Choreographing the queer: Visual and textual stimuli in Mandeep Raikhy’s dance-making process

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article looks at the methodology used by dance-maker Mandeep Raikhy – for his works Queen Size and A Male Ant Has Straight Antennae - of using ‘stimuli’ in the choreographic process to incite and create appropriate movement principles. The usage of visual stimuli such as images, drawings, and observations, and textual or literary stimuli (fiction/non-fiction, words) can be said to hold the power to evoke ‘authentic’ movement from deep within, which can further be processed into choreography. The kinds of stimuli employed in Raikhy’s process, along with how he processes them, throw an interesting light on the needs of queer dance and choreography, while also expanding on the unique role and power of dance in queer discourse. How do images used by Raikhy metamorphose into movement, and how is movement thus conceived faithful to queerness? In what ways does text act as a motivator in working with a form that defies text? How does bodily text replace it? Once movement is generated from these stimuli, what choices does Raikhy make to choreograph, and how and why is a performance of this choreography effective in delivering a sense of queerness to the spectator (as well as being a political act)?