Gendered Cultures
UNMUTE
UNMUTE is a series for students and practitioners in the performing arts who would like to be a part of the discussion around forms of harassment in the art space.
For our first session, we had Diversity and Inclusion Advisor Asiya Shervani talk about the kinds of sexual harassment that take place, the laws against it, redressal mechanisms, and the responsibilities of institutions, organizers, employers, festivals, and gurus.
The aim is to provide students and practitioners with a vocabulary to articulate their discomforts and burdens, individually and collectively, and to begin finding their own voice towards safer and healthier work environments across arts practice and pedagogy.
Gendered Cultures in Classical Indian Dance
Responding to the #Metoo Movement is an attempt to initiate and carry forth conversations on the gendered nature of the form and content, of the performative space, and of the pedagogy of classical dance.
Sneha Gole, feminist scholar, looks at the histories of the dance forms and critically examines them from caste and class locations. Sanjukta Wagh, kathak dancer, shares her experiences and critical reflections on the performative space, the gendered body and its relationships to sexual harassment. Parul Shah, dance academic, dwells on how the secularisation and democratisation of these forms as they travel into university spaces reproduce the traditional pedagogies and practices. Savitri Medhatul, documentary filmmaker, critically looks at the domain of classical dance from the space of non-classical forms of dance, thus dismantling these binaries.
Review in Mumbai Mirror
