of Tamil language and culture, Prakash responded, “It’s good that it is there but I don’t think we’ll be disadvantaged without it”. Likewise, when Thiru was asked if he believed that Tamil language and culture would continue to thrive in its current state even without bharatanatyam, he said, “Yeah, probably”. Thiru was also sceptical of bharatanatyam’s connection with Tamil in the first place. When asked if he thought that the language and art form had a relationship, he said:

I’m not a hundred per cent sure about that really. I’m not really sure if it’s got a main connection with the language because it really does not impress too much language in the dance...It’s mostly for the religion I think.

While the boys in this group acknowledged that bharatanatyam has some value for Tamil language and culture, they were also quick to emphasise that as far as their Tamil ethnic identity was concerned, the Tamil language was at the core and everything else including traditional art forms were in the periphery. These boys also listed a host of other cultural components such as food, festivals and clothes that they considered far more prominent markers of Tamil culture and identity. The message from these boys was clear— bharatanatyam is dispensable. While bharatanatyam was seen as useful and had a meaningful purpose, its loss was similar to a plant shedding a leave—it would not uproot or significantly affect the functioning and survival of the Tamil world.

On the flipside, participants in Group Four viewed bharatanatyam as the mother plant and Tamil language as one of its many leaves which that serve to nourish and add value to it. Participants who fell into this group were all practitioners of bharatanatyam.

Charlie, a 23-year-old professional bharatanatyam performer from a mixed ethnic background, would fall into Group Four. While Charlie’s knowledge and understanding of Tamil was limited, he professed a deep love for Tamil culture and seemed to conceptualise his Tamil identity in the same way as participants in Group 2—that Tamil identity is a way of being that transcends the mere knowledge of the language. Charlie described how his mother, a non-Tamilian, is ‘more Tamil’ than his father or his father’s sisters:

Well, my mum is like a Tamil Brahmin. She is the opposite of a ‘coconut’….My mum is like the perfect Tamilian wife…I think she just loves the Indian culture so much…that you know. She just saw bharatanatyam once and she had to learn it, you know. And you know, I think, that’s where a lot of my dance comes from….Mum is through and through Tam-Brahm [Tamil Brahmin]. You know my classmates make fun about it, you know, all the teachers…Because she wears those sarees, you know. She’ll come to college in sarees, you know. So the only thing is, she can’t speak Tamil, you know. Just about that.

As suggested above, being Tamil for Charlie was not about the language. Rather, it was an attitude, a passion and an outlook on life—a desire to be Tamil and to feel ‘Tamilness’. However, unlike those in Group 2, Charlie’s motivation for dancing did not come from his love of Tamil culture or identity but rather Charlie wanted to steep himself in Tamil language and culture because he believed it would enrich his journey as a bharatanatyam performer:

Kartik: What’s your native language?

Charlie: English

Kartik: Okay, you think in English?

Charlie: I think in English but I dance in Tamil.

Kartik: You dance in Tamil?

Charlie: All the dialogues that I’m saying in my head are in Tamil because I find it more impressive.

Kartik: Do you wish you knew more Tamil?

Charlie: I’d love to know more Tamil.

Kartik: Why?

Charlie: I love it. I just, I find it (. . . .) I know that we have a lot of it in English but I find it, I mean, I read a lot of translated poetry, like Sangam period and stuff like that and I think it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever read. And I always go, I wish I can actually read this in Tamil, just because you know, it will be that little bit better. I love Tamil..the only thing is I suck at learning languages. But if I could learn Tamil and master Tamil in my lifetime, I’ll be very very happy.

Charlie’s desire to learn Tamil seemed to stem from his love for bharatanatyam. Charlie felt that knowing Tamil would deepen his appreciation and sense of connectedness with the texts that are used in performance—the knowledge of Tamil would add value to his art.

Even bharatanatyam performers who did not identify as ethnic Tamils stated that they developed an affinity with the Tamil language, its people, and culture through their art. Similar to their counterparts in Group Four, for these non-Tamil dancers, the interest in the Tamil language was brought about through their connection with bharatanatyam and it was largely a by-product of their engagement with the art form. The following excerpt from Gopi’s (his mother tongue is Malayalam) interview highlights this point:

I think it [bharatanatyam] is very much owned by the Tamils. I see myself having absorbed a lot of Tamil culture as a result of being a bharatanatyam dancer. I speak more Tamil than my parents can and I understand it quite well. I developed a love for Tamil Brahmin food because I’m always staying in my dance teacher’s house…and I’ve absorbed a bit of that kind of experience and identity naturally as being a part of a non-Tamil bharatanatyam dancer…I’ve almost become like a sponge and absorbed some of those characteristics and aspects. But it’s interesting, whenever I do a repertoire, I feel the need to have at least one piece in Malayalam…Ultimately, there is, everyone has one language which they are most close to and Samyutha is such a strong component of bharatanatyam. The words have to be broken in motion. You have to evoke a feeling that involves movement. If the words are in a language which is foreign to you, that train doesn’t begin. Like I said, because I’ve absorbed Tamil, I feel close to it as a language and I’m okay there. But there is a whole different feeling when it is in Malayalam.

Apart from readily acknowledging that bharatanatyam has Tamil roots, Gopi had also adopted a few Tamil cultural practices and learned some of the language. As mentioned earlier, the appeal in the Tamil language and culture for a non-Tamilian dancer such as Gopi is largely because it deepens appreciation for bharatanatyam. Nonetheless, Gopi

made it clear that his own mother tongue, Malayalam, resonates most with his heart, and where possible, he tries to include bharatanatyam repertoires in Malayalam.

In tandem with what has been posited in postcolonial literature, the discussion of Theme 3 highlights that postcolonial people’s experiences are not homogeneous and that there are different ways in which members of the group perceive their linguistic cultural identity. This in turn, reflects on the different motivations to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. While a minority did not see much of a connection between native language and the art form, most of the participants recognised that bharatanatyam has strong Tamil origins and felt that the two are not divorceable. For many Dravidian participants who identified as Tamil, bharatanatyam was seen as an art that adds value to the Tamil experience. However, there appeared to be a split in terms of how ‘Tamilness’ was conceptualised. For some, being Tamil was a way of life that was defined by cultural practices, ideologies and a sense of camaraderie with other Tamil people; but for others, the Tamil language was at the forefront of Tamilian identity and the manifestation of other cultural components was irrelevant. Participants who fell into this earlier group appeared to value the cultural contribution of bharatanatyam to a greater degree, whereas the latter group consisted mainly of non-bharatanatyam dancers who, although they saw value in the art form, felt it was not critical to the preservation of the Tamil language or their own cultural identity as Tamilians. While much of the discourses within these groups was about the role, purpose and contribution of bharatanatyam to the Tamil language and culture, for many participants who were proponents of the art form, it was their engagement with bharatanatyam that was of central importance, and their interest and appreciation for the Tamil language was an offshoot. Non-Tamilian participants who were bharatanatyam performers seemed to find a similar connection with the Tamil language—they grew to learn, understand and even love the language because of their involvement with the art form.

Theme 4: Dancing with the gods—Religion and its impact on attitudes towards Bharatanatyam. Theme 4 explores how religious identities and spiritual practices swayed the decisions of the participants interviewed to learn bharatanatyam. This section specifically looks at how Australian-Dravidian boys and men negotiate their spiritual relationship and connection with bharatanatyam and how they perceive its role in the performance of religious faith.

Of the 10 participants who danced bharatanatyam, eight clearly identified as Hindu. One participant said he was raised a Hindu but was non-practising, and another said he was “somewhere between a Buddhist and a Hindu” but “more Buddhist than Hindu.” Nine out of the 10 participants who did not dance identified as being Hindu and one said he was Catholic.

The majority of participants, both dancers and non-dancers, stated that bharatanatyam was a religious and/or spiritual art form. In most instances, when participants were asked to name the religion or spiritual practice that bharatanatyam traced its origins to, they stated Hinduism. However, there was a split in terms of how participants viewed the label ‘Hindu’. While some regarded Hinduism as a religion that is connected to the public realm of worship and is supported by membership of a religious community, others saw it as a spiritual way of life that is more connected to the personal realm and detached from organised dogma. These approaches to conceptualising Hinduism did seem to influence attitudes and choices to learn bharatanatyam.

Among those who viewed bharatanatyam as a religious dance was Vishal, a 13-year-old from regional Queensland, who had been learning the art form since the age of three. When Vishal was asked where bharatanatyam originated from, his response was:

Well, I think it came from Lord Shiva. He started dancing and then the humans discovered.

Vishal clearly saw bharatanatyam as the dance of the divine, as a tandava—a celestial dance performed by the Hindu deity Shiva that manifests life’s cyclic process of creation, preservation and dissolution. For Vishal, bharatanatyam’s cosmic origin was a strong motivation to learn the art form. When asked what some of the benefits of learning bharatanatyam were, Vishal said:

It’s helped me a lot…Like I figured most stuff about India. Like all the histories and everything…We dance to a story. And in the last one I was Lord Murugan and learned what happened when I got angry at my parents and went away with my peacock…learned all these stories from it…The history of all the gods and, yeah, our religion.

For Vishal, the ‘stories’ from Hindu mythologies and scriptures are not merely there to set a moral tone or provide symbolic representations; instead, they are relics of history that allow him to connect and learn about the very beginnings of time. He saw bharatanatyam as an opportunity to understand the ways of the gods, to find out about

their real and ‘lived’ experiences and to benefit from these lessons that have been directly imparted by celestial beings. Living life as a young Hindu in regional Queensland, with no easy access to places of worship or opportunities to connect with other Hindus, Vishal cherished his bharatanatyam classes since they kept him anchored and engaged with his religious identity and ancient past.

Religion also appeared to be a powerful motivator to learn bharatanatyam among participants from urban settings. This was most evident in my conversations with Suneeth, a 24-year-old financial consultant from Perth. Suneeth was learning bharatanatyam at the Temple of Fine Arts, a performing arts academy that is run by the Shiva Family, a Hindu group founded by South Indian guru Swami Shantanand Saraswathi. Suneeth knew of many other Perth-based boys from the Shiva Family, who had learned bharatanatyam, and he stated that dancing among boys in the community was commonplace and normalised. Suneeth described how the group’s devotion to Swami Shantanand Saraswathi and being connected to the Shiva Family spurred several boys in Perth to learn bharatanatyam:

I think it is Swamiji’s teaching and the fact that ANYONE can do dance, art, music…we were not restricted kind of thing and we felt very comfortable in doing it….his idea was art for the love of it. So through him, the dance school that I belong to, it grew….So I’d say Swamiji had instilled dance in like ALL our lives…So that’s how I was involved in it because my parents were his disciples and I was born into the whole organisation.

Evidence from these conversations indicates that there is a strong correlation between those who consider themselves practising Hindus and their attitudes towards regarding bharatanatyam as sacred. It appears that for many Hindus such as those in the Shiva Family, the performance of bharatanatyam is in itself a form of worship. The performing arts are seen as an opportunity to connect with the divine, and therefore, bharatanatyam too is highly regarded as a sacred art form that facilitates this communication between the individual soul, the jeevathma and the divine energy, the paramathma.

As mentioned earlier, some of the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers stated that they were more ‘spiritual’ than religious and were in some instances averse to using the label Hindu when describing their religious identity. However, even these participants admitted to feeling a strong connection with the divine when they danced. Gopi described

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how, despite not being overtly and traditionally religious, he finds deep spiritual and mystical connection when dancing bharatanatyam:

I find it a very spiritual experience. I’m otherwise not that religious or traditional in that ritualistic way. So it is probably my single, deep spiritual endeavour...So I kind of channel most of my spiritual energy to that…I was doing a varnam in May in New Zealand as part of a performance. It was a 45-minute piece and I remember being entirely immersed to the point that I completely forgot that I was on stage and what I was doing. You know, you immerse yourself in the stories and the characters you are portraying and you kind of absorb their personality. So what I feel is very much a disconnection from my own…And that feels somewhat spiritual.

Venu, a Sydney based performer had a similar spiritual relationship with bharatanatyam. Although Venu’s parents were of different religious backgrounds and his upbringing included both Buddhist and Hindu influences, he identified more closely as a Buddhist. However, as narrated below, Venu too believed that bharatanatyam opened windows to connect with spiritual energies and felt it offered him divine solace:

I am more Buddhist than Hindu. I don’t know much about Hinduism to start with….I don’t believe there is a god with a trunk waiting to take your obstacles or a god called Siva who is dancing in Kailash. But I think that energy is part of the universe and you can invoke that energy to your body and mind…There is a strong spiritual connection. I’ll tell you, with Westernisation, I’m struggling a lot with my religious beliefs….there are questions that I ask. I believe the gods are certain forms of energy or symbolic representations rather than actual existence. In my case, I have a strong connection with Siva, the energy of Siva. One day I wanted to do a really good Siva dance performance…I played the part of Siva and after I had done it, I got the best performance from me, which was probably about 95 to 100 per cent of my capacity which I achieved. And I felt like, now I’m happy.

Venu made it clear that, unlike Vishal, he did not view Hindu mythologies and deities as real entities and his approach to Hinduism was more philosophical than literal and ritualistic. However, he conceded that, like Vishal, in the face of hegemonic Western influences in Australia, bharatanatyam was able to offer him spiritual comfort While he may have been uncertain about using the label Hindu to describe his identity, like Gopi, Venu admitted that, like prayer, bharatanatyam has the power to heal, protect and connect him to a higher spiritual “energy”. Venu narrated how through the performance of bharatanatyam, he was able to overcome hurdles in his personal life:

I was going through hell in my previous workplace. I was bullied and harassed and at the same time, I broke with my ex partner…and I had

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numerous, you know, casual relationships…and it really devastated me a lot. I lost my soul and I was very close to being clinically depressed. It was a time when I thought everything was going wrong. I was even going to lose my job and everything. At that time, I felt I was really weak…It was a very hard battle and I thought I needed the energy of Siva and I got my little Siva statue and I held the feet of the statue and tried to get some sort of energy and then I danced. I did it for a couple of days, day after day after day…It really helped me. It was a kind of reunion with the energy of Siva and that reunion is represented by a physical effect—burning chest, goosepimples, tears and everything…That is the sign for me to realise that I had that reunion with that energy and now I’m strong to fight this battle….I won that battle, I didn’t lose that battle…That is the time I danced and I found the energy in the dance form and if I were to be in a similar situation, I would do it again. That is the spiritual part I would invoke.

While many of the participants who danced stated that it was not a requirement for bharatanatyam performers to be practising Hindus, they were quick to point out that bharatanatyam is essentially a spiritual or religious exercise and it would almost be impossible for those who are spiritually detached to appreciate the art form in its entirety or to reach an advanced stage in their artistic pursuit. Of all the participants who were dancers, 27-year-old Krishna was the only one who stated that he was sceptical about matters to do with spirituality and could not “relate to or understand religion” as he felt “religion is a barrier to humanity”. The Sydney based community support worker has been learning bharatanatyam since he was a child and has done his arangetram. However, he admitted that his performance was lacking because of his disconnection with religion and spirituality.

To have that spiritual connection, it is a different level…It’s beyond my reach, man, what you need to have. People that say they have that spiritual connection, it’s good, man. If they believe they have that connection, it’s amazing because that connection is a different level…That’s why the question you asked me, “Do you see yourself as a good dancer?”, that’s when I said “no” because I can’t, because as good bharatanatyam dancers, you need to have that spiritual belief, like the spiritualness, the connection. That’s when it takes you to a different level. Where for me, I’m still not up to that stage yet..Something I have to confess is that my view of religion is not a strong thing. I don’t have any strong beliefs in religion…I really couldn’t grasp certain concepts Hinduism was teaching.

Participants who were non-bharatanatyam dancers also suggested that it was mainly those who were interested in religion and connected with their spiritual self who were most driven to learn bharatanatyam. When asked who would value bharatanatyam, Raveen said he believed it was those who have “a good base and knowledge in religion”. Likewise,

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Naren stated that one of the strongest motivations to learn bharatanatyam would be that “it helps you to get in touch with your culture more” and “learn new things that you never knew, like your religion and your god”. While it appeared that many of the non-dancing Hindu participants had a deep respect for Hinduism, bharatanatyam and those who performed it, these participants often saw themselves as being “less religious” and lacking in spiritual discipline and commitment compared with the participants who were dancers.

Twelve-year-old Jeremiah, a Catholic, was the only participant in this research who was neither a practising Hindu nor from a background that had Hindu influences. While Jeremiah admitted to knowing little about bharatanatyam and said he had no interest in ever learning it, he too felt that bharatanatyam was important in preserving the cultural identity and character of the Tamil-South Indian community in Australia. When asked if he thought culture could be sustained if bharatanatyam were lost, he said, “No…cause it brings you more into your culture, your religion and all”. In this case, it is interesting to note that although Jeremiah was not a Hindu, to some degree, he saw Hinduism as being entwined with his cultural identity as an Indian-Tamil and recognised that bharatanatyam served a purpose in preserving the way of life of the people he culturally identified with.

As highlighted earlier, findings from this research show that there was a clear consensus among participants that bharatanatyam is a religious and/or spiritual performance, grounded in the philosophy, rituals, practices and/or mythologies of Hinduism. While it is evident that the participants who danced bharatanatyam had various ways of considering what it means to be a Hindu, and there were different opinions and sentiments about the use of the label ‘Hindu’ to describe one’s identity, they all agreed that to connect and engage with bharatanatyam in a deep and meaningful way, one had to find a spiritual connection with the art form. The conversations indicate that participants who were more religious or more drawn to seeking out a divine or mystical experience were more motivated to learn bharatanatyam. However, like Hinduism itself, there were several variations in terms of the way in which participants conceptualised this spiritual experience and bond with the art form. As outlined in the discussion, while some participants were driven to learn bharatanatyam because it gave them an opportunity to perform their religious identity in a public sphere and worship through dance in the presence of fellow Hindus, others saw it purely as an intimate, meditative pursuit that allowed them to momentarily disconnect from their worldly existence; while some

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participants were motivated by the possibility of learning about the ‘life’ of the gods, others viewed it as a means of accessing therapeutic, positive energies to cope with daily life. Regardless of how this ‘spiritual hook’ was defined, a common thread was observed, that many participants viewed bharatanatyam as adding value to their religious or spiritual lives and were encouraged by the prospect that, through performance, they could directly connect with their faith identity and spiritual self. Unlike participants who were non- bharatanatyam performers, many of those who danced were not merely interested in being observers but wanted to be physical carriers and executers of their religious cultural identity and personally immerse themselves in an experience in which they would feel a strong divine presence.

Theme 5: Bharatanatyam citizenship—Nationhood and its impact on attitudes towards Bharatanatyam. This section investigates how national identity and belonging have shaped attitudes towards bharatanatyam. The investigation of the cultural component of nationhood is particularly pertinent to this study because of the transnational identities of the participants and their lives in Australia.

Bharatanatyam is often associated with Indian nationhood, and it is widely recognised as a symbol of “quintessential Indianness” (O’Shea, 2007, p. 70). This has largely been a result of both colonial and anti-colonial nationalist discourses that have shaped the art form over the past 80 years. As discussed in the review of the literature, the institutionalisation of bharatanatyam in the 1930s and 1940s by Rukmini Devi and other upper-caste Hindus involved in the Indian nationalist project led to an increase in the art form’s popularity and endorsement among mainstream and upper- and middle-class Indian societies. Bharatanatyam is now widely touted as the national dance of India, and the practice and performance of the art form is considered “a productive site for the constitution of both national and regional identities” (O’Shea, 2007, p. 70).

The performance of bharatanatyam in diasporic Indian or other South Asian communities, particularly in the West, has also been largely motivated by longings to stay rooted to the country of origin, connect with an ancient past and (re)produce ideas of cultural authenticity (Lal, 2012). Likewise, for many Dravidian participants who danced bharatanatyam, learning and engaging with the art form was seen as an opportunity to connect with the ‘mother country’.

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Twelve of the 20 participants identified as having South Indian ancestry, and eight said they were of Tamil Sri Lankan ancestry. Many participants identified as being twice migrants because prior to moving to Australia; their families had been (or still were) a part of other diasporic communities. However, it was not merely the different migration and settlement experiences that had contributed to the complexities of affiliation and self- identification in this group. Politico-cultural factors also played a part in terms of how participants defined and conceptualised ‘country of origin’. In particular, a number of the Tamil Sri Lankan participants were careful to emphasise the difference between ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Tamil Eelam’.

My country is Eelam, man. I believe my country is Tamil Eelam. And my opinion is very strong with that. (Krishna, Aged 27)

These participants were supportive and sympathetic to the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka and viewed the Tamil-dominated North and Northeast areas of the island as a sovereign, but oppressed and captured, state. The postcolonial framework of this project defies grand narratives purporting to offer clear and fixed definitions of nationhood and, instead, seeks to actively support any non-dominant understandings and conceptualisations of a nation that may arise. Therefore, in line with what has been defined and ‘imagined’ by some of the participants, this project accommodates the legitimacy of the nation of Tamil Eelam and also considers how one’s experiences and connections with Eelam influence motivations to learn bharatanatyam.

Most participants who were dancers mentioned that the experience of practising bharatanatyam was a means of enacting cultural identity and, in particular, asserting and performing national heritage. However, the idea of nationhood and national belonging seemed to transcend the discipline of geographical boundaries or even the ability to speak of homogenised groups of people. Rather, the idea of what constituted the nation was subject to fluid and ambiguous ‘feelings’. Gopi spoke of how he seemed to “identify very strongly with India” but was quick to point out that he recognised that he related to the idea of being ‘Indian’ without being able to define it in concrete terms.

I always thought, philosophically, that it is an arbitrary construct because its boundaries are around old connections...So I think the definition is imposed. But I somehow relate to it. Probably because I grew up with it?

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Nonetheless, regardless of how ‘being Indian’ is conceptualised, for the participants who danced bharatanatyam, the links between learning bharatanatyam and the opportunity to perform Indianness were articulated very clearly. Gopi recounted how he did not even notice the race or nationality of a Japanese performer and assumed her Indianness when he saw her dancing bharatanatyam:

I see bharatanatyam and I immediately associate it with India and, off you go, you know? The experience I had in Chennai when I was watching a girl dance and I was like “Oh, she’s brilliant, she’s fantastic, she’s learning from Adyar Lakshmanan!” So I proceeded to find out a bit more about her and found out that she’s Japanese. And I didn’t notice that she had oriental features until someone told me that she was Japanese. And then I revisited it and come to think of it, she was obviously Japanese! But she was in costume, using make-up and was so immersed, that for me, since she was doing bharatanatyam, I just assumed that she was Indian and that’s their identity.

This clear connection between the performance of bharatanatyam and the performance of ‘being Indian’ among participants who were practitioners of bharatanatyam was also evident in the way they used the art form to ‘remember’ their country. The remembering of the country of origin was often accompanied by a deep sense of nostalgia and the performance of bharatanatyam seemed to complement and pander to the desire to reminisce, recollect, reconnect and relive. Charlie spoke of how he finds joy through the performance of bharatanatyam as it allows him to connect with an ancient, mystic India and overcome, what he perceives to be, the limitations of living in reality, the mundaneness of everyday Australian society:

When I dance, it makes me happy…there’s something to do with joy…They are such wonderful situations that we don’t get to experience at all, you know…for that 20 minutes, for that 10 minutes…It’s something that you then have to relate to, something completely different…Like your friend is talking to Lord Krishna about your friend who is upset…But I think a lot of kids don’t find that joy in that aspect, especially at home, in Australia, kids don’t understand, they don’t understand how.

For these participants, part of the appeal of performing bharatanatyam lies in the way it has been packaged and presented as a pure and authentic art form—one that directly traces its origins to an ancient and pristine India, the India of Bharatha Munir, the Natya Sashtras and Lord Nadaraja himself. In such cases, the performance of bharatanatyam’s highly stylised and rigid steps is seen as an opportunity to enact and execute the real essence of India, the India that has been preserved through time, invasions and modern influences. It appears that these participants often made parallels between Indian authenticity and the

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quality of a performer or performance. Charlie spoke of how in his quest to become a good professional dancer, he makes a conscientious and concerted effort to be as ‘Indian as possible’ so as not to be associated or compared with bharatanatyam performers in the West who are seen as lacking in some way:

Every time someone turns and says, “You can’t tell that you are foreign at all”, you know, it gives me a little thrill, just because you know, NRI dancers aren’t supposed to be that good a dancer in India. They are always average, you know. I’ve gone to a lot of programs where even I have said, they’re very good FOR AN NRI!...My classmates call me the Australian kuppam because you know, I eat on the roadside. But I mean, I think that I am Indian in that sense, you know, because I didn’t make that deliberate effort to be Australian.

On the other hand, participants who were non-bharatanatyam performers indicated that the art form would be more appealing if it were modified to be more Westernised. Often, the word ‘modern’ was used synonymously to describe what was considered Western or even ‘normal’ and universal. When asked how bharatanatyam could be made more engaging to teenage boys like him, Naren said, “Make it more interesting to watch. Maybe introduce more modern things I guess. So more modern music and everything”. These sentiments were echoed by 13-year-old Kamal, who stated that bharatanatyam was not valuable to Australian-Indians and that it was necessary for the art form to “evolve” if it was going to remain relevant to their lives. Many of the participants who were non- bharatanatyam performers also seemed to draw a clear binary between the developed, progressive, modern, relevant and masculine West and the backward, conservative, traditional, irrelevant and feminine motherland. This group of participants saw bharatanatyam as occupying the space of the latter—a space they had left behind and were not keen in revisiting in Australia.

As outlined above, there was a clear dichotomy between participants who wanted to remain connected with their originary past and those who felt the need to move on and ‘keep up with the times’ and cultures of the new world. Those from the former group were more drawn to and motivated to learn bharatanatyam because of its stylised structure, label as a classical dance and rigid codes or conventions that secure its reputation as a traditional and unadulterated ‘Indian’ art form. However, it was these very qualities of bharatanatyam that had turned off participants from the latter group, who sought new, dynamic and hybridised ways of performing national identity.

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The story of national identities and motivations to learn bharatanatyam would, however, not be complete without giving due space and attention to the experiences of some Sri Lankan Tamil bharatanatyam performers and the way they have used the art form as a tool of political protest and activism in Australia.

Seenu was born to Tamil Sri Lankan parents in England in 1982, a year before the start of the Sri Lankan civil war that claimed the lives of over 100,000 people. At the age of nine, Seenu moved to Sydney with his family and became an Australian citizen. Despite having lived most of his life in Australia, Seenu still identified with Tamil Eelam and felt strongly about the oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka. When asked if he had become more of an Australian because of his new life here, Seenu said:

No, more Tamil. I consider myself to be Tamil-Australian opposed to Australian-Tamil…Tamil-Australian in my opinion is a Tamil person having to live in Australia. Australian-Tamil is a Tamil person who happens to be of Australian origin.

Seenu then went on to use the analogy of a vadagai veedu (rental home) to describe his relationship with Australia. He liked it, and he appreciated it for what it had to offer him and his family, but it was not his permanent home, a place where his soul and identity connected.

When probed on why he was still so passionately interested and involved with political issues in Sri Lanka, Seenu said:

My parents always had a strong connection to Sri Lanka. For me it was about finding out about what is going on there and understanding what the base roots of the problem are…And if you can understand those few things and if you can understand that it’s our people who are suffering the most in Sri Lanka today, then there isn’t a reason to say why one shouldn’t be involved.

Seenu then went on to explain how through bharatanatyam he has learned to deepen his appreciation and understanding of the culture of Tamil Eelam:

Bharatanatyam has made me stay in touch with my culture...It has made me research and understand a lot more about my culture, my people and Tamil way of life.

Like his Indian counterparts, the drive for Seenu to learn and engage in bharatanatyam came from a desire to connect with a lost motherland and to discover the nuances and spirit of the Tamil people. However, more so than the Indian performers, it appeared that

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Seenu was also motivated to learn bharatanatyam as it was a means for him to perform a national identity. It was evident that Seenu saw bharatanatyam as a signifier of Tamil culture, and a performative emblem of Tamil nationhood. The following extract from Seenu’s interview highlights this point:

The Tamil people in the north-east part of Sri Lanka have a completely different culture and tradition to the Sinhalese people of the south and south- west. We share more of a connection, or a very high connection with the Tamil people of South India and we share the same art form as well, which is Bharatanatyam….At the end of the day, our population is one of the largest populations which does not have its own country. We are one of the oldest languages in the world, if not the oldest language that does not have its own country…We have one of the oldest arts forms, yet we don’t have our own country.

It appears from the statement above that Seenu used bharatanatyam as a way of imagining nationhood. He felt a connection with South Indian Tamils and saw them as being a part of the same nation since they shared the same art form. On the other hand, despite their shared geographical space, Seenu did not recognise the Sinhalese as sharing the same national space as they had different performing art forms.

Through my interviews with Seenu, I also came to realise that there was a third layer in terms of how bharatanatyam and Tamil nationhood connected. Apart from remembering country and performing identity, bharatanatyam was also used by this group to create country; it was a site of national production. Seenu narrated how, although he felt the impetus to protect and conserve what is traditional and time-honoured, through innovation and the use of creative choreography, he and a group of other Tamil Sri Lankan bharatanatyam dancers were able to use the art form as a tool of political activism and rally for the establishment of a separate Tamil state, Tamil Eelam. Seenu described how this was done:

We do it in public space…they are all short shows, 15 to 20 minutes. So it’ll be an open space and then we start off with some loud music so people just sit down and come ready to watch and then we just start..and once we finish that, we do a question and answer session so people can voice their opinions about the show, the choreography or the actual concept…And most of those shows are to show people what is exactly happening in Tamil Eelam. So I use the art form, I use bharatanatyam as well as contemporary dance to project a different message to people.

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As mentioned above, it is evident that, unlike their Indian counterparts, some of the Tamil Sri Lankan participants did not use bharatanatyam merely as a means of connecting with and becoming custodians of a numinous and ancient past but rather, they continued to use the art form as an instrument to further current and ongoing political and nationalist agendas. By making this comparison, I do not intend to undermine the real value of bharatanatyam to the daily lived experiences of the Indian bharatanatyam performers. Instead, in line with the postcolonial theories that have informed this part of the project, I specifically chose to include this in the discussion to showcase how oppressed people and groups have been able to imagine new and self-determined cultural identities. Bharatanatyam spaces in Australia are not used merely to reminisce; they are also a site of production, a means to influence directly and change the current national situation of its practitioners (reconstitute experiences). In addition, these narratives highlight that the reasons that have motivated Dravidian boys and men to learn bharatanatyam are highly varied. While some have used it as an artefact to remember and relive country, others have used it as an instrument to create country. This is particularly relevant to this section of the project’s political intent which through presenting diverse narratives, has attempted to challenge essentialising power structures.

Part C

An Exploration of Culture: Differences within Dravidian Boys

This section of the chapter recognises the important political point that the identity of the postcolonial subject is not a fixed, arrested and timeless form. Dravidian boys and men present, negotiate and shift identities with changes in social and geographical spaces, time and circumstance. Part C demonstrates how spatial and temporal boundaries create differences within an individual Dravidian boy or man and how these differences can impact upon attitudes towards the dance, and decisions whether to take lessons. Specifically, Part C looks at how Dravidian boys and men who practice bharatanatyam cope with and reconcile multiple (and sometimes competing and conflicting) cultural identities in Australia and the way in which these differences influence choices to learn bharatanatyam at different stages and contexts. In this way, the chapter draws upon the key theoretical concept of ‘challenging essentialising power structures’ to illustrate how the cultural identities of the Dravidian participants are always in flux.

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Theme 6: Coping and reconciling - Marrying multiple identities of being an Australian man, a Dravidian, and a Bharatanatyam performer. This section makes the important point that identity is never fixed or arrested and that a sense of self is always in negotiation. The changes in an individual’s attitudes and thoughts towards culture certainly seem to have implications for motivations to learn bharatanatyam.

As touched on earlier, the shift in Krishna’s sense of identity as a Hindu seemed to have an impact on his level of commitment and engagement with bharatanatyam. At the time when the interview with Krishna took place, he had completed his arangetram three years prior but had since completely stopped dancing. Krishna did admit that during the time he was preparing for his arangetram, he felt a deep cultural connection with bharatanatyam and was prepared “to sacrifice everything else for dance”. However, Krishna stated that since then his experiences in life and interactions with Australians of other cultural backgrounds had influenced and changed some of his cultural convictions. Krishna did concede that this may have had a toll on his level of engagement with bharatanatyam but maintained that his cultural identity was in flux and that there was a possibility that he might reconnect with bharatanatyam at a later stage in his life:

Identity is something that can be shaped and reshaped over time as you develop as an individual. That’s how I see identity. It’s not fixed…It all depends on how your experiences as an individual influences your perspective on life. As an individual, my views will change over time. What I believe today can be reshaped down the track once I’ve gained more knowledge or once I’ve gained a different angle to it.

Apart from time, it also appeared that cultural identities and, in turn, the motivations to learn bharatanatyam were subject to changes when the individual Dravidian participant moved in and out of different social and cultural spaces. When another participant, Gopi, shared his experiences as a bharatanatyam dancer in an ensemble group that performs predominantly for a Western audience, it was clear that he was conflicted in terms of rationalising his own motivations to learn bharatanatyam.

Gopi appeared to be very proud of his Malayalee, Indian heritage and enjoyed the fact that he received praise and recognition from elders in the community:

The ‘aunties and uncles’, so my parents’ generation, first migrants to Australia, all I get is unequivocal support because they see this as preserving our culture…even the uncles…I only get immense support: “you really should

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pursue this, this is great, you are keeping our culture alive, more kids should do this”.…they see it as a success or a conquering of some form to preserve our culture.

The encouragement and attention he received from the older members of his community and the quest to ‘preserve what is culturally authentic’ had to a large extent motivated Gopi to persevere with his art. However, Gopi stated that most of his friends and supporters from his own age group, including his close associates from the dance company he was involved in, were non-Indians. When with his peers from his dance company and immersed in a space that performs for a Western audience, Gopi’s motivations to perform bharatanatyam seemed to shift. He appeared to become less preoccupied with conserving and protecting the authentic elements of bharatanatyam and, instead, was at ease with allowing it to adapt and evolve.

Gopi’s case highlights the complexity involved in analysing and pinpointing the specific cultural motivations of the Dravidian participants in learning bharatanatyam. The motivations to learn the art form not only changed depending on the social context and space; they also seemed to be in conflict with each other. On the one hand, it was a means of resistance, to preserve culture, but on the other, it was used as a tool to connect, ‘sell’ culture and integrate with the cultural hegemony:

I struggle because I feel like I have two contradicting opinions. Like I want the preservation of the art form; I want its traditions and seriousness and all of that maintained. But I wish it was more understandable, more accessible…I’m at a loss. (Gopi)

Conclusion

This chapter addressed the first research question of the thesis, which sought to explore the impact of culture on participant attitudes towards bharatanatyam and, in turn, on the choices they make to learn or not learn the art form. Findings from this research have shown that culture influences participant attitudes and decisions in multiple ways.

Part A of this chapter explored the way in which participants shape their understanding of being positioned as a cultural other in a dominant Western world view. It is evident that the participants could name the ways in which their culture is positioned in relation to cultural practices normalised and celebrated by the Western Other. Evidence from the interviews also shows awareness by participants about how their sense of self is affected

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by dominant understandings of Western subjectivity—the way in which participants perceive how they are looked at, and the expectations the Western Other has of them. The participants then negotiate their cultural identity based on how they perceive this subjectivity and this, in turn, affects their motivations to learn bharatanatyam. Findings from this research indicate that there are three ways in which this could manifest:

• Dravidian subjects perform bharatanatyam FOR the Western Other and conform to ways in which the Western Other expects them to perform difference.

• Dravidian subjects seek to emulate and assimilate with the Western Other since they believe this is what the Western Other expects of them and steer clear of performing cultural difference (bharatanatyam) altogether.

• Dravidian subjects choose to challenge and resist dominant Western world views of being and seek to perform for the preservation of their culture and to maintain cultural difference. They then make a conscious effort to learn or perform bharatanatyam in the most ‘authentic’ and untainted way they think is possible in Australian spaces.

Part B of this chapter showed that the decisions made by Dravidian participants are not based solely on Western Australian attitudes and beliefs but are also influenced by differences in culture (such as language, religion, and nationhood) and cultural attitudes.

Most of the participants recognised that bharatanatyam had strong Tamil origins, and many of the native Tamil participants saw bharatanatyam as adding value to their Tamil identities. However, while some viewed ‘Tamilness’ as a way of life, others thought that the language was at the forefront of Tamilian identity. The research findings show that participants who fell into the earlier group seemed to value bharatanatyam more.

As in the case with the Tamil language, there was a clear consensus among participants that bharatanatyam is a Hindu religious or spiritual dance. While there were different ways in which participants used bharatanatyam as a means of enacting and connecting with their Hindu identities and practice, it is evident that those who were more interested in seeking a spiritual experience and wanting to connect with their Hindu identities were more likely to learn bharatanatyam.

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In a similar vein, this research found that participants who were keener to remain connected and engaged with their ‘mother country’ or countries of origin were more likely to want to learn bharatanatyam. For bharatanatyam performers of Indian origin, this usually meant the desire to connect with the ‘old country’ and an ancient past. However, for a few bharatanatyam dancers of Sri Lankan origin, the art form was used as a political tool and a site of production.

Part C of this chapter accentuated that any single Dravidian participant is not a fixed, arrested and one-dimensional entity, but rather they are all complex human beings who are always in flux and at times their different ways of being can be in conflict with each other. Even with the same subject, the reasons and motivations to learn bharatanatyam can vary with factors such as time and social and cultural space. This serves as an important reminder that we should not essentialise the participants based on either Parts B or A and that the individual subject and his reasons for learning bharatanatyam are not frozen in a timeless, unchanging state.

Together, the three parts of the chapter provided rich insights into the influence of culture and highlighted the analytical and political power of postcolonial research.

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CHAPTER 5: ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENDER AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE CHOICES OF DRAVIDIAN BOYS TO LEARN OR NOT LEARN BHARATANATYAM

Structure of Chapter 5—Differences Between, Among and Within Dravidian Boys

Chapter 5 examines how attitudes, perceptions and expectations of gender roles and norms have influenced the choices of Dravidian boys to learn or not learn bharatanatyam.

Chapters 5 and 4 are structured to reflect each other. Like Chapter 4, Chapter 5 is organised into three main parts that present narratives that explore how the ways in which the participants perceive their difference to the Western Other influences choices to learn bharatanatyam, how differences among the participant’s influence choices to learn bharatanatyam and how differences within individual subject’s influence choices to learn bharatanatyam at different junctures and contexts. In this chapter, however, the focus is on attitudes towards gender.

The intentions behind structuring Chapter 5 in this way are no different to those for Chapter 4. On the one hand, this thesis aims to protect the political agency of the participants and seeks to avoid a situation in which the collective power of the group is undermined. On the other hand, however, this project does not want to fall into the essentialist trap of rendering the entire group the same by clumping individuals together and painting all with the same brush. Therefore, in line with the strategy used in Rosi Braidotti’s feminist nomadism project, this chapter adopts an approach of embracing the different subjective ways and discursive practices in which gender identities are constructed. It seeks to honour the historicity and acknowledge the political, strategic value of racially and culturally grouping Dravidian boys while still providing an allowance for lucidity, to consider the figurations, fragmentations, and differences that exist among and within them.

As a result, in the same format as the chapter that precedes it, this chapter was organised as outlined below.

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Part A explores how Dravidian boys position their gender identities in relation to the Western Australian Other.

Part B demonstrates how, although the boys have been categorised into the same racial and cultural group, there are differences between them and the ways in which the boys conceptualise and negotiate their masculine identities.

Part C investigates the ways in which, identities fragment, shift and transform across time, space and context, even within the individual Dravidian participant.

Like Chapter 4, throughout these three parts, the implications for the learning and practising of bharatanatyam among Dravidian boys and men in Australia are considered very closely. By organising the chapter this way, this project presents rich ground to consider different narratives of how attitudes towards gender have influenced choices to pursue bharatanatyam.

There are six key concepts shaping the analysis. In the same way as Chapter 4, Part A of Chapter 5 focuses on the concepts of ‘othering’ and ‘continuity’; Part B pays close attention to furthering the political agenda of this study—to reclaim the source of knowledge production, to challenge essentialising Western power structures and contribute to the process of reconstituting the experiences of the postcolonial subject; and, while the theoretical aspirations of Part C overlap at certain sections with Part B, its primary concern is with challenging essentialising colonial discourses. However, in addition to the concepts mentioned above, the focus of gender on Chapter 5 means it will also examine how other mechanisms of oppression affect the life of the postcolonial subject. Therefore, throughout Chapter 5, ‘nexus’, the sixth key theoretical concept that is relevant to this study is considered very carefully to provide the contextual direction and impetus for this investigation. A brief recap of this concept is, therefore, necessary.

Postcolonial Theoretical Concept of ‘Nexus’ and Its Application in This Study

The interlocking of other trajectories of the postcolonial experience necessitates the analysis of additional, new complex social relations, beyond race. To explicate the complex nexus of everyday meanings and realities in the neocolonial world, there is a need for an inclusive analysis that explores the simultaneous forces of oppression such as

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gender within postcolonial scholarship. Since Chapter 5 examines how gender influences attitudes towards learning bharatanatyam, this section of the thesis is particularly concerned with pursuing a comprehensive dismantling of colonial hierarchies.

In his book Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said (1993) argues that a pure anti-Western, anti-colonial focus is insufficient in breaking down the forces of colonial oppression. Instead, he posits that the new postcolonial nation-state in itself can transform and degenerate into a site of social injustice once it is shackled by a new nationalist elite. He, therefore, calls for a postcolonial project that gives due attention to “other liberationist activities in the colonised world—such as those of the women’s movement” to counter and check the existence of “orthodoxy and authoritarian or patriarchal thought” within postcolonial studies (Gandhi, 1998, p. 82).

While both feminism and postcolonialism are concerned with challenging repressive and oppressive systems, as discussed in Chapter 3, the relationship between the two projects has been tenuous and scholars from both sides constantly pinpoint the limitations and exclusions of the other (Gandhi, 1998). However, Gandhi (1998) states that the partnership between the two schools has been particularly successful when countering the colonial myths of an imperial masculinity and attempting to create a space that considers and depicts diverse representations of masculinities. The work that has come about from this collaboration is particularly relevant to this project when exploring how critics have attempted to reread the gendered nature of the colonial encounter—as a struggle between competing masculinities, and as an aggressive, imposing force that has influenced ideas and positioned the power binaries of different racialised masculine representations (Gandhi, 1998, p. 98). In his exploration of the sexual economy of colonial Algeria in “Black Skin, White Masks”, Frantz Fanon (as cited in Gandhi, 1998) highlights the gendered nature of colonial consciousness and posits that “the colonised black man is the real other for the colonising white man” (p. 99).

Chapter 5 works off the premise that Dravidian boys and men will also have internalised such colonial discourses about racialised masculinity. Therefore, this chapter seeks to pay attention to how the nexus of lingering and developing ideas about race and gender in the postcolonial Australian-Dravidian subject’s psyche have influenced choices to engage with bharatanatyam—an art form that plays a pivotal role in shaping cultural, racial, sexual and gendered Dravidian identities.

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Part A

Gender and Differences between Dravidian Boys and the Western Other

The goal in this opening analytical section is to examine the beliefs Dravidian boys have about Australian masculinity and explore the implications of these ideas for masculine ideals, norms, and expectations for choices the boys make to learn bharatanatyam. By looking at the way in which Dravidian boys position and situate their own gender identity in an Australian context, in relation to Western Australian men, this chapter aims to shed light on the relationship between the negotiation of gendered identities and its influence on the practice and performance of bharatanatyam among Dravidian boys and men in Australia.

Theme 7: “An Australian Boy” – Beliefs about Australian masculinity. It was evident that many of the participants recognised differences in the way in which masculine identities were negotiated and performed between themselves and their white Australian counterparts. In particular, the participants seemed to define white Australian masculinity in terms of sporting achievements, physical strength, heterosexual prowess and other hegemonic masculine ideals.

Often, these perceived Western ideas of masculinity seemed to paint a picture of a hard, uncompassionate, uncompromising, encroaching, competitive and self-seeking white Australian man:

A typical man in India would not have so many tattoos all over his body. A typical man in India is very devoted to his family. He may have fun when he is young but once he is married, it is all about the happiness of his family. People here are, I won’t call them greedy but they have this attitude that “life is short and I’m just going to do things my way”. That attitude you don’t see much in Indian men, they think about people around them. Here, people don’t care. (Prakash)

In contrast, Dravidian and South Asian masculinity was perceived as being a lot more fluid and accommodating of differences and diversity. This was particularly communicated in discussions about how masculine identities were mediated, negotiated and represented through dance and the performing arts. When Kavyan, who spoke at length about how boys who danced in the West were stigmatised, was asked if male dancers in India experienced criticism for pursuing their art, he said, “No, not in

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India….the percentage of probability is very low. People wouldn’t tease you. People wouldn’t criticise you. People wouldn’t label you”.

Likewise, it appeared that many of the other participants felt that the construction and performance of Western hegemonic masculinity in Australia does not allow for such varied expressions and instead subordinates representations of masculinities that are not within its normative centre. Evidence from the interviews suggests that both participants who were bharatanatyam dancers and those who were non-dancers recognised that there were clear expectations for them to conform to these Western masculine norms and standards. When 12-year-old Jeremiah was asked what Australian men would think of male bharatanatyam dancers, he said:

They’ll probably think he shouldn’t be doing it…Most of the guys here probably be doing rugby and sports and not many people who do dance.

Evidence from the interviews shows that there is a strong awareness among the participants and the wider Dravidian community that the Western cultural context in which they are located sends a clear message that to gain and maintain power in Australia, they have to perform and almost masquerade Western masculine hegemony. This means that unlike the families during his childhood in Sri Lanka that Venu spoke about, the South Asian community here see little room or scope to allow its boys to explore masculine identities within dance and bharatanatyam spaces since it does not align with how the ‘masculine moves’ in white Australia. By Western terms, the way in which the body expresses itself in bharatanatyam is considered feminine and the performance of what is perceived to be feminine by a male body is clearly devalued.

Charlie recounted how his aunt, a bharatanatyam teacher in Perth, had very few male students:

My athai [Aunt] has probably had about six or seven boys in 26, 27 years, you know. That is not a very good ratio. It is because a lot of parents are scared that their children will…come out a different way or, you know, dance will make you more girly or something like that or they’ll get bullied at school or something like that... All of that must be there affecting their mind.

According to Charlie, because of the perceived ‘risk’ of turning feminine or gay and the threat of being subjected to ridicule and bullying, there is strong pressure for Dravidian boys and men in Australia to conform to Western ideals of masculinity. There was a sense that Western culture polices the way in which the heterosexual masculine Australian body

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moves and this means the level of engagement with bharatanatyam among men in Australia is compromised as it does not match what is stereotypically framed as masculine and powerful. Venu spoke about how the performance of bharatanatyam by men in Australia is stifled as the movement and expression of the male body in Western society is highly regulated by a gendered code in many levels:

I think the society has a stereotypical view about the movements, the way it is presented. It is not about bharatanatyam, the society looks at the expression….Because Australian, Western society is very much tuned into that—what is masculine and what is the movement of masculinity. One of the examples is the way some of those boys hold their beer cans. Gay men would never ever hold their beer cans like that unless they really wanted to make a statement, “Look! I’m a butch man!”.

While the majority of participants recognised that there are dominant, preferred and accepted ways of expressing and performing masculinity in Australia, participants who were non-dancers were a lot more tuned into the prevailing message that their masculine identities have to be subsumed by fixed, non-negotiable Western cultural ideals. Participants who were non-dancers viewed Western Australian masculinity as being decidedly one-dimensional and lacking room for varied, multiple expressions. It was particularly interesting to note that a number of these participants acknowledged that being a man in Australia meant that they had to follow “stereotypes” that were positioned as a binary to what was feminine, ‘girly’ and devalued.

Kartik: What does it mean to be a man?

Kamal: I don’t know, follow the stereotypes, don’t do anything a girl would do.

It also appeared that many of the non-dancing participants had taken on board these Western ideals of masculinity. They were comfortable with these ideals and complied with maintaining its hegemony. When presented with Picture 5 (image of a male bharatanatyam dancer in costume), Raveen stated that not only would white Australians have issues with such representations of masculinity but he too felt uncomfortable with viewing the image:

Kartik: And and how do you think they’d [white Australians] perceive it? Like what would possibly go through their heads?

Raveen: Like, this guy’s pretty weird…The make-up…I don’t know, I don’t really get the make-up thing. And erm, the attire is kind of

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exotic so they’ll probably find that really interesting…and er, exotic, I don’t know why but…I was looking at it and I don’t know, I’ve never really seen a guy wear make-up to be honest…That kind of freaks me out. Someone who’s been brought up in this kind of thing would see it to be kind of okay..For me like, looking from the outside, kind of looking from the window…I would be kinda at that window peeking through, only seeing from outside of it at the moment and I haven’t seen a broad spectrum to really decide what the values of this stuff are. I’m sorta at the window—not way out, but I’m still not in.

In this case, using the analogy of the room and window, Raveen stated that while his cultural background gave him a spot by the window to view and recognise that there is a ‘broad spectrum’ of masculine representations, he conceded that his life and experiences in Australia had rendered him an outsider, and he was unable to comfortably digest or partake in other masculine discourses when they seemed to challenge dominant Western understandings.

At times, these participants also felt that there was something lacking in their culture’s ability to support and protect their sense of manhood in Australia. Often, traditional Dravidian masculinity was not seen as simply being different from Western masculinity but rather it was discussed in terms of a deficit, of not being on par, or as good or as strong as the normative centre of Western masculinity. When asked what made an Australian man, a number of participants were quick to pinpoint that it was in opposition to the activities of their own culture and in particular, bharatanatyam:

Kartik: So give me examples, what are some of these manly things?

Naren: Like rugby or football.

Nikhil: Or cricket.

Kartik: Okay, so do you think cricket is a manly sport?

Naren: Yeah, well, more manly than doing bharatanatyam.

Keeshan: Masculine behaviour, I guess, the stereotypical masculine behaviour would be the guy who enjoys sport, likes to hang out with the boys, like to do things with guys.

Kartik: What are these things that guys do?

Keeshan: All I can think of is sport and hang out, play video games or whatever. As opposed to doing bharatanatyam [laughs].

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It is worth noting that for a number of participants the issue was not merely about men dancing but the fact that they were dancing a traditional Indian dance. These participants still considered Western art forms more masculine than bharatanatyam. When asked if men should dance, Thiru said:

It depends on what type of dance it is. But yeah, they can dance. It would be a good sort of like an exercise for them. Might be a refreshment even for them. So yeah, it is good. I think English dances would suit them a little better than normal Tamil dances.

While the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers also recognised the pressure to conform to hegemonic masculine ideals, they seemed a lot more prepared to acknowledge that there was diversity among white Australian boys, and even among this group, there were new and different ways of expressing masculine identities. Often, these boys spoke of how their male white Australian friends were supportive of their artistic pursuits and, in some instances, even more so than their South Asian counterparts. Gopi spoke of how his male white Australian friends have been more encouraging than his South Asian friends with his endeavours in bharatanatyam:

Through university and all, they were encouraging me to keep it alive. One of the emcees for my arangetram was one of my best friends from my university who is exactly the same age as me and he is Australian brought up, an Australian boy.

Gopi acknowledged that there are different types of white Australian men and he had actively and conscientiously surrounded himself with friends who had similar interests and were on the same wavelength:

From my work colleagues, Australian-Western work colleagues, I not only get their support, they travelled to see my arangetram. They are always intrigued and interested and supportive. But I have to say that I have selected my work colleagues…people who are a little bit more, a little bit more travelled, or more artistic in any way.

Eshaan also felt that the Western Other was not a fixed, homogeneous group and that there were in-between spaces and overlaps in the performance and expression of masculine identities between Dravidian and white Australian men:

That’s a tough question….If I catch up with my non-medicine friends or even my medicine friends who are Australian men, you know there’s often discussion about girls.…Yeah girls, relationships. Some of them it’s boys because you know they’re that way inclined….So you know these are the

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Australian men friends that I have….Because they’re friends of me, the topics of the conversation often end up in art, in music, so often we’ll end up talking about music or art. That’s probably because of my influence and their interest in it. I don’t think that’s reflective of typical—I don’t think there is a typical Australian man…That’s the thing. That’s the tough thing. Not anymore anyway. I think we’ve been exposed to a lot of different cultural possibilities.

On the extreme end of the spectrum, 24-year-old Suneeth felt that Western culture is more liberal and accommodating than South Asian culture in its attitudes towards flexible and diverse masculine identities. Suneeth felt that Western masculinity had never been problematic for his life or dancing career and instead he felt empowered by the liberalism of the West and its increasingly relaxed attitudes towards gender norms and expectations. The excerpt below highlights how Suneeth viewed the difference in white Australian masculinity, as an accepting and nurturing force:

You look at Western dance, there’s not like any difference between a male dancer or a female dancer. Men, boys do dance as well as girls…you won’t see that the majority of all dancers are like girls…Even my school friends who were not in those circles [religious/artistic], even my uni friends and my work friends, it’s all accepted. It’s not frowned upon or “oh you’re so gay” or something…Everyone knew. Because I’d say, “I can’t come see a movie with you because I’m dancing”…and no, they didn’t think anything of it.

However, Suneeth was an exception and most of the interviews indicate that the majority of participants recognised there were differences in how masculine identities were negotiated and represented between white Australia and their cultures of origin. Moreover, it appeared that participants who were bharatanatyam dancers were far more aware of multiple and diverse ways of being masculine in the Western Other. Often, this allowed this group of participants to find common, overlapping ground with the Other and seek supportive white Australian allies. On the flipside, participants who were non- bharatanatyam dancers seemed to perceive the white Australian male identity as a hard, unrelenting force and felt a coercion to fit in and assimilate to survive in Australian space. Inevitably, this meant rejecting occupations such as bharatanatyam that do not fit within fixed hegemonic ideals of Western masculinity.

The next part of the chapter examines how differences in masculine expressions and attitudes within the group of participants have influenced choices to learn bharatanatyam.

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Part B

Gender and Differences among Dravidian Boys and Men and Their Attitudes towards Bharatanatyam

As established in Chapter 4, Dravidian boys and men as a group are by no means a homogeneous entity, and a wide range of cultural differences exists even among members of the group. Since masculinity is an expression of culture and there were significant cultural divergences among members of the group, it could be deduced that there would be differences in attitudes towards the negotiation, representation and expression of masculine and gender identities among the boys. It was unlikely that all the participants in this group would share the same conceptions of masculinity since ideas of gender are interpreted and experienced in culturally specific ways and Dravidian boys and men in Australia are not culturally located in the same manner.

Part B therefore explores two key ideas. Theme 8 presents different ways in which the participants reflected on and conceptualised what Dravidian masculinity means. By doing so, this section serves to prove there is a wide range of masculine experiences and expressions among Dravidian boys and men, and therefore, generalisations of Dravidian masculinity can be highly misleading. By examining how the group of participants positioned and prioritised bharatanatyam in relation to other arts and sporting spaces, this section also highlights how different ideas about Dravidian masculine norms and expectations influenced choices the participants made to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. The thesis then investigates the relationship between the power of peer group pressure, the way masculine identities are negotiated in groups and the implications this has for choices to learn bharatanatyam among Dravidian boys and men in Australia. This section also investigates the different ways male bharatanatyam dancers define the expectations and social codes for performing in a manner that is considered appropriate, accepted and preferred for Dravidian men.

Finally, Theme 9 examines how different beliefs about human sexuality and attitudes towards sexual norms and queer expressions among the group of Dravidian boys affected their choices to engage with bharatanatyam.

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Theme 8: “I will be a man!” Beliefs about Dravidian masculinity. As outlined in the earlier section, it appears that most of the participants perceived Dravidian masculinity as ‘gentler’ and more accommodating of differences and divergences from the normative centre of Australian hegemonic masculinity. However, while some of the participants seemed to actively contest Western hegemonic representations and expectations of being masculine, others appeared to have accepted and internalised them. As mentioned in Theme 6, participants who were non- bharatanatyam dancers generally seemed more prone to viewing traditional Dravidian masculinity as lacking in some way in comparison with the West and therefore made efforts to adopt what they perceived to be stronger and better ways of being a man. By aligning their gendered identity with Western hegemonic standards, it appears that many of these participants had attempted to renegotiate and propagate new representations of Dravidian masculinity.

While this group of participants typically used discourses in sports, heteronormativity and brute strength to speak about Dravidian masculinity, it was interesting to note that even in conversations about the pursuit of the arts, some of these participants explicitly stated that is was more appropriate for Dravidian men to pursue Western art forms. When asked what were appropriate ways of being for Dravidian men, Thiru said:

Well, they should play more sports. I don’t know about the music way, if they should participate in that. Instruments, you can participate in and drama. Dance, in Western ways, yes.

Simply put, some of these conversations seemed to indicate that Dravidian boys and men believed that they had to align with and adopt Western practices and activities to be considered suitably masculine.

Other participants who were non-dancers also explicitly stated that they were suspicious of their peers who danced bharatanatyam. This is reflected in the extract below from an interview with brothers Naren and Nikhil. The brothers discussed how playing sport may ‘redeem’ the masculinity of a Dravidian boy who dances but there will always be a lingering sense of distrust and othering of Dravidian boys who pursue bharatanatyam:

Kartik: Now let’s just say if this boy does other things like he plays soccer, he plays cricket and rugby and all those kinds of things but he also does bharatanatyam. How do you think other boys would view it?

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Naren: I think they wouldn’t mind that much because they know that he’s one of them but they’d be a bit suspicious because they know that’s something different?...[They may wonder] why he’s different and he might be someone who they’re not really familiar with, someone different to who they’re used to.

Nikhil: I think that they would be all right because they would know that he’s not actually more feminine than masculine but...they would still be wary….

The brothers also discussed how they and other Dravidian boys policed the masculinities of each other—that they acted as each other’s watchdogs to ensure that they enacted and conformed to accepted ways of being masculine in Australia. Nikhil, who is in his school choir, admitted that he had faced considerable teasing and ridicule from other Dravidian boys, including his older brother, Naren. When asked how Naren and his male family members would react if he was to start learning bharatanatyam, Nikhil said, “I think my dad would probably react like, ‘Not another recital to go to!’”. I think my brother and my other male cousins would probably be teasing me even more. (My brother would say) “‘Now you’re deciding to dance as well?!’” Likewise, when 13-year-old Balram, a non- bharatanatyam dancer was asked how his brother would respond if he was to start learning bharatanatyam, he said, “My brother will be like, ‘what in the hell happened to you, mate?’” Prakash also concurred that other Dravidian boys would mock those who had intentions of learning the art form: “If a boy comes and says, ‘Hey, I’m learning bharatanatyam!’, of course he’ll be made fun of. They’ll ask ‘Dude, of all things, why are you learning THAT?’ That is the first question they will ask.”

Many of the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers narrated similar stories of being bullied and criticised by other Dravidian boys and men for pursuing bharatanatyam. Krishna spoke about how he faced strong opposition from his uncles and other male friends while he was growing up learning bharatanatyam:

They were mainly male. Male cousins, family, everyone, man, friends. Even the older people would confront me and ask “Why are you learning dance?” Older people in the sense, my uncles…It was mainly them who used to come up to me and say, “Come and play soccer. Come and play soccer with us. Don’t do dance. Don’t do dance”.

Krishna stated that it was not his lack of engagement in sport and what were considered ‘boyish’ pursuits that were an issue but rather his involvement in dance that was seen as a threat to his masculine development. Although he was a talented multi-sport athlete and

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enthusiast, many members of his family and community did not seem to think that it was possible or necessary for him to balance activities or straddle identities that spanned across gendered cultural boundaries:

I was always an active kid and I loved my sport and my recreational activities. I was always out there, running around, kicking a football or playing cricket, or playing footy or Austag or whatever it is. Whatever sports it is, I’ll be playing it. And I’ve had people approach me and say, “Look, why don’t you play sports? Why don’t you play soccer? Why are you learning dance for? That’s for girls. Why are you doing it?”

Interviews with participants who were performers of bharatanatyam suggest that it was not only non-dancers who subscribed to the idea that Western standards of being masculine are ‘more normal’ and ‘more natural’. Evidence from the interviews indicate even participants who were bharatanatyam performers had internalised beliefs that there are suitable, natural and even honourable ways of being masculine that are aligned with and performed better within dominant Western cultural contexts. It is important to note that these participants did not necessarily explicitly acknowledge that Dravidian masculinity was inferior or lacking in any way compared with Western masculinity, or that there were no overlaps in terms of how masculinities were conceptualised across cultures, but rather, a conscientious effort was made to focus on elements of bharatanatyam and Dravidian culture that seemed more aligned with ‘manly values’ that were championed and celebrated in the West. Not surprisingly, for these male bharatanatyam dancers, their beliefs about desired and accepted ways of being masculine seemed to have a direct impact on how they practised and performed bharatanatyam. Often, the focus was on the tandava tradition, composed of strong, sharp and vigorous steps that symbolise Lord Shiva’s performance of the cosmic cycles of creation, preservation and destruction. This was in contrast to lasya, which centres on graceful, gentle, elegant and ‘feminine’ movements.

Kavyan, a bharatanatyam dancer, was one of the participants who espoused the traditional, hegemonic masculine values of the tandava. When Kavyan was asked what a Dravidian man should be like, he said:

[He] should be able to support, or rather, defend a female…should generally be able to defend a woman. This is human theory again. Man should always defend the woman, and not woman defend the man…A man in general, should be brave…and not get traumatised for every single thing.

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According to Kavyan, there is no difference in terms of how masculinities are expressed between Dravidian and Western contexts. In his comments, there was a strong sense that gender is biologically determined and that there are normal, natural and all-encompassing ways of being a man that transcend culture. Not surprisingly, these naturalised ways of being a man align with hegemonic Western understandings of masculinity that tout the physical prowess and dominance of men.

Pursuing bharatanatyam as a male dancer had therefore been problematic for Kavyan, who seemed to struggle to reconcile his passion for the art form with his masculine identity. In his interview, Kavyan narrated how he noticed that many male bharatanatyam dancers are effeminate and he felt disconnected, let down and at times repulsed by these other dancers. Kavyan had therefore actively sought the company of other male dancers who he considered suitably manly—this extended to the choice of his dance guru:

My first dance instructor became a transvestite. My second instructor isn’t like that. He is a perfect man who is married, has kids. So he’s my inspiration to date.

It is evident that many of these beliefs about Dravidian masculinity had been shaped by family and community attitudes and had influenced the choices the participants had made to learn bharatanatyam. Kavyan narrated how he faced strong objection from his parents and particularly his father when he wanted to learn bharatanatyam. He had to hide his art from his father and had to convince his mother that he would continue to be ‘a real man’:

So I explained to my mum and I told her, I promised her that I wouldn’t become a female, I wouldn’t transform myself. I will be a man, definitely.

Seenu also spoke about how his awareness of society’s expectations of rigid gendered binaries influenced his performance and practice of bharatanatyam. Like Kavyan, Seenu mentioned that Dravidian masculinity was seen to be defined by traits such as valour, bravery and energy, which he thought manifested in the way gendered bodies presented and carried themselves. Seenu stated that he therefore made a conscientious decision to perform more vigorous tandava pieces that focused more on traits such as pride, anger and bravery. When asked if Dravidian audiences would find his performance of bharatanatyam feminine, Seenu stated:

No. All because a lot of my dances are based on the ‘veeram’ [valour] aspect. My performances are based on making sure the male character is masculine

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and male. The male dancer comes with the concept of energy. The female dancer comes with the concept of elegance.

As evidenced from the interviews with Seenu and Kavyan, there is a high likelihood that ideas about desired, hegemonic masculine standards have affected the way in which bharatanatyam is practised and performed by male artistes in Australia. In a bid to defend their masculinity and protect the reputation of bharatanatyam, many male performers seemed to make a conscientious effort to remain ‘real men’ and only portray what they considered to be accepted masculine traits in their performance. It was particularly interesting to note this even extended to the times when female roles were performed on stage. Seenu, along with a few other male dancers who were interviewed, spoke about the importance of how even the feminine needed to be performed in a distinct way by male dancers so as to not alienate audiences who may not be very artistically inclined or receptive to performances that disrupted their understandings of gender:

The issues come when a male dancer is trying to walk like a female or trying to dance like a female whilst portraying a female character…there’s nothing wrong with that, but that causes the stigma.

However, it appeared that many of these male practitioners were not able to explicitly articulate how male bharatanatyam dancers were expected to play convincing female parts but still maintain a distance between the role and the masculine, gendered body of the dancer—to not betray their male bodies and their ‘real’ masculine essence. When prompted to describe how this could be achieved, some spoke about qualities such as ‘control’, ‘subtlety’ and ‘stamina’ but did not specifically mention how these could be depicted through gestures, stance and gait.

While many of the male bharatanatyam dancers who were interviewed did speak of the need to “dance like a man” and championed the tandava traditions as a domain of male bharatanatyam dancers, there were others who refused to conceptualise Dravidian masculinity within such a fixed binary. Venu stated that fixed, hegemonic understandings of masculinity in Australia were a Western social construct that did not necessarily align with how masculinities were performed in South Asian cultures. Venu posited that Dravidian masculinity allows fluid expressions and described how while growing up in Sri Lanka, he and other boys his age were encouraged to partake in activities that were traditionally considered feminine in a Western context:

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Every boy had to learn stitching in my village school…So in the school concert, everybody had to dance no matter whether you were a feminine boy or a masculine boy…There was no crisis or pressure at all for me to choose soccer or cricket instead of dancing.

In contrast to the Western context, Venu spoke about how in his Sri Lankan hometown, dancing was often exclusively the domain of men and the gaze was on the male dancing body instead:

There is a festival called Esala and so many different temple…Hindu and Buddhist temple festivities happen during this time and you have parades that goes for hours and hours where you can see hundreds of these dancers dancing. And men. Mostly men. So dancing for men is not something demeaning in that context. And in fact, you see lots of women in the audience and for most of the time, you don’t even see a single woman in the dance floor…Even the female characters are played by men. This happens to date and it happens both among Sinhalese people and Tamil people….In fact, there is more encouragement for boys to dance in some families than discouragement because you are admired by the villagers. Imagine you are in the middle of hundreds of villagers and all these villagers are waiting for your performance.

Venu pointed out that to be a competent and ‘whole’ bharatanatyam performer, it is not possible for a male dancer to merely embrace tandava. Instead, Venu stated that bharatanatyam is the cosmic dance of Ardhanarishvara, a composite form of Lord Shiva that amalgamates and represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe. Venu therefore did not think it was problematic for a male dancer to move between these gendered spaces of tandava and lasya and instead posited that the male and female principles of Ardhanarishvara are conceptualised as inseparable and dependent on each other.

Unlike other male bharatanatyam dancers who seemed keen to protect the masculine integrity of bharatanatyam by foregrounding its tandava aspects, Venu did not think it was necessary to make an overt effort to ‘dance like a man’ and instead felt that the masculine elements of bharatanatyam were easily accessible and a natural part of its repertoire and practice:

You talk about Ardhanadeshwari, the feminine part of Siva and the masculine part of Siva. So how can you not find your masculine side in bharatanatyam the same way you find the feminine side in bharatanatyam?

As outlined in this section, it is clear that different approaches to conceptualising Dravidian masculinities had had a direct impact on participants’ choices to learn or not

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learn bharatanatyam. It was also evident that among the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers, differing attitudes, perceptions and expectations of Dravidian masculinity had influenced the way they practised the art form. It appears that the majority of participants perceived that Western values and representations of masculinity are universal, natural, normal and, therefore, more powerful. This has meant that Dravidian masculinity has also been conceptualised and aligned with hegemonic Western understandings of physical prowess, dominance and virility and this has, in turn, positioned bharatanatyam as a feminine force and displaced its function in the performance of masculine identities among many Dravidians in Australia. Comments made in the interviews suggest that Dravidian masculinity in Australia is very much a performed group activity and that there are both overt and covert policing by peers and other community members of how masculinities are performed. While these factors have subsequently resulted in a large proportion of Australian-Dravidian boys and men not considering bharatanatyam an appropriate activity to pursue, evidence from the interviews also suggests that even among male dancers, a conscientious effort is made to perform bharatanatyam in a way that aligns with Western hegemonic masculinity. However, it is important to acknowledge that the group of participants reflect the postcolonial ethos of this project and are not a homogeneous entity. There were participants who were able to recognise that ideas and expressions of masculinity vary across cultures, and there were male bharatanatyam dancers who were comfortable in exploring this spectrum of masculine expressions through their art.

Theme 9: Dancing in the sheets – Beliefs about sexuality and impact on choices to learn Bharatanatyam. Although none of the participants in this study (including all the participants who were below the age of 18) were asked explicit questions about their sexual orientations, a number of participants over the age of 18 did speak about their attitudes, thoughts and perceptions about sexual identities within the Dravidian community. Many of those who were interviewed also shared their positions and feelings on the ways in which issues of sexuality are navigated and represented within bharatanatyam spaces in Australia.

At this juncture, it is important to highlight that the participants in this study have come from a wide range of age groups with the oldest being 30 and the youngest being only 12. While it may appear that this section of the discussion has presented the responses of participants from significantly different age groups in tandem, it is important to

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emphasise that the analysis has considered and acknowledged that age-related experiences could have influenced the nature of responses. However, it is neither the intention of this research to argue an arrested representation of any individual or group nor does this study aim to cross-analyse and pit the responses of the different participants against each other in an attempt to arrive at an absolute truth. Instead, drawing inspiration from the way Braidotti has mapped alternative visions of difference within social groups, this research seeks to offer diverse readings of ways in which Dravidian masculine attitudes and identities are constructed among this group of participants. As with the discussions presented in other sections, it is important to emphasise that an essentialist rendering of an entire group is not possible and there has to be allowance to consider fluid figurations, fragmentations, and differences that exist among and within them. Age, time and the experiences that accompany them would surely be amongst the factors that influence and contribute to these differences.

Participants who were non-dancers generally seemed less receptive in acknowledging the expression of sexual energies or identities in the performance of bharatanatyam. Among this group of participants, there was a sense of underplaying and almost ‘eunuching’ the sexuality of the male bharatanatyam dancer. When showed a picture of a husband and wife team dancing a Shiva-Shakthi duet item, Balram stated:

I think this is just a dance with two people. Like a guy and a girl….I think these two are brother and sister. Or just like close friends who’re dancing about something they are happy about.

Balram was not the only one who seemed to dismiss the existence of sexual relations or identities within bharatanatyam spaces. When Irainiyan, another 13-year-old non- bharatanatyam dancer from Queensland, was shown the same picture, his comments also seemed to deny the sexual agency of the male bharatanatyam dancer. Irainiyan did not appear to think that the dancing duo could be a couple in a sexual or romantic relationship of any sort and said that the picture merely represented “a boy and a girl doing a dance to worship God…they look like they are praying”.

Comments by both these participants seem to indicate an adoption of Western standards of Christian chastity and purity that do not allow any scope for the exploration and expression of sexual relations or desires in what is considered sacred. According to these participants, for bharatanatyam to remain divine and maintain its high cultural and social

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standing, it has to remain a strictly ‘clean’, asexual art form. As discussed in Chapter 4, among the South Asian community, there are perceived cultural proprieties and expectations of how the art form should be practised and performed—these expectations result in bharatanatyam adopting the role of inculcating cultural values that are free from sexual baseness and vulgarity.

However, the separation of sexuality from art does not appear to be merely an issue of a desire to preserve the sanctity of bharatanatyam. There is also a sense of fear of how the art lends itself to the display of what could be perceived as ‘deviant’ sexual identities and representations.

In particular, the movement and presentation of the male bharatanatyam dancer’s body challenges ideals of the embodiment of male Western heterosexuality. A number of participants, both dancers and non-dancers, narrated how the performance of interchangeable gendered roles by bare-chested men with thick costume make-up would confuse and possibly offend Australian tastes and sensibilities. Gopi spoke about how his father was reasonably accepting of him dancing as a child but became increasingly uncomfortable as he matured into an adult—in the case of Gopi’s father, the issue was not about a boy dancing but rather a sense of fear and perceived twistedness in a sexually matured man presenting his body in such a way. There is a possibility, therefore, that the lack of acknowledgement of male sexual agency in bharatanatyam is a deliberate, coping mechanism to deal with possible sexual representations that are uncomfortable, unfamiliar and, consequently, devalued. When presented with an image of a professional all-male troupe striking a dance pose, Raveen immediately appeared uncomfortable and confronted:

Raveen: [long pause] That’s okay. [pause] Wo! [pause] I don’t know that’s really [long pause] Yeah, they got them jingly thing going [laughs]…They look weird to me.

Kartik: What is weird about it?

Raveen: [pause] I am [pause] yeah, I don’t ever see, I’ve never really seen guys dancing with shirts off with semi sari things.

Kartik: What do you see? What do you think they’re doing?

Raveen: Erm [pause] I bet I’m assuming they’re dancing something I don’t know...I think the costume’s a bit out there.

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Kartik: What do you mean by out there?

Raveen: Like I don’t know, it’s not really conservative…I just don’t get it. I don’t get what they’re doing… Just seems really weird that four guys without their shirts on and a lot of make-up.

Regardless of the reasons why the topic of sexuality in bharatanatyam was avoided by the group of non-dancing participants (either out of a misplaced sense of reverence for the art form or discomfort in the manner in which sexual, gendered male bodies are presented), it is evident that the colonial experience had shaped these attitudes. Evidence from the interviews also indicates that this lack of opportunity and space to perform heterosexual masculine identities that are culturally valued and celebrated in mainstream Australia (by both white Western Australians and the South Asian community) had turned many of these participants away from wanting to learn and engage with the art.

On the flipside, participants who were bharatanatyam dancers appeared more receptive to acknowledging and engaging with issues concerning sexual and erotic expression in bharatanatyam. However, there appeared to be a split within this group in terms of their stand on whether or not it was appropriate to explore sexual expressions and identities within bharatanatyam spaces. While some participants in this group were of the opinion that eroticism, sensuality and sexual expression were inherent elements in bharatanatyam, others felt that the art form was not a suitable platform to explore or foreground these issues. Nonetheless, in comparison with participants who were non-dancers, this group was distinctly different in terms of how all members acknowledged the sexual agency of the dancer and/or the existence of sexual elements and ideas within bharatanatyam performances.

The split in attitudes between these two groups is most evident when contrasting the different responses that were given by participants when presented with the same stimulus picture. As outlined earlier, while many of the non-dancing participants viewed the picture of the husband–wife dancing pair as a platonic friendship or a brother–sister team, participants who were dancers were keen to discuss the sexual tension, energy and alliance of the couple who were depicted:

Oh, this is a perfect couple where this is Nadarajan, Lord Shiva and Parvathi together…Perfect match as well. Very graceful and I can see the spark in their eyes. (Kavyan)

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Likewise, when presented with the picture of the all-male troupe, many participants who were dancers were forthcoming in acknowledging and discussing the expressions and manifestations of sexuality in bharatanatyam. Gopi, who identified as a queer man, stated that there were elements of homoeroticism in the picture.

It is a little homoerotic in that sense but I think it is a beautiful composition…I think the closeness for guys like that…for girls, I wouldn’t say that, no. I also think it is the level of undress that is required in bharatanatyam. Also, brings us very, very close to the physical aspect of man more than it does to the physical aspect of women, you know, for a start, very hidden. So yeah, we definitely experience the male physical form a lot more.

In contrast to Raveen, who seemed perturbed by the display of bare male torsos, many of the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers stated, and at times insisted, that performing shirtless was essential for male bharatanatyam performers to express their masculinity. When showed a picture of a male bharatanatyam dancer with a white top, a number of participants who were dancers were quick to dismiss it as awkward, amateurish and aesthetically unpleasing:

Maybe this dancer is a very famous dancer but it doesn’t look very sturdy. Or maybe the costume…It’s all kind of covered. I’d probably like to see an image like that bare-chested than covered…I don’t know why? Maybe it’s because of my sexuality…I feel when you can see the man’s body you can enjoy the performance more than when it is covered. (Venu)

Venu spoke explicitly about his preference to see the sexual, masculinised form of the male bharatanatyam performer, a desire to gaze at and intensify the sexual elements on display. Although both Venu and Gopi identified as homosexual men, many of the bharatanatyam dancers who identified as straight also spoke about the role of the male bharatanatyam dancer as a sexual actor, as a performer and representation of masculine character, sexuality and virility. Seenu spoke about how the performance of bare male bodies acts as a sexual spectacle and sways the attention of the audience. Seenu was unapologetic for this scopophilia and revelled in the power the exposed male body commands:

I’d get rid of the top…I think aesthetically it just looks better. One of the things about a male dancer, when a male dancer comes on stage, even if there is like 10 boys and two girls on stage, you’ll look at the male dancer first. And even if there is the opposite, there’s 10 girls and one male dancer, you’ll look at the male dancer first. Male dancers attract attention because of the fact they are wearing nothing on top. Automatically attracts attention.

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Like Seenu, Eshaan felt that it was empowering to parade and celebrate the masculine and sexual physical body of the male dancer in bharatanatyam spaces. Eshaan stated that the opportunity to dance bare-chested and show skin allowed him to assert and flaunt his masculinity and he said that he would feel disempowered if he were expected to cover up instead:

To me, I find it more appealing to see the topless male dancer…It seems to be, to me, more masculine…It’s something that I just feel… I imagine myself dancing, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing something that’s covering me at the top. I wouldn’t feel that I was portraying a masculine role if I was covering myself, if I was hiding myself. Not hiding, but just covering a part of my body. Part of my masculinity of my dancing is being topless. For me, it seems more masculine to be exposed chest, in terms of dancing, anyway.

While participants who were bharatanatyam dancers did not shy away from acknowledging and speaking about aspects of sexuality in bharatanatyam (either through the body of the performer or through elements of performance), it was clear that there was a strong cultural bias for heteronormative standards among both non-dancers and dancers. When presented with five different images of bharatanatyam dancers in different gender configurations and poses and asked to pick their favourites, the majority of participants selected the picture of the male and female dancing couple as their first or second choice. While the non-dancers did not acknowledge the romantic or sexual elements of this particular picture, a few stated that they liked it because it appeared more “normal”:

Because of the partnership and they don’t look too much exaggerated…They look okay, normal. (Kamal)

Participants who were dancers also seemed more comfortable with normative ideas of male and female unions, and there was evidence this was even used as a measure to judge the credibility and aesthetic appeal of the performers and performance. When presented with the different images, Keeshan stated that he thought that the male dancer who appeared dancing with his wife seemed the most convincing as a talented and credible performer. When probed on why he thought this was the case, Keeshan said, “It’s just that this guy looks more like a man and he’s dancing with a girl, I think, that makes a difference”.

It was interesting to note that this heteronormative thinking was even evident among the three participants who identified as homosexual. Like the majority of the participants,

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Gopi picked the image of the male–female duo as his favourite. His reason, outlined below, did not seem very dissimilar to those of his counterparts who identified as being male heterosexual bharatanatyam dancers:

I think it is beautiful. It’s united, unison, synchrony all those kinds of words come to mind…It just takes me back to my stage experiences when dancing with a female who is well synchronised. Who poses, you know, looks at the same direction as me, responds to each other’s movements. And I know that feeling and these people are having that experience.

Gopi’s connection with the picture and recollection of a similar experience and bond he had shared with another female dancer almost seems like a nostalgic remembering of a relationship. While Gopi admitted that he had desires to dance and connect with another male dancer, there was an element of fear of how the dynamics would play out. Therefore, he had succumbed to assuming that he will only ever ‘perform straight’ and has convinced himself that he is comfortable in pandering to the patriarchal gender order in the world of bharatanatyam:

I think it might be tough because we’re so programmed and used to, you know, male and female concept. And that’s what we think of ‘complete’ on stage. When I think of dancing with a male, I desire it because I think it will be a very interesting experience but something makes me think we’ll clash or we’ll compete, you know, for something on stage? Whatever it might be. Movement of athleticism? It’s almost like even if there are a few girls there, I still have my role to play… But I still desire it very deeply, I think.

In any case, it is evident that while Gopi recognised the sexual agency of the male bharatanatyam dancer, he was resigned to the fact that his queer identity would take a backseat in bharatanatyam spaces. Bharatanatyam in Australia has yet to become a safe space for those who drift away from heteronormativity or the patriarchal gaze, and for a homosexual male dancer, there is little room to assert a gay male presence. Gopi spoke of how even in the performance of the sringara rasa—the expression of romantic, erotic love—he negates his homosexual identity and ‘performs straight’ by focusing more on the emotional and spiritual than the physical and sexual:

I know that when I experience that padam, I think of a woman because I’m Krishna on stage and so I don’t actually, I can’t, visualise a man. Because I’m not me… Because I probably feel more comfortable, on stage, being male, in that context, than being gay…Like I distinctly know that every time I do that piece, I imagine Radha. Obviously I’m not capable of imagining her in a sexual form…It’s also more at an emotional level rather than in a physical level anyway…It is very non-sexual.

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Like Gopi, there were other queer male bharatanatyam dancers who did not think it was a priority for practitioners to interrogate the heterocentric discourses of bharatanatyam. However, as touched on earlier, there was a divide within this group and participants debated about whether the art form was a suitable medium to discuss issues and tease out ideas around sexual identities. While some members of this group were supportive of using bharatanatyam spaces to examine the complex identities and expressions of the sexual prism, others had reservations about the propriety and suitability of bharatanatyam to do so. This was clearly seen in the way in which Venu and Charlie took different positions when asked about the role of bharatanatyam as a social and activist space for queer people. While both of them identified as gay bharatanatyam dancers, their praxis on how art could be used to explore concepts around queer sexual identities differed.

As an openly gay bharatanatyam performer, playwright and choreographer, Venu used bharatanatyam performance spaces to explore sexuality in his work—in particular, queer themes and cultural taboos feature prominently. In the same vein as Seenu, who used bharatanatyam as a tool of political protest and activism to bring awareness to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils, Venu used the art form to challenge hetero-hegemony and ruffle conservative and oppressive understandings of sexuality. For Venu, this involved taking bharatanatyam to LGBTQI4 festivals, narrating coming out stories and depicting characters (including Hindu gods) that are homosexual or transgender. Venu found bharatanatyam a source of sexual empowerment and appreciated that through performance he was able to toy with different sexual identities and roles. Venu posited that bharatanatyam allows a homosexual man like himself to be in his element and it gave him an edge during the performance of sringara padams and varnams:

My teachers taught me the shabdam about how you are waiting for Kanna. And as a gay man, I can wait for a man and it is not an issue. For a straight man, it could be difficult. But I can wait for a man, I can fantasise about Kanna or Krishna, playing flute in the Brindhavan and all those things.

Charlie, however, felt that there was absolutely no space in bharatanatyam to discuss or contemplate issues concerning sexuality and, in particular, queer sexuality. Unlike Seenu and Venu, Charlie argued that bharatanatyam is not the appropriate space for activism and to speak about social justice issues. When asked why he was reluctant to include themes and ideas of sexuality and, in particular, homosexuality in his performance,

4 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex.

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Charlie said that he felt bharatanatyam is beyond a self-serving tool that panders to the needs and issues of an individual performer or community and that to stay true to the form, there is a need to adhere to the recital of traditional stories and compositions:

I don’t think that it needs to be said sometimes. I mean, if you’re talking about a dancer, what difference does it make in the end? I mean, he might have had to fight for it and I understand that it’s particularly difficult for you, but I personally don’t see the space for it in the forum of bharatanatyam. I don’t understand why….I don’t feel it needs to be said…I don’t think that bharatanatyam is exactly the best medium. If you’re talking about proper bharatanatyam, I don’t think it’s a very expressive medium for social problems. I think it’s a very classical, stylised art which has its own type of expression in itself. I don’t think that a modern expression about talking about your coming out story will come (unclear).

While Charlie was honest about his homosexual identity with himself, family and close friends, he still had many reservations about queer culture and did not want to devalue his art by blending the two spaces. His determination to block out what he considered ‘typical and perverse elements of homosexual culture’ from bharatanatyam spaces was so strong that he even made outright comments that condoned the use of violence:

I can’t stand those kind of gays, I can’t stand those, you know. I don’t know, Kartik, maybe you need to go to a gay club like five minutes and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I mean, this really plastically pretty boys that you know sleep with every one of them, they’re women you know, you can’t punch them because they’ll actually fall over. I didn’t want to be like that so I guess for me, that was my conscious decision. When you say a person watching me dance, I don’t want him to think “Oh, he’s gay or something like that”. I want him to watch me as a dancer. I don’t want him to watch me for any other way. I would rather him watch me and say it was good and not have any prejudice in their mind or anything at all.

As outlined, Charlie was keen to break stereotypes of what male bharatanatyam dancers are like but did not feel it was a priority to challenge the cultural regime that imposes narrow and negative assumptions about homosexuality. He spoke of how he thought it was important to add value to the art form by debunking stereotypes of male performers but did not intend to address the problem of homophobia and social prejudices. It was evident that Charlie was not willing to risk the reputation and respectability of bharatanatyam and its standing in the eyes of the wider community at the expense of asserting his sexual identity:

Charlie: In their heads, it must have become a part of the stereotype that they also notice that all of those boys never eventually get

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married you know and something’s a little bit wrong with them and stuff like that.

Kartik: Do you think it’s important to break that stereotype?

Charlie: Yeah, I do.

Kartik: Why?

Charlie: Just because I rather watch people watch me dance then say “Wow, he’s a good dancer”, than “He’s a good dancer, you know, but he’s gay. You can’t marry him off to our daughter and live happily ever after”, you know. I remember once someone told me, “Oh my god, you’re such a fag”, and I just think that it hit somewhere so hard that from that day on, I attempted to never be like that.

While conversations with many participants, across both groups, indicated a prevalence of homophobic attitudes and the denial of queer identities and elements in bharatanatyam spaces, it was interesting to note that when explicitly asked about what they thought of male bharatanatyam dancers being gay, or if the performance of bharatanatyam by men was problematic, almost all participants were quick to tout the Western liberal rhetoric of human rights and the freedom of individuals to do and choose as they please:

If someone wants to then they can do it…it’s a bit strange but if he wants to do that dance he can. (Jeremiah)

If it makes him happy it’s okay…It’s his life, he can do whatever he wants. (Naren)

It’s your choice. Yeah, you can choose what to do. (Vishal)

In general, if they’re feminine in terms of some of their behaviours and characteristics, there’s nothing wrong with that, absolutely nothing wrong with that…Onstage, I think you have to take your own gender out of the equation, for the most part, and your own sexuality out of the equation, as well. (Eshaan)

The acceptance of bharatanatyam by Dravidian men and boys in Australia seems to be caught up in this dichotomous web of contesting Western ideologies and biases. On the one hand, Western ideas about desired representations of hegemonic masculinity are highly heterosexist and do not allow much scope for male bharatanatyam performers in Australia and, in particular, queer dancers to express and celebrate their sexual identities. On the other hand, it is also a Western approach to civil liberties and an attempt to curb the evil cultural savage that steers away from the state’s democratic principles of human

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rights that have given the concession for queer elements to survive and be tolerated. As far as the participants were concerned, Australia is a free country that champions the ideal of ‘to each his own’ and recognises that the expression of one’s sexual identity is a fundamental human right. Nonetheless, there was a clear awareness that some identities, choices and expressions were more valued and more powerful than others—sexual identities and expressions that deviated from the heteronormative centre could exist but there was a strong reluctance to be in any way associated with them or have them infringe upon the spaces and spheres that shaped their lives and realities.

Findings summarised in this section indicate that the perceived lack of an opportunity to perform and affirm desired sexual identities may have turned away many Dravidian boys and men in Australia from learning bharatanatyam. For the participants who were non- dancers, the seeming asexuality of male bharatanatyam performers as well as the non- alignment of performance elements with Australian-Western representations of heteronormative, hegemonic masculinity made the art form unappealing. Since power is tied to the performance of sexuality and gender, the fact that bharatanatyam is so removed from the Australian cultural norm seems to make it worthless or even detrimental to the aspirations of Dravidian boys and men who intend to move with the status quo. On the other hand, participants who were dancers seemed more receptive to recognising the sexual agency of the performer and elements of sexual expression in the performance of bharatanatyam—some were also keen to enjoy the opportunity to use their bodies in bharatanatyam spaces to flaunt and assert their masculine, heterosexual identities. However, it was observed that across the board there was a strong, exclusive preference for heteronormative representations, even though many were quick to state that they were not homophobic and were accepting of people with different sexual orientations. Interestingly, even among participants who identified as queer bharatanatyam dancers, only one felt comfortable in using bharatanatyam spaces to explore non-heterosexual identities and themes in performance and the others felt that bharatanatyam was neither the appropriate medium for activism nor experimentation.

The next section of this chapter examines how shifting attitudes and expressions of gender and sexual identity within individual participants influence their decisions to learn or not learn bharatanatyam.

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Part C

Gender and Differences within Dravidian Boys

Gender identities are not fixed, essential entities; rather, they are dynamic, constantly in flux and negotiated within social contexts. Part C of Chapter 5 explores how the gender and sexual identities of individual Dravidian boys shift and alter at different times according to variations in their social and geographical locations. In particular, Part C examines how the performance of gender and, in turn, attitudes towards bharatanatyam change within the individual postcolonial Dravidian subject through different social and geographical spaces.

Theme 10: Space travel: Negotiating gender and sexual identities through different social and geographic spaces. As highlighted in Part C of the previous chapter, the individual is not a frozen, static entity and the identity of any Dravidian subject is also in flux and shifts in tandem with changes in social, geographical and temporal spaces. While Chapter 4 demonstrated how spatial and temporal boundaries swayed the way in which cultural identities were negotiated and expressed within the individual participants, this part of the study explores how attitudes towards learning bharatanatyam are influenced by shifting positions and manifestations of gender identities when an individual Dravidian subject crosses different social and geographical spaces.

Not surprisingly, conversations with all participants indicated that the negotiation of masculine identity as a Dravidian in Australia is a highly complex and often challenging process. However, for participants who were bharatanatyam dancers, slotting their identities and lives as classical dancers in the mix seemed to make the process even more complicated and difficult. There was a clear awareness among this group of participants of the expectation that bharatanatyam could not and should not consume their lives. Being a boy or man in Australia meant that they had to be a lot more—they had to straddle multiple identities and activities to sustain themselves and their art in the land controlled by the coloniser. One of the clearest indications of this was the large number of participants who held on to ‘day jobs’ on top of being dancers. While dancing was an activity often relegated to the weekends, weekday evenings and summer holidays, most of these participants pursued other vocations as financial planners, engineers, technological consultants, lawyers, doctors or medical students. Being a man in Australia

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meant that there was an expectation that they had to earn well and take on the role of the provider, for themselves and for those dependent on them. An absolute focus on bharatanatyam would not allow them to undertake this role as the provider and, therefore, while some chose to place their practice of the art form on the ‘back burner’, those who pursued it had to move in and out of different identities—as a responsible working man and as a dancer. As expressed in the following statement by Gopi, an engineer, many of the dancing participants did not necessarily resent their day jobs and had become adept at straddling multiple identities, but they would rather focus only on dancing if they had an option:

I get a bit of relief from what I usually do with my life, which is fairly logical, analytical. You know, constructed, quite structured….And here, especially because of the abhinaya component of bharatanatyam, which allows for a heavy amount of improvisation, I feel that lack of structure and that fluidity gives me a nice contrast to what I am usually doing during the day…I quite enjoy it but not as much as bharatanatyam. If I could dance all day, I’d definitely love that.

However, on the flipside, it can also be argued that Western modernity, liberalism and wealth have allowed Dravidian boys and men in Australia to enjoy the privilege of splurging and indulging in their art. This was most evident in the case of Charlie, who was also the only participant who was solely and exclusively a professional bharatanatyam dancer. The privilege of being an Australian citizen had empowered Charlie to move in and out of different spaces and play different cultural and gender identities as he pleased. I was fortunate to see Charlie enact and present these different identities in my conversations with him, and for this reason, I think these interviews were particularly interesting and deserve special attention in this part of the chapter.

Unlike my interviews with all other participants that were conducted within one session, I interviewed Charlie twice. My first interview with Charlie was held in his hostel room right after he performed a bharatanatyam item in an Indian dance festival. During this interview, Charlie came across as very keen to adhere to traditional values and expressions of masculine identities, and he seemed decidedly heterosexual and quite homophobic. In particular, Charlie stated that he did not appreciate the feminine dispositions of other male bharatanatyam dancers and felt that bharatanatyam taught him self-respect, which included the importance of providing for a wife and family:

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I just find it embarrassing for them [feminine male bharatanatyam dancers], when you know, they come up to you and go [mocking feminine voice] “Hi, oh my god” and you’re “Okay…yeah…”…I, as an individual, I wouldn’t want to be like that….That’s the only thing I’m saying. I have no problems about how you are, I wouldn’t like to.

Interestingly, however, in a follow-up to the original interview, Charlie told me that he was gay and said that he had made a conscientious effort in the first interview to not come across as a “stereotypical gay dancer” because he felt that his sexuality was irrelevant and took away from other, more important discourses of his artistic practice:

Charlie: Raven [Charlie’s boyfriend] was laughing because he thought I sounded completely homophobic after the interview…I don’t know. After that I thought, “oh crap” but erm…Like what I said to Raven is that I think that I honestly made a very conscious effort to not to fall into that stereotypical gay guy kind of thing.

Kartik: Why did you do that?

Charlie: Because I don’t think it is important. I really think so. I mean, I think that my concept of sexuality is different from a lot of Indian boys because I think my parents…always made it something that was normal. In the sense it was never something abnormal. It was something that people were like that and you learned to accept it. So I never had to fight to be gay, I never had to argue with my parents about it. The whole thing’s very very comfortable. Everything was always comfortable.

As this interview progressed, it became increasingly evident that Charlie had the options and the power to toy around with different identities at his whim and convenience, an option that was not necessarily afforded to other more marginalised male bharatanatyam dancers. As reflected above, Charlie was aware that unlike many other Dravidian male dancers, he was privileged because of a range of factors, such as his part European background, Australian citizenship, strong family support and socio-economic class. His point of social oppression, his homosexual identity, was something he could afford to momentarily cast aside because of the intersectionality of his other privileges, and at times, he even had the luxury of ‘passing’ to protect his reputation and standing as a professional bharatanatyam dancer. The excerpt from the conversation below highlights how Charlie’s privileges allowed him to tolerate and condone his bharatanatyam academy’s stifling and almost oppressive attitude towards queer discourses:

Kartik: You had mentioned that they teach you to take care of yourself and your wife and your family…So I’m just wondering, how do

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you feel, like where do you fit into all this? You know, given the fact that you are not a straight man?

Charlie: It’s not the same for me only because…hailing from Australia means I don’t have a lot of responsibilities Indian kids have. In the sense their parents might take a loan out for them to go to college or their sister’s dowry or paying for their sister’s marriage and all that kind of stuff. That’s not something that I have to be worried about…It’s not that I don’t want to make a living from it, it’s just that my responsibility, luckily are different from theirs, not being in a situation where I have to provide X amount of money per month for my family to have, say, basic necessities and food and stuff like that.

With the same ease with which Charlie is able to ‘fit in’ and partake in an oppressive space, he is able to slip out of it, at his choice, when the space does not serve his interests further. Charlie admitted that since he was coming to the tail end of his bharatanatyam course in the academy, he was a lot more comfortable and relaxed about speaking about his true sexual identity:

I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t give a shit anymore. Like I actually don’t care if, you know, like the director at college knows about Raven. I mean…I’m not bothered really nowadays who knows, who doesn’t, because that’s the way it is and I’ve managed to get through six years of college and no one said anything rude.

However, as stated earlier, this luxury of moving in and out of different gendered and sexual identities (and the spaces that support them) is not available to all Dravidian boys and men and this has had a direct impact on their choices to learn bharatanatyam. As outlined in the earlier parts of this chapter, even if a Dravidian boy is interested or intrigued by the art form, he may be deterred from learning it by the fear that it would jeopardise his social standing and status. For those who take the risk and cross the line to pursue bharatanatyam, their lives are frequently gripped by sacrifices and fights. In their interviews, these participants stated that with certain groups, people and situations, they often remained closeted about their pursuit of bharatanatyam. While, like Charlie, these participants had to negotiate and control the expression of their identities in different spaces, the point of difference is that, unlike Charlie, who had never had to hide his practice and performance of the art form, the others admitted to selectively muting their identity as a dancer to protect their gendered, social standing. The excerpt from interviews with Venu and Kavyan below highlights their experiences as closet bharatanatyam dancers who had to conceal their art from family and peers.

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[I learnt dance with] the money I got from my father, I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t tell my family that I started learning dancing and I was the only boy in the school. (Venu)

I’ve seen others comment [on male dancers] when I don’t tell them I’m learning bharatanatyam… “Oh, I think that guy is really a gay” they would have said. But they would not have known that I have actually learnt bharatanatyam, so I’d just keep quiet. I wouldn’t want to unveil the truth…Because they are like labelling me, right? So why would I want to get labelled as well? I would just rather shield, try and protect my reputation. (Kavyan)

These comments accentuate how the performance and practice of bharatanatyam do not align with the performance of hegemonic masculine ideals in the colonised, Western world. In a rigid space such as this, which is governed by the values of a highly structured and often explicit gender hierarchy, Dravidian men are not easily able to construct and reconstruct their identities through activities that are irrelevant to or defy the norms of Western masculine power. For those who still dare to pursue the art, their only choice is to engage in a complex and fragmented process of negotiating and expressing multiple and competing identities in Australia. While there are a few men like Charlie who are able to flaunt their art comfortably because of the power they are able to draw from other intersectional privileges, even in such instances, these men are under pressure to market both their art and their identity as a performer in a way that is considered more desirable and palatable by Western masculine standards—in the case of Charlie, this meant at times downplaying and silencing identity discourses that could be a threat to the status of bharatanatyam. For the majority of participants, however, it was their identity as a bharatanatyam dancer that took a hit and they often had to engage in a suffocating battle of tiptoeing discreetly between spaces and conjuring expressions of identity that would allow them to function and exist with more ease.

Conclusion

The narratives presented in this chapter align with other literature on postcolonial masculinities that claim that men in the postcolonial world face many challenges and complexities in the way they negotiate their cultural and gendered identities (Morell & Swart, 2004). There is also a very clear indication that these challenges and complexities have a powerful impact on the choices of Dravidian boys and men to learn bharatanatyam in Australia.

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Part A of this chapter highlighted that Dravidian boys and men are acutely aware of how hegemonic masculinity in Australia is presented and mediated. It did appear that this awareness of difference and the pressure to conform to Australian masculine ideals deterred many participants from wanting to learn bharatanatyam. However, participants who had greater exposure to and insight into heterogeneous ways of being masculine in Western culture were more inclined to learn the art and find alternative ways of negotiating bharatanatyam within their gendered identities in Australia.

Part B of Chapter 5 showed that the conceptualisation of Dravidian masculinity differs even among the group of participants and these differences also affect choices to learn bharatanatyam. Many of the participants seemed to perceive Western representations of masculinity as universal, and within such discourses, bharatanatyam was seen as unnecessary and disruptive in the negotiation of masculine identities in Australia. There also appears to be a policing of masculine propriety among many Dravidian boys and men in Australia, which seems to compound the lack of uptake among boys and men to learn bharatanatyam. Many of the participants who had chosen to learn bharatanatyam despite the imposition of such powerful gendered discourses had attempted to ‘masculinise’ bharatanatyam and interpret or present it in ways that are more palatable by Western standards of masculinity. However, there was also a smaller group of participants who chose to resist such limiting expectations of masculine ideals and instead made a conscientious effort to engage with multiple and diverse ways of connecting with their gendered identities through bharatanatyam.

Nonetheless, resisting the hegemony of Australian masculinity can be extremely challenging, and as accentuated in Part C, participants who had chosen to pursue bharatanatyam in the face of such pressure often needed to straddle the expression of multiple identities as they moved in and out of spaces that may or may not tolerate the performance of bharatanatyam by men.

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CHAPTER 6: SUMMARY, INSIGHTS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The bharatanatyam recital ends with a Tillana—a brisk and lively item. If the Alarippu is the opening of a flower, the Tillana is the showering of those flowers on the performance space. Therefore, this conclusion chapter is the Tillana of the thesis—the tempo rises and it culminates with a showering of the study’s key insights, contributions and implications.

Summary

The key purpose of this study was to investigate how attitudes towards gender and culture influence choices by boys from Dravidian families in Australia to learn or not learn bharatanatyam. This project was largely motivated by my own interest in understanding the trends I had observed in Queensland, where very few boys from the South Asian diaspora engaged in the art form in comparison with girls from the same community. Below, I review the focus of each chapter of this thesis to demonstrate how the development of each component of this project has led to the concluding comments and ideas presented in this final chapter.

Chapter 1 outlined the rationale and significance behind the study in an Australian context. This included identifying the focus of the project—ways in which Dravidian boys and men negotiate their cultural and gender identities and the impact this has on choices to learn bharatanatyam. The two research questions “How do attitudes towards gender influence the choices of Australian-Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam?” and “How do attitudes towards culture influence the choices of Australian-Dravidian boys to learn or not to learn bharatanatyam?” were developed based on these central aims. Chapter 1 also documented my personal interest in this project and role as a researcher-practitioner. In addition, it provided an overview of central discourses about the gendered history of bharatanatyam and the South Asian diaspora to provide readers with the background information necessary to navigate this thesis.

Chapter 2 examined the contextual literature on gender and culture. In particular, it reviewed existing discourses on the negotiation of masculine identities within bharatanatyam spaces in Australia. The chapter then outlined limitations such as the lack of attention given to Australian contexts, the opinions of children and young people, the

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use of bharatanatyam in building youth identities, considering differences within subsets of the South Asian diaspora and the role of performing arts education in the negotiation of diasporic masculine identities.

Chapter 3 provided an overview of the postcolonial theories that guided the political, philosophical and epistemological character of this project. The postcolonial theoretical framework of this research created an effective platform to hear the thoughts, opinions, and experiences of Dravidian boys and men in Australia. It also enhanced the credibility and trustworthiness of the research through involving a researcher such as me who is framed within the same discourses as the researched. This chapter also described the design of the interview and data analysis process used in the study.

Chapters 4 and 5 presented findings on how Australian-Dravidians boys’ and men’s attitudes, perceptions and expectations of culture and gender have influenced their choices to learn bharatanatyam. Drawing inspiration from Rosi Braidotti’s work on considering alternative visions of difference, these two chapters were organised to explore differences in attitudes between Dravidian boys and the Western Other, among Dravidian boys and within individual subjects. Major findings from these two chapters are outlined later.

Chapter 6 provides an overview of the central findings discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. It also outlines the implications of these significant contributions for bharatanatyam institutions, educators, and practitioners in Australia and the wider Dravidian community, as well as limitations and directions for future research.

Insights

The narratives of Australian-Dravidian men presented in the previous two analysis chapters align with other literature on postcolonial masculinities that assert that postcolonial men continue to face challenges and complexities in the way they negotiate their cultural and gendered identities in diasporic contexts (Morell & Swart, 2004). There is also a strong indication that these challenges have an impact on the decisions made by Dravidian boys and men to learn bharatanatyam in Australia.

Part A of both Chapters 5 and 6 highlighted that Dravidian boys and men are acutely aware of how they are culturally positioned and different from Australian men from

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Western backgrounds. There is also a clear recognition that the Western Other holds more power and there is pressure to conform to hegemonic Australian masculine expectations and ideals. For the participants in the study, the embodied performance of bharatanatyam by Dravidian boys and men does not fit easily within the moulds cast by Western masculine hegemony and the art form is often cast aside in the processes of negotiating masculine and cultural identities in Australia. However, interviews with participants who were bharatanatyam dancers indicate that alternative narratives exist and that under the influence of different contextual dynamics, Dravidian boys and men may relate and respond in other ways to masculine hierarchies that could instead lead to them choosing to engage with bharatanatyam. For example, findings from Chapter 5 suggest that participants who had had greater exposure to multiple, alternative masculinities in Western culture were more inclined to seeking different ways of negotiating bharatanatyam within their gendered identities in Australia.

Findings from Chapter 4 also identified that while some participants were keen to culturally assimilate the best they could and steered clear of performing difference (bharatanatyam) altogether, others chose to either perform bharatanatyam in ways they thought were more palatable to the tastes and expectations of mainstream Western Australian audiences or actively challenged dominant Western worldviews and performed bharatanatyam as an act of resistance for cultural conservation and authenticity.

In line with the postcolonial project’s objective of rejecting essentialising Western power structures that make global statements about colonised peoples, Part B of the discussion chapters highlighted the diversity within the group of participants and illustrated how differences in culture and the conceptualisation of masculinities within this group influenced choices to learn bharatanatyam. Chapter 5 showed how some participants viewed Western representations of masculinity as universal and felt bharatanatyam was disruptive in allowing them to assert their masculine identities in Australia—this group also engaged in policing appropriate masculine behaviours in other boys and men in the community, which appeared to compound the lack of Dravidian boys and men learning bharatanatyam. Participants who made the choice to pursue bharatanatyam despite seeming to accept Western masculinity as universal made attempts to ‘masculinise’ the art by focusing more on its tandava elements. Nonetheless, some participants made a

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conscientious decision to resist such limiting expectations of masculine ideals and saw bharatanatyam as a powerful instrument in experimenting and connecting with fluid and non-conforming gender identities. Chapter 4 demonstrated how differences in culture and cultural attitudes among Dravidian boys also influenced choices to learn bharatanatyam. In particular, participants who felt more strongly about their Tamil, Indian and/or Hindu identities and who also believed bharatanatyam was a powerful vehicle in enabling them to perform and connect with these identities were more likely to want to learn bharatanatyam.

Part C of Chapters 4 and 5 highlighted the point that any postcolonial person is not a static, one-dimensional being but rather is a complex human with fluid and, at times, competing identities. Likewise, the level of motivation and reasons for wanting to learn or not learn bharatanatyam can be in flux and vary within any of the participants under different spaces, contexts and circumstances. Part C of Chapter 5 in particular demonstrated that even for participants who have chosen to resist the hegemony of Australian masculinity and learn bharatanatyam, this can be a highly challenging process and they may need to straddle the expression of multiple identities and make ongoing choices about which aspects of their identities they intend to reveal or hide when they move in and out of different social or cultural spaces.

Contribution to Postcolonial Theorising

In addition to the major findings summarised above, the study highlighted the ongoing significance of diverse postcolonial concepts when analysing the attitudes and experiences of Dravidian people.

To start with, the analysis has contributed to the discussion around the postcolonial concept of ‘otherness’. Spivak (1985) explains that O/othering is a dialectic process since the colonising ‘Other’ is established at the same time that the colonised ‘other’ is produced as a subject. Therefore, the construction of both the colonised ‘other’ and the colonising ‘Other’ is critical to the way in which both subjects build their sense of identity and self. Bearing this in mind, this project has not only presented a platform for participants to speak of their experiences of being ‘othered’ subjects, it has also worked to subvert or contest traditional power structures and allow Dravidian boys the privilege of being able to posture the Western Other in relation to their own cultural and racial

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identity. This does not mean that the thesis makes the simplistic assumption that Dravidian boys now have the upper hand, the ability or the need to render the white Western Australian as a marginalised other; rather, it alludes to the Lacanian idea of how the colonised subjects gain their sense of identity through the gaze of the colonising Other (Baumann & Gingrich, 2004). The purpose of this study is not to provide an imaginary space where Dravidian boys are able to fantasise about pushing the colonising Other into the margins. Rather, it merely seeks to provide a counternarrative, present a picture of how Dravidian boys have negotiated their difference and view the characteristic differences of the imperial centres and discourses that have shaped their subjective identities and choices to learn bharatanatyam.

Postcolonialism’s critique of essentialism when investigating cultural differences has been touted as one its most significant contributions to the social sciences (Liebmann, 2008). This study, too, has challenged essentialist discourses that have overtly or covertly denied the heterogeneity and complexity of the colonised others’ identities. Through repeatedly highlighting the differences among Dravidian boys as they spoke about their religion, native language, sense of nationhood and belonging, performance of culture and ideas about cultural authenticity and authority, this thesis demonstrated the point that the lives of colonised subjects can be understood as “a complex system of cultural, social, psychical and historical differences, and not a set of pre-existent human essences position and constitute” (Fuss, 1989 pp. xi–xii). In Sections C of both analysis chapters, this study further showed that Dravidian people are not static entities, and that cultural attitudes, motivations and expressions can vary at different times and under different contexts even within an individual colonised person. As posited by cultural theorist Stuart Hall (1990), cultural identity is neither transparent nor unproblematic since it is “always in process” (p. 222) and the voice of the subject is always framed by a particular place, time, and context. This thesis highlighted how it is neither a straightforward nor an achievable task to ‘capture’ the identities of Dravidian boys and men in concrete terms as it is always in flux and, likewise, the motivations to learn bharatanatyam vary within the individual.

Through actively drawing on the knowledge of the marginalised and placing Dravidian people as the key repository of producing knowledge, this project has challenged current academic research conditions which are based on Western traditions, philosophy and academic culture (Chilisa, 2011). This does not mean that I am naively deluding myself

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into believing and making claims that it is completely free from the shackles of traditional Western academia. This work was after all carried out within the framework and expectations of a Western academic institution and system. However, I have attempted to conscientiously interrogate the ‘colonised mind’ by questioning Euro-Western centric perspectives and laying stake to the voice, character and agency of people and scholars from previously colonised worlds. Through focusing solely on the experiences, thoughts and opinions of Australian-Dravidian boys and men, I have attempted to privilege the experiences and realities of othered people. I, the primary researcher, also view and position myself as a minority, non-Western, Dravidian scholar from the margins. This thesis, therefore, explicitly professes a commitment to producing knowledge about the other, by the other and through the other. Through reclaiming the source and power of knowledge production, this thesis demonstrates that there are multiple truths, realities, authorities and authentic states in the world of the postcolonial.

Finally, through highlighting that the legacy of imperialism is not over and that the lives of people from previously colonised places still bear the mark of colonialism, the project also draws attention to the relevance of the postcolonial theoretical concept of ‘continuity’. When speaking about the differences in the lived experiences of Dravidian boys and their choices to learn or not learn bharatanatyam in the West, it is important to acknowledge that the world has not somehow moved on from the colonial era, as the lives of the participants and the choices they make continue to be affected in ways that differ from those of their Western counterparts. Regardless of systemic and cultural changes in different levels of Australian life that appear to profess a commitment to multiculturalism, equal opportunities and a strong disavowal of discrimination based on one’s culture, creed or colour, the cultural and racial embodiment of Dravidian boys continues to affect the way they experience the world. This thesis also acknowledges that even in a transnational world, where previously colonised people have moved to new lands and new geographical and sociocultural contexts, it is critical to continue to interrogate how new configurations of colonially imbued power and hegemony come into play. To gain a broader understanding of how social conditions are organised and the way in which cultural identities are negotiated in migrant communities, it is necessary to keep examining the elements of asymmetry and oppression in these postcolonial and transnational identities. By presenting discourses of these asymmetries through the voices of Dravidian boys who continue to speak of an othered experience and ongoing renderings

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of difference between them and the colonising Other, this part of the chapter sets the tone and seeks to demonstrate that the postcolonial project is far from over.

Implications

The impetus for this study lay in the premise that there is value—physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural value—in boys having the opportunity to learn bharatanatyam, and the project focus on understanding the reasons for choosing to learn or not learn the art form among Dravidian boys in Australia was driven by an underlying motivation to encourage a greater uptake of bharatanatyam within this demographic group. Grounded in the understanding that attitudes towards gender and culture are significant players in the negotiation of one’s identity, this study used in-depth interviews with Dravidian boys, both dancers and non-dancers, to examine how the complex processes of negotiating and renegotiating ideas about one’s cultural and gendered identities in diasporic communities in Australia have affected their level of engagement with bharatanatyam. Below, I outline some of the key implications the findings of this study have for both bharatanatyam educators and bharatanatyam practitioners in Australia as well as for the Dravidian community and researchers in the field.

Implications for Bharatanatyam Institutions, Educators and Practitioners in Australia

Narratives presented through the interviews clearly indicate that the factors that influence Dravidian boys’ choices to learn bharatanatyam extend beyond the bharatanatyam classroom. It is, therefore, not adequate to consider merely the immediate bharatanatyam learning environment; it is equally critical to examine the social influence of other spaces that Dravidian boys move in and out of. Interviews with participants indicated that men who dance bharatanatyam are stigmatised and face ridicule from other members of the community for not conforming to traditional expectations of masculinity. Not surprisingly, these social pressures deter many Dravidian men from learning bharatanatyam, and even in cases where men resist these pressures and take risks to learn the art form, the dynamics of their practice continue to be affected by the impositions of these external influences.

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Bharatanatyam education for boys in Australia therefore needs to extend beyond the rigidity of teaching dance steps and repertoires to look at catering to the social needs and holistic well-being of the dancer. This resonates with the work by authors, such as Keddie (2007) and Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2003), who have spoken variously about the need to create spaces characterised by safe relationships and a keen appreciation for how power relations are negotiated in the lives of students. As with any effective learning environment, efforts must be made within bharatanatyam classrooms to provide male dancers with a safe space where they are not only free from bullying but are also taught skills and strategies to cope with the social pressures that exist in their communities, peer groups or homes. For this to happen, bharatanatyam educators and academies need to interrogate their own perceptions and conceptualisations of masculine representations and make efforts to recognise and accept the diversity of Dravidian masculinities, including the spectrum of queer identities and representations. As suggested in the interviews, many current bharatanatyam institutions and educators are pressured by societal expectations of rigid gendered binaries and compel male bharatanatyam students to perform in ways that fit within these stifling frameworks of heteronormative hegemonic masculinity. Therefore, an attitudinal shift is required to challenge these norms and to value and celebrate the diversity of masculine and sexual representations that exist within bharatanatyam spaces in Australia. Part of this process requires bharatanatyam practitioners to engage in the postcolonial project and resist longstanding Western understandings of gender performance by reconnecting with the concept of Ardhanarishvara, the Lord of Dance who combines both the male and the female energies of the universe—the feminine should not be denounced and curtailed in the performance of the male body but rather should be celebrated alongside the tandava for transcending prescribed gender roles and taking on a divine form that marries the masculine and feminine principles of the cosmos.

As a next step to providing support for male bharatanatyam students, it is also important for bharatanatyam academies to not operate in silos but work towards building productive partnerships with different layers of stakeholders in the wider community to shift ingrained cultural biases, build awareness of the needs of male bharatanatyam dancers and combine capacity to positively influence student outcomes. While strengthening partnerships with stakeholders such as families and social, religious and community groups is critical, it is also important that male bharatanatyam dancers in Australia be

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given opportunities to network and build connections with each other. As highlighted in Chapter 5, the negotiation and performance of masculine identities is a group activity and for male bharatanatyam dancers, who often feel isolated and alone in their journeys, such support networks may prove beneficial in building a sense of belonging, creating a sense of normality and comfort, increasing social capital and creating avenues to access role models, guidance and advice.

The proposal to make learning bharatanatyam in Australia a more holistic experience and, in turn, encouraging greater participation of men in bharatanatyam will also require practitioners to look inward and acknowledge the multitude of reasons for Dravidian boys and men to want to engage with the art form. As outlined in Chapter 4, for some participants, their motivation to learn bharatanatyam was driven by a desire to connect with their cultural, religious and political identities. For some participants, this also included using bharatanatyam as a tool and platform for social change and transformation. While providing social support for male bharatanatyam dancers and building productive partnerships with the community is important to bring about attitudinal shifts in men performing bharatanatyam, the process could become more meaningful and powerful if the dancers were given the agency to use the art form as an instrument to facilitate change through exploring themes and narratives that support and celebrate diverse masculinities. As outlined in Chapter 5, this is not a straightforward process and there could be resistance from some groups in Australian bharatanatyam circles who feel that bharatanatyam should not be tampered with and is not a suitable medium to discuss politics, contemporary issues, queer themes or social justice. Nonetheless, as presented in the previous two discussion chapters, the reasons why Dravidian men choose to learn bharatanatyam vary widely and there are men who are motivated to learn the art form not solely because of a desire to conserve and imitate but to use it also as a vehicle to rethink and seek out new directions. For these male bharatanatyam dancers, the art form is used as an empowering means of reflecting upon present-day issues and reinventing their performance to bridge perceived gaps between their own lived experiences and the themes they have had to traditionally perform on stage.

This study, therefore, first asks bharatanatyam educators who are keen to engage a wider range of Australian-Dravidian men to more readily acknowledge that bharatanatyam students are not all motivated by the same reasons or rewards and to, secondly, seriously

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reconsider whether there is scope within bharatanatyam to continue responding to social, historical and political change as well as contemporary progressive values in the same way it did during the period of Indian nationalism and revivalism during the first half of the twentieth century (Pillai, 2002; Vishwanathan, 1997).

As highlighted in Part C of both discussion chapters, resisting heteronormative, hegemonic masculine standards in Australia is incredibly difficult and Dravidian boys and men who continue to choose learning bharatanatyam in the face of such challenges often need to engage in a complex process of managing and modifying the expression of multiple identities as they move in and out of different spaces. The recommendations to provide male bharatanatyam students in Australia with added support include encouraging bharatanatyam academies and educators to be more connected and accommodating to the ‘other lives’ of their students. In addition to allowing students to bring themselves into the art, this could mean that provisions are made within the bharatanatyam learning space to accommodate their working, academic, social and recreational lives, which are important for their survival and well-being in Australia.

Implications for Dravidian Communities in Australia

One of the primary concerns of this project is to contribute to understandings of the complex gender and cultural identity formation processes of boys and men in the Australian-Dravidian community. Examining the negotiation of diasporic identities in the community is also important as it has implications for the level of support male bharatanatyam practitioners in Australia receive. While this study recognises that the creation of art is not necessarily always about appeasing the audience and that there are other intrinsic benefits of learning bharatanatyam, there is no denying the power of patronage and the reality that for many practitioners, the ability to sell the art form is critical for survival of both the art and the artiste. It is therefore also important to consider the implications of this study for the Australian-Dravidian community due to its direct impact on the uptake of bharatanatyam among Australian-Dravidian boys and men.

As highlighted in the earlier discussion chapters, Dravidian men are acutely aware of their status of difference and marginality in Australia and feel compelled to comply with Western hegemonic masculine norms and standards. It appears that this has contributed to many Dravidian men rejecting and devaluing the performance of bharatanatyam and

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shunning efforts to learn or understand the art. While the study acknowledges that challenging cultural imperialism from the margins is not by any means an easy feat, the postcolonial agenda of this project seeks to point out to the Australian-Dravidian community that Western masculinity is not universal and that alternative representations and discourses of masculinities can exist. By disrupting such essentialist approaches to masculinity, the project hopes to encourage more Australian-Dravidian men in the community to consider the possibility of learning bharatanatyam. This study also seeks to point out to the Australian-Dravidian community that in instances when the community has rallied support for male dancers, art forms such as bharatanatyam have flourished and empowered young men to be carriers and advocates of Dravidian culture. With community support, these young men have been able to build strong and confident identities as Australian-Dravidians.

Such an approach, however, does not necessarily mean that the study advocates a complete rejection or disavowal of Western values and ideologies nor that there can be a rigid separation between the West and the non-West. As presented in Chapter 5, a few of the participants who were bharatanatyam dancers stated that it was within the space of Western liberalism and modernism that they had been able to exercise their rights and freedom to express, experiment and be different. In the eyes of these participants, contemporary Western culture is more accepting of fluid masculine expressions. While this study acknowledges that there are differences between groups and that Western hegemonic masculinity is a collective, culturally idealised form that excludes the lived experiences of Dravidian men in a number of ways, it also emphasises that masculine expressions are not monolithic or uniform within groups, including in the Western Other. However, interviews with a number of participants, and in particular non-dancers, indicate that the Dravidian community does not readily speak of diverse, and subversive, Western masculine representations. This could possibly be due to members of the diasporic community wanting to enlist and align with sources perceived as more powerful in their adopted homes. In the same way this study has attempted to disrupt perceptions of essentialist masculinity through foregrounding the diverse and fluid masculinities of the Dravidian participants, it has also sought to challenge the Dravidian community’s perceptions of Western masculinity through showing that engaging with non-traditional and subordinate discourses of Australian masculinities can also be a rewarding, empowering and liberating experience, as has been the case for some of the participants.

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While the world of the postcolonial subject will always be altered by the colonial experience and the option of completely disengaging with Western discourses is not a possibility for ethnic minorities in Australia, the study encourages the Dravidian community to align with elements of Western culture that nurture Dravidian culture and the arts such as bharatanatyam. On this note, this project asks the Dravidian community to make genuine attempts to include and celebrate differences in masculinities, rather than maintaining what seems to be the prevalent attitude, as presented in Chapter 5—a reluctance to discuss subversive masculinities, a grudging tolerance of Western human rights and the use of safe rhetoric such as ‘to each his own’.

Implications for Further Research

Limited space and resources in this study prevented me from examining how the experiences of female bharatanatyam dancers in Australia compare with those of their male counterparts. I believe this could be a worthwhile exercise as it would provide a better understanding of whether women experience similar challenges and dynamics when negotiating their identities in bharatanatyam spaces.

In addition, while the study did engage with intersectionality and the impact of interconnected social identities such as gender, sexuality, religion and race, there is certainly scope within a related project to consider how other elements of social inequality such as disability and differences in social and economic class add to the discussion of identity formation in Australian bharatanatyam spaces. In line with Gayathri Spivak’s postcolonial question of “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, this study concedes that while attempts have been made to provide the postcolonial subject with opportunities to speak, there are other oppressed subsets of the Australian-Dravidian community that have not been represented, such as people with disabilities, from lower socio-economic groups and refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds.

Finally, this study reminds the reader that in the same character as the political intent of this postcolonial project, the findings of this study are not essentialist and the thesis ends on a note that is unapologetically inconclusive.

A final note

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This study is a work of resistance, a means of interrogating and reclaiming the sources of knowledge production and facilitating an additional platform to listen to the voices of postcolonial peoples. When speaking to other members of the Australian-Dravidian community about this work that has spanned nearly eight years, I am often met with a sense of awe and surprise for wanting to delve into a space that seems overlooked—for wanting to forefront a group of people who are used to not gaining much attention in Australian academia. This thesis, therefore, hopes that other researchers keep the momentum going and calls for more of such projects to disrupt longstanding ideas of Western universality and add to ongoing, richer, more diverse narratives of and by othered people.

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APPENDICES

Appendix A: Interview Schedule

The following schedule of questions was used to guide the interview process:

a) Friendly Establishment of Rapport – Hello/Vanakkam/Namaste, how are you? How is school?

b) Request for Consent – Thanks for helping me out and agreeing to participate in this study. Is it ok if I record our conversation for future reference?

c) Assurance of Confidentiality – Before we start, I would just like you to know that I will not ask you to reveal any personal information. When reporting, I will keep your identity confidential by using a pseudonym instead of your real name. Your decision to participate is entirely voluntary and you can withdraw at any time without needing to explain why. Is that ok? Let’s get started.

d) Start of Interview:

1. Do you know what bharatanatyam is?

a. If yes, can you describe it to someone who does not know what it is?

b. If no:

Bharatanatyam is a traditional Indian dance which originated from India almost 3000 years ago.

2. (Show pictures) Could you describe some of these pictures?

3. Which of these pictures do you like the most and why?

4. Which of these pictures are you least attracted to? Why?

5. What kind of people do you think will be interested in bharatanatyam?

6. Have you ever considered learning bharatanatyam? – Why?/Why not?

7. How do you think members of your family feel about men learning or performing bharatanatyam?

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8. How do you think your friends and peers feel about men learning or performing bharatanatyam?

9. What sort of activities do you enjoy doing?

10. Can you rank the following in order of most interesting to least interesting: Bharatanatyam, cricket, rugby, ballet and hip hop dancing

11. Do you like music and dance?

12. What sort of music and dance do you like?

13. Do you listen to Indian music?

14. Do you watch Indian dance?

15. Are Indian dances such as bharatanatyam important to Indians?

16. Is Indian culture important?

17. How would you describe your own culture?

18. What is important in your own culture?

19. Do you think Indian boys in Australia are interested in performing or learning bharatanatyam? Why?/Why not?

20. Why do you think Indian boys in Australia are/are not interested in performing or learning bharatanatyam?

21. How important do you think bharatanatyam is to the preservation of Indian culture in Australia?

22. Who do you think cares about bharatanatyam?

23. What do you think are some benefits or problems of men learning bharatanatyam?

24. What feelings do you have about men learning or performing bharatanatyam?

25. How do you think non-Indians in Australia will perceive men performing bharatanatyam?

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Appendix B: Participant Consent Form

Research Project: What Factors Encourage or Discourage Australian Boys from Immigrant South Asian Backgrounds to Learn Bharathanatyam?

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM

Chief Investigator Student Investigator SUPERVISOR NAME: Leonie Rowan STUDENT NAME: Vidyakartik Menon SCHOOL: Griffith University, Gold Coast SCHOOL: Griffith University, Gold Coast TELEPHONE: 07 5552 8144 COURSE OF STUDY: Doctor of Education EMAIL: [email protected] TELEPHONE: 0431 579 979 EMAIL: [email protected] By signing below, I confirm that:

1. I have read the information sheet.

2. I understand Kartik is writing a thesis (report) for his University work.

3. Kartik has explained what I would have to do if I took part in this research project.

4. Kartik has clearly answered any questions I may have about the project and I am happy with the answers he has given.

5. I understand that participation in this study is voluntary which means I do not have to take part if I don’t want to and nothing will happen to me if I don’t.

6. I understand that I can stop doing the questionnaire or speaking at the interview at any time, even after I have started.

7. I understand that there are no right or wrong answers and that I can choose not to answer some of the questions if I don’t want to.

8. I understand that I can stop talking at any time of the interview and Kartik will turn off the tape.

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9. I understand that Kartik may write about some of the things we talk about but he won’t use my name or anything else that would allow people to identify me.

10. I understand that the tape and the typed copies of what I say will only be seen by Kartik and his supervisor, Leonie Rowan.

11. I understand that the copy of what I say and my words will be kept private.

12. I understand that if I have any worries or concerns about this research, I can talk to Kartik.

13. I understand that if I have any complaints or concerns about the research, I can contact the Griffith University Ethics in Human Research Committee (contact details provided on the Information Sheet).

14. I agree to fill out the questionnaire provided by Kartik and/or take part in the interview with our conversation being taped.

The ethical conduct of this research The Griffith University Ethics Committee has approved this project. Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. For further information, or if you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of this research project, you may consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp, or you may contact the Manager, Research Ethics at the following details:

Telephone: 3735 5585

Email: [email protected].

Name

Signature

Date

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Appendix C: Participant Information Sheet

Research Project: What Factors Encourage or Discourage Australian Boys from Immigrant South Asian Backgrounds to Learn Bharathanatyam?

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET

Chief Investigator Student Investigator

SUPERVISOR NAME: Leonie Rowan STUDENT NAME: Vidyakartik Menon

SCHOOL: Griffith University, Gold Coast SCHOOL: Griffith University, Gold Coast

TELEPHONE: 07 5552 8144 COURSE OF STUDY: Doctor of Education

EMAIL: [email protected] TELEPHONE: 0431 579 979

EMAIL: [email protected]

What am I doing?

I am a student at Griffith University and I am doing a project about bharathanatyam (a traditional Indian dance/drama). My report is going to be about what young people think about bharathanatyam.

I would like to invite you to share your thoughts about bharathanatyam with me. Sometimes adults don’t always know what young people think. Therefore, this report will help to let adults know what young people think and feel about bharathanatyam.

What will you need to do?

You will fill a questionnaire which will ask you questions about what you think of bharathanatyam. You may also be selected for an interview where you will talk to me about your thoughts on bharathanatyam.

It is not like a test, there are no right or wrong answers.

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Who is taking part in this research?

You have to be…

• A boy between the ages of 12 and 18; and

• Be of either Indian or Sri Lankan origin (at least one of your parents has to be Indian or Sri Lankan); and

• Living in Australia; and

• Able to speak English.

What are the benefits?

This research would let adults know what young people think about bharathanatyam. What we find from the research will also help with the preservation of bharathanatyam and our culture in Australia.

Are there any risks?

It is unlikely that you will face any risks from participating in this project. You may attend a debriefing meeting and contact the Griffith University Ethical Committee if you choose to do so.

Your confidentiality

Nobody will be able to identify you from this study. Only I and my project supervisor, Leonie Rowan, will have access to the information you provide.

What you say in the interview will be typed and recorded. Once this is done, the tapes will be destroyed. Only Leonie Rowan and I would be allowed to see these typed sheets. These typed sheets would be destroyed after three years. Information from the questionnaire will be entered into a computer after 1st Jan 2011 (without your name) and it would not be possible to link your identity to your questionnaire. If you do not want information you have provided to be included in the study, you have to let me know before 1st Jan 2011 as the information provided by you will be de-identified (not linked to your name) after this date.

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When I write my report, I might write about some of the things you have talked about but I won’t use your name so people won’t know they are your words.

If you have any worries after the questionnaire or interview, you can come and talk to me. I will keep everything you say private but if I think that you might not be safe, I might have to tell some other adults who can help me make you safe.

Your participation is voluntary

Your parents have said it is okay for me to give you the questionnaires and/or talk with you today but if you don’t want to do the questionnaire or talk to me, that is fine. Your participation is voluntary, which means you do not have to take part if you don’t want to. Nothing will happen if you decide you do not want to be a part of this research. You don’t have to talk to me or fill in the questionnaire if you don’t want to and you won’t get into trouble.

It is okay if you want to stop doing the questionnaire while you are filling it in or if you want to stop talking to me at any point in time of the interview. If you don’t want to answer any of the questions, that is okay too. When we are talking, I will put the tape on so that I can remember what is being said. However, you can tell me to turn it off at any time.

If you change your mind about taking part, even after the study has started, please just notify me and any information already collected will be destroyed.

The ethical conduct of this research

The Griffith University Ethics Committee has approved this project. Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of this research project, you may contact the Manager, Research Ethics on 07 3735 5585 or [email protected]. Questions / further information

When you have read this information sheet, I will be available to answer any questions you may have. If you would like to know more at any stage, please feel free to contact:

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Mr Kartik Menon Phone: 0431 579 979 Email: [email protected]

You are also welcome to contact my research supervisor at any time:

Dr Leonie Rowan Senior Lecturer School of Education and Professional Studies Griffith University Gold Coast Campus. QLD. 4222 Ph: 07 5552 8144 Fax: 07 5552 8167 Mob: 0417 193240 Email: [email protected]

Feedback to you

After the interviews, you can read the typed sheets of what has been said. You can also see a summary of my completed thesis (report) once it is done.

Privacy Statement

The conduct of this research involves the collection, access and/or use of your identified personal information. The information collected is confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties without your consent, except to meet government, legal or other regulatory authority requirements. A de-identified copy of this data may be used for other research purposes. However, your anonymity will at all times be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (07) 3735 5585.

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Appendix D: Parent Consent Form

Research Project: What Factors Encourage or Discourage Australian Boys from Immigrant South Asian Backgrounds to Learn Bharathanatyam?

PARENT CONSENT FORM

By signing below, I confirm that I have read and understood the information package and in particular have noted that:

1. The procedures required for the project and the time involved have been explained to me and my child/ward and any questions I or/and my child/ward have about the project have been answered to my satisfaction.

2. Both my child/ward and I have read the Information Sheet and have been given the opportunity to discuss the information and my child’s involvement in the project with the researcher.

3. I understand that my child/ward’s participation in this project is voluntary and my child/ward is free to withdraw their participation at any time.

4. I understand that my child/ward’s involvement is strictly confidential and that no information will be used in any way that reveals their identity.

5. I understand that audio recordings will be made as part of the study.

6. These recordings will take place during the interviews.

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7. I understand that if I have any complaints or concerns about the research, I can contact the Griffith University Ethics in Human Research Committee according to the contact details provided on the Information Sheet.

8. I agree to allow my child/ward to participate in the project.

The ethical conduct of this research The conduct of this research involves the collection, access and/or use of your child/ward’s identified personal information. The information collected is confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties without your consent, except to meet government, legal or other regulatory authority requirements. A de-identified copy of this data may be used for other research purposes. However, your anonymity will at all times be safeguarded.

The Griffith University Ethics Committee has approved this project. Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. For further information, or if you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of this research project, you may consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp, or you may contact the Manager, Research Ethics at the following details:

Telephone: 3735 5585 Email: [email protected].

Name

Signature

Date

170

Appendix E: Parent Information Sheet

Research Project: What Factors Encourage or Discourage Australian Boys from Immigrant South Asian Backgrounds to Learn Bharathanatyam?

PARENT INFORMATION SHEET

Why is the research being conducted?

I would like to invite your child/ward to take part in a study being conducted by myself, a student from Griffith University, within the Doctor of Education Program. The project seeks to examine the attitudes of South Asian-Australian boys towards learning the ancient dance-drama form of bharathanatyam.

What will your child be asked to do?

Your child will participate in an interview and/or fill in a questionnaire where they will be asked a series of questions pertaining to their attitudes, thoughts, perceptions and feelings towards the art form bharathanatyam.

The basis by which participants will be selected or screened

All South Asian boys living in Australia are eligible to participate. The basic criteria are:

• They have to be boys between the ages of 12 and 18.

• They should be residing in Australia at time of participation.

• They should have at least one parent who is of South Asian origin.

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• They should be able to communicate in English.

Your child is under no obligation to participate in this survey.

The expected benefits of the research

Research findings would provide a better insight on the attitudes of South Asian boys towards bharathanatyam and the performing arts as a whole. It may also shed light on ways to preserve the art form amongst the South Asian diaspora.

Risks to your child

It is unlikely that the results of this project would be a source of significant concern. It is also not likely that the research would raise issues of major ethical concerns. However, you and your child will be given the option of a debriefing meeting and an opportunity to contact the Griffith University Ethical Committee if you choose to do so.

Your confidentiality

Nobody will be able to identify yourself or your child from the results of this study. Only I and my project supervisor, Leonie Rowan, will have access to the information. The interviews will be audio-taped and transcribed. After transcription, the tapes will be destroyed. All transcribed information collected will be stored in a cabinet in my private home and on my password protected computer. It will be kept for three years and then destroyed. De-identification of participants from the questionnaires will occur after 1st January 2011.

All participants and their parents/guardians in this study will be given an information letter to read before signing a consent form. Copies of the information letters and consent forms have been included in this package.

Your child’s participation is voluntary

Your child’s participation is voluntary. You are able to withdraw from the study at any time without consequence. If you change your mind about taking part, even after the study has started, please just notify me and any information already collected will be destroyed.

The ethical conduct of this research

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Questions/further information

When you have read this information sheet, I will be available to answer any questions you may have. If you would like to know more at any stage, please feel free to contact:

Mr Kartik Menon Phone: 0431 579 979 Email: [email protected]

You are also welcome to contact my research supervisor at any time:

Feedback to you

After the interviews, you will be offered the opportunity to read and edit the transcripts prior to the data being analysed. You will also be asked if you wish to receive a synopsis of the completed doctoral thesis.

Privacy Statement

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purposes. However, your anonymity will at all times be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (07) 3735 5585.

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Appendix F: Ethics Approval

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE

30-Aug-2010

Dear Mr Menon

I write further to the additional information provided in relation to the conditional approval granted to your application for ethical clearance for your project "Reasons why Immigrant boys from South Asian Backgrounds do or do not choose to learn Bharathanatyam" (GU Ref No: EBL/65/09/HREC).

This is to confirm receipt of the remaining required information, assurances or amendments to this protocol.

Consequently, I reconfirm my earlier advice that you are authorised to immediately commence this research on this basis. he standard conditions of approval attached to our previous correspondence about this protocol continue to apply.

Regards

Karen Moorehead Manager, Research Ethics Office for Research G39 room 3.55 Gold Coast Campus Griffith University ph: 3735 5585 fax: 5552 9058 email: [email protected] web:

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Cc: At this time all researchers are reminded that the Griffith University Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research provides guidance to researchers in areas such as conflict of interest, authorship, storage of data, & the training of research students.

You can find further information, resources and a link to the University's Code by visiting http://www62.gu.edu.au/policylibrary.nsf/xupdatemonth/e7852d226231d2b44a25750c0 062f457?opendocument

PRIVILEGED, PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

This email and any files transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) and may contain information which is confidential or privileged. If you receive this email and you are not the addressee(s) [or responsible for delivery of the email to the addressee(s)], please disregard the contents of the email, delete the email and notify the author immediately

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Appendix G: Ethical Conduct Report

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE 1) ETHICAL CONDUCT REPORT

University Research Ethics Database Protocol Number

EBL / 65 / 09 / HREC

The protocol number must be provided, or please write the name of the protocol on this report.

1 Type of report:

Please tick the relevant report category or set the shading for the relevant block at 25%.

Annual Final Renewal

2 Senior Investigator:

Please tick the relevant statement or set the shading for the relevant block at 25%.

No Change from Change in contact Proposed change approved protocol details for senior in senior

investigator investigator

Please provide details of any changes from the approved protocol (either in terms of contact details or a proposed change to the Senior Investigator)

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3 Research team:

Please tick the relevant statement(s) or set the shading for the relevant block at 25%.

No Change from Additions to the Removals from approved protocol research team the research

team

Please list the current members of the research team. Please mark with (+) any proposed additions to the research team and (-) any removals from the research team.

4 Status of the data collection phase of the protocol:

Please tick the relevant statement or set the shading for the relevant block at 25%.

Data collection phase of project March 2012 date completed:

Data collection phase of project date ongoing until:

Extension of ethical clearance date sought until:

Project commenced, but date abandoned on:

Project not commenced and no longer required:

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5 Conducted as per the approved protocol:

Y / N Has the research been conducted in accordance with the Y approved protocol? Y / N / NA If no, have the variations been previously submitted for NA approval?

If no, provide the details of the variations and the reason why this has not previously been submitted for prior approval.

If this protocol has been approved by more than one HREC, or Y / N / NA was subject to formal agreement / approval from another NA organisation, has the variation to this protocol been approved by the other HREC / organisation(s)?

If no, please explain why not and what measures will be taken to appropriately consult with the other HREC / organisation(s).

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6 Proposed variation:

Y / N Would you like to submit a variation to this protocol for prior NA approval?

If yes, provide the details of the proposed variations, the reason(s) for the variation, and a response to any ethical issues / risks raised by this variation that are not addressed by the approved protocol.

If this protocol has been approved by more than one HREC, or Y / N / NA was subject to formal agreement / approval from another NA

organisation, has the variation to this protocol been approved by the other HREC / organisation(s)?

If no, please explain why not and what measures will be taken to appropriately consult with the other HREC / organisation(s).

7 Withdrawal of consent:

Y / N Having any participants withdrawn their consent during the N conduct of this protocol?

If yes, please provide the details of the number of participants, their reason for withdrawal (if known) and any action taken by the research team.

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8 Complaints or concerns about ethical conduct:

Has the research team become aware of any complaints or Y / N concerns about the ethical conduct of this protocol? N

If yes, has this matter previously been brought to the attention of Y / N / NA the HREC? NA

If a complaint or concern has arisen, provide a summary of the issues and the action taken by the research team.

9 Risk and unexpected ethical issue management:

Have the approved procedures to negate, minimise and / or Y / N manage the risks associated with the conduct of the protocol Y

proven effective?

If no, please provide the details of the risks that have not been addressed and the action taken by the research team.

Y / N

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Has the research team become aware of any adverse events or N other harms to research participants, not anticipated in the approved protocol? Y / N / NA

If yes, has this matter previously been brought to the attention of NA the HREC?

If unexpected adverse events of other harms have arisen, please provide the details and the action taken by the research team.

If unexpected adverse events of other harms have arisen, please provide a justification of why the protocol should be allowed to continue.

Y / N

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Have any other issues or problems that might affect the N continued ethical acceptability of the protocol occurred or come to light?

Y / N / NA If yes, has this matter previously been brought to the attention of NA the HREC?

If such issues or problems have occurred or come to light, please provide the details and the action taken by the research team.

If such issues or problems have occurred or come to light, please provide a justification of why the protocol should be allowed to continue.

10 Problems or issues faced by the research team:

Has the research team encountered any difficulties with the Y / N secure storage of data, as approved by the HREC? N

Has the research team encountered any difficulties with the Y / N recruitment strategy, as approved by the HREC? N

Has the research team encountered any difficulties with the Y / N informed consent mechanism, as approved by the HREC? N

Has the research team encountered any difficulties with the Y / N conduct of any other element of the protocol, as approved by the N

HREC?

If you have answered yes to any of the questions above, please provide details of the issue and the action taken by the research team.

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11 Results of the research:

Y / N Has the research achieved to date the results anticipated in the Y approved protocol? Y / N / NA If no, has the HREC previously been notified of this fact? NA

Please provide a 200 – 400 word description in non-technical language of the results achieved to date and relate these achievements to the original aims of the project. Include a discussion of any publications or other outputs arising from the research project. (eg PhD completions, patents, commercial interests, change to local government procedures/regulations, curriculum changes).

20 men from South Asian backgrounds were interviewed for this project. Their ages ranged from 12 to 40. Participants were all either Australian citizens or long term residents. Half the participants had some experience of learning the classical Indian dance-drama form of bharathanatyam while the other half did not. The time span of the interviews ranged from 30 to 90 minutes.

Participants were asked questions about their thoughts, attitudes and feelings towards men learning bharathanatyam. They were also asked to speak on their experiences of negotiating their identity as a South-Asian man in Australia.

The results have not been fully analysed. However, a preliminary scan reveals that the interview data will allow for a very interesting discussion on the negotiation of masculine and cultural identities of South Asian men within performing arts spaces. The data collected from the interviews would add much value to the research questions of this project.

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Appendix H: Pilot Interview Schedule

1. Do you know what bharatanatyam is? 2. If yes, how would you describe it to someone who has not heard about it? 3. Have you ever considered learning bharatanatyam? – Why?/ Why not? 4. How do you think members of your family feel about men learning or performing bharatanatyam? 5. How do you think your friends and peers feel about men learning or performing bharatanatyam? 6. Do you think Indian boys in Australia are interested in performing or learning bharatanatyam? Why?/Why not? 7. Why do you think Indian boys in Australia are/are not interested in performing or learning bharatanatyam? 8. How would you describe bharatanatyam to a person who is completely unfamiliar with the art form? 9. How important do you think bharatanatyam is to the preservation of Indian culture in Australia? 10. What do you think are some benefits or problems of men learning bharatanatyam? 11. What feelings do you have about men learning or performing bharatanatyam? 12. How do you think non-Indians in Australia will perceive men performing bharatanatyam?

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