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Bharata Natyam in the US Diaspora: Staging Indian American Identity through Performance at Classical Indian Dance Festivals, Competitions, and Online Platforms

Acharya, Rohini
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8092-7441
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1672937964731514

Abstract Details

2023, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Dance Studies.
Bharata Natyam in the US Diaspora: Staging Indian American Identity through Performance at Classical Indian Dance Festivals, Competition, and Online Platforms examines how second-generation Indian Americans develop, advance and make Bharata Natyam visible and relevant through concert stages, festivals, competitions, and online platforms in the United States and India. The term “second-generation” refers to the children of immigrants who were born in the United States or who arrived here before the age of seven or eight. I argue that second-generation Indian American practitioners make Bharata Natyam a relevant practice in the US for audiences in the South Asian diaspora by transforming Indian cultural attitudes around gender, religion, tradition, and nationalism through practices manifesting cultural hybridity. These second-generation artists rework Bharata Natyam techniques, compositions, and themes through contemporary issues and media to reflect their experiences of growing up in the US. There are two aspects to the way I analyze what it means to make Bharata Natyam a “relevant” practice. On the one hand, this term comes from the practitioners I interviewed: when they say that they want Bharata Natyam to be a relevant practice, they mean they want it to be recognized as an important American mainstream dance form, with increased performance opportunities, platforms, and resources for Bharata Natyam practitioners to showcase their work. Additionally, “relevant” relates to maintaining legibility for the intrinsic values of the practice even—and especially—when practitioners expand the boundaries of the form. Thus, the stakes of Bharata Natyam being a relevant practice in the United States for its practitioners and audience members leads to more classical Indian dance representation on American concert stages. In reworking Bharata Natyam to reflect their political, social, cultural context in the US, second-generation practitioners challenge who holds power and has privilege in the global Bharata Natyam community. Through archival, ethnographic, and choreographic analysis, I examine how second- generation Bharata Natyam practitioners navigate their dual identities and stay connected to their cultural heritage by negotiating issues of representation, assimilation, and acculturation. Understanding how second-generation practitioners choreograph and perform their positionalities is important for articulating the complexities of their Indian-American diasporic identities and their commitment to making Bharata Natyam relevant in the United States specifically. I also explore the ways in which second-generation practitioners of Bharata Natyam utilize classical Indian dance festivals, competitions, and online platforms to showcase their pursuits as professional artists. This dissertation contributes to the existing scholarship on Bharata Natyam in the diaspora by demonstrating the importance second-generation Bharata Natyam dancers see in transforming and increasing the visibility of classical Indian dance to reflect their hybrid positionalities in the US.
Hannah Kosstrin (Committee Chair)
Mytheli Sreenivas (Committee Member)
Karen Eliot (Committee Member)
Harmony Bench (Committee Member)
201 p.
Dance
Bharata Natyam; South Asian diaspora; identity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Acharya, R. (2023). Bharata Natyam in the US Diaspora: Staging Indian American Identity through Performance at Classical Indian Dance Festivals, Competitions, and Online Platforms [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1672937964731514

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Acharya, Rohini. Bharata Natyam in the US Diaspora: Staging Indian American Identity through Performance at Classical Indian Dance Festivals, Competitions, and Online Platforms. 2023. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1672937964731514.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Acharya, Rohini. "Bharata Natyam in the US Diaspora: Staging Indian American Identity through Performance at Classical Indian Dance Festivals, Competitions, and Online Platforms." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1672937964731514

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1672937964731514
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© 2023, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.