Flexibility and Its Bodily Limits: Transnational South Asian Dancers in an Age of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This article examines the conflicting and paradoxical ways in which race and citizenship intersect in late capitalism, and how dancers negotiate these contradictions through their bodily labor. Focusing on South Asian dancers in the UK, I suggest that transnational South Asian dancers have increasingly had to emphasize flexibility and mobility in their bodies and dance practices in order to gain access to mainstream funding, venues, audiences, resources, and touring circuits which have traditionally marginalized non-white dance practices. I argue that “flexible citizenship” is not just a political strategy to negotiate capital; it is also a bodily tactic and an embodied response to the racialization of labor in neoliberal economies. However, there are limits to how far the flexibility of flexible citizenship can stretch. Although the creativity of South Asian dancers and the strength of their bodily practices has helped them to negotiate racial inequalities in Britain, immigration laws, arts funding policies, and employment regulations have immobilized dancers. Addressing the various complexities and contradictions in which transnational bodies are embroiled, this essay is both a tribute to the creative, flexible practices of South Asian dancers as well as an acknowledgment of the limits of flexible citizenship and a critique of neoliberalism's toll on the racialized dancing body.

Not Just Merely Different: Travelling Theories, Post-Feminism and the Racialized Politics of Women of Color

“…On the one hand I acknowledge writings that account for the dynamic realities, multiplicities and complexities of South Asian girls and women as sports participants, fans and consumers (e.g. Author; Kedhar, 2014;Toffoletti and Parmar, 2015;Samie, 2013;Shankar, 2013). On the other hand, I remain frustrated by uncritical and singular claims about "them" -as an undifferentiated whole -being caught in-between conflicting cultures.…”

“…Macdonald, Abbott and Jenkins, 2012; Palmer and Masters, 2010) and South America (e.g Filho and Rubio, 2012). However, despite the expansive terrain of the Global South, very little is known about the lives, differences and sporting engagements of women from across these geographic locations and/or in terms of their transnational movements (exceptions include Kedhar, 2014;Kim, 2012;Joseph, 2014;Sykes, 2016;Yep, 2010Yep, , 2012.…”

Katherine Dunham's Global Method and the Embodied Politics of Dance's Everyday

“…Kedhar understands flexibility as a tactic of survival and agency that includes "a dancer's physical ability to stretch her limbs or bend her spine backward to meet the demands of a particular work or choreographer, her ability to negotiate immigration regulations and restrictions in order to move more easily across national borders, and her ability to pick up multiple movement vocabularies and deploy them strategically to increase her marketability and broaden her employment prospects." 63 Kedhar emphasizes the flexibility of positioning required for the individual dance laborer, and employs the language of inflexibility to describe moments where "the transnational, racialized dancing body is immobilized either through injury or through immigration and citizenship restrictions." 64 In contrast, we describe ongoing moments of friction that demanded flexible responses from Dunham not only as an individual dancer, but also as a transnational choreographic entrepreneur.…”

Decolonizing the Curriculum? Unsettling possibilities for performance training

“…8 Anusha Kedhar (2014) investigates literal and metaphorical ideals of flexibility as a means through which South Asian dancers in diaspora negotiate the precarity associated with a neoliberal economy.…”