Indian Dance Criticism as Decolonial Post-Performance Performative

Abstract

This paper examines dance reviews of transnational performances of Indian male dancers Uday Shankar and Ram Gopal from the 1930s to the 1950s. Throughout, this research seeks to contribute to methods for decolonizing dance criticism by advocating for embodied spectatorship as well as evaluation that challenges hegemony by validating classical traditions and innovative artistry. Western and Indian critics savored the rasa, meaning the flavor of the performances, and criticism reactivated the felt or sensorial experience in what I term post-performance performative. In India, anti-Orientalist criticism reclaimed traditions that critics in Europe and the United States had dismissed as irrational and unprogressive.