Aimed at addressing the lacunae in academic publications on women dancers in India, The Moving Space highlights the idea of the ‘space’ created, occupied and negotiated by women in Indian dance. It initiates a conversation between dance scholarship and women’s studies, and brings together scholars from a multidisciplinary background, emphasizing that research and practice have roots in both these specific areas. This book takes dance as a critical starting point, and endeavours to create an inclusive discourse around the female dancer and the historic, gendered and contested ‘space(s)’ that accommodate or are created by her. Highlighting the scope and necessity of using feminist theories in understanding complex relationships between individual experiences, gendered representation and cultural constructions in the realm of dance in India, it traces the lived experience of the dancer—her movements, her voice and her subjectivity. This collection of essays contextualizes women dancers from diverse historical and social milieu—from temple to courtyard, from silver screen to dance bars and from national to regional stages—within the larger rubric of dance studies, and brings out stories of survival, struggle, empowerment, subjugation and subversion. 3
