Art can't ignore caste any more

Dance criticism in India suffers from the same malaise that ails the dance world-a refusal to engage wholly with caste

- Ranjini Nair

Over the past few months, various incidents within the classical dance sphere have shown that there is a need to investigate spaces, organisations and individuals that continue to uphold patriarchal, casteist and exclusionary systems. Whether it is the still-developing story on sexual harassment allegations at Kalakshetra in Chennai or the publishing of a blatantly casteist dance review on a popular dance portal, these long-held pedestals for the classical arts need to fall.

With a part of my PhD research examining how the art review constructed the classical dancing body today, I have been reflecting on the role of the dance critic and dance writing in India during the 20th and 21st centuries. On reading the casteist review, which has been edited following a raging debate and loud protests from artists and scholars, by Leela Venkataraman on the Chennai-based dance portal Narthaki in January, one recognises how the dance review continues to perform that function. Venkataraman's review, which the artists and scholars in their statement alleged showed "implicit and explicit casteism", critiqued the performance of dancer Nrithya Pillai, who is from a hereditary caste of performers, in a piece that was part of an evening, Dvi-nethram: The Vision Of Parampara. A few weeks ago, writing for Scroll, cultural theorist. Brahma Prakash referred to the same incident to highlight the erasure and appropriation of aesthetic and cultural practices of hereditary castes.