ABSTRACT
Dance and gender are extraordinarily attuned. If the body is the medium for dance, it is also the site for a variety of gender dynamics. This chapter will address how the body is gazed upon for meaning-making by different sociocultural and political agencies. A western gaze theory has been applied to the different dance forms of India alongside the Indian aesthetical theories in relation to an audience. While texts such as Natya Shastra and Abhinaya Darpana have not been used as a major methodological lens, they are included to provide an Indian context. This study will address what encompasses the process of representation in general, and in dance in particular, and how the power of the spectator in constructing the representation comes into play. How does a culture, specifically a patriarchal one, construct representations of women or the standard canons of femininity, in performing arts such as dance? In addressing three dances of Assam, what role does the performativity of dance play in deepening an underlying schism between cultural or aesthetic representation of women in their real life and lived experiences? Can women in their dance/performances make ways for self-representation without being co-opted by set conventions?
