he Ownership of Indian Classical Dancing and Its Performance on the Global Stage

How an artist is related to his or her art is not an easy question to answer. It is difficult to see how and to what extent the artist’s individual creativity flourishes within the dictates of the conventions of “classical” art. How, as T. S. Eliot asked almost a century ago, do tradition and the individual talent shape one another? (Eliot 1920) In the case of the classical dancing of India, this question has long intrigued me, because it is a tradition in which the individual artist’s subjective creativity is under pressure not only from the historical authority of a codified tradition but also from the gendered organization of its practice. Working under such conditions, can the artist claim ownership of the art? Or is the artist merely a mechanical vehicle of an unchanging aesthetic regime? These questions are assuming special importance today because classical Indian dancers, the majority of whom are and always have been women, are beginning to use their art to speak more and more for themselves as their art begins to break out of its long seclusion within India. ¹ These are questions relevant not only to the artist but also to audiences: if the idea and practice of classical Indian dancing are under interrogation and perhaps reformulation by artists expressing their subjective creativity and searching for personal idioms, does their art continue to be a local phenomenon accessible only to particular audiences? Or does it open up to a global audience because dancers aim their art beyond the aesthetic and ethical boundaries of their received tradition?