There are no recent bookmarks.

Please Note: This event has expired.

Dance as Destiny: A Feminist Reconsideration of the Indian Danseuse in her Many Forms

Presented by Cincinnati Art Museum at Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati OH

Nov 10 2022
Dance as Destiny: A Feminist Reconsideration of the Indian Danseuse in her Many Forms

Credit to Cincinnati Art Museum

Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 7 p.m.

Free for Members. RSVPs coming soon.

Join Dr. Mrinalini Rajagopalan, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, for this exciting evening lecture.

In 1926 British colonial archaeologists found a bronze statue depicting a woman in Mohenjodaro (now Pakistan). Small enough to fit in the palm of a hand and made close to 4000 years ago, the figure wears only jewelry and sports an elaborate hairdo. Perhaps it was her posture: one arm akimbo resting on her waist and leg bent at the knee, that led the male archaeologists to dub her the Dancing Girl. Since then, archaeologists, curators, and art historians have suggested that she could just as easily represent a female warrior, laborer, or devotee. Yet, the sculpture continues to be displayed at the National Museum, New Delhi as Dancing Girl.

From Indus-era bronzes, to Bollywood films depicting Mughal courtesans, to ill-fated efforts to outlaw urban “dance bars”, the figure of the danseuse is ever present over four millennia of Indian history. Revered as a goddess, reviled as a seductress, empowered as creative actors, disenfranchised as social pariahs, the Indian female dancer reflects her nation’s preoccupations with sexuality and gendered expectations. This presentation offers a critical and creative rethinking of female dancers in Indian art as more than passive receptacles of male desire or predictable ciphers of femininity. How might we deploy a rich corpus of sculptures, paintings, photographs, and films to rethink the Indian dancer as savvy politician, prolific litterateur, or radical activist? Nearly one hundred years after the Indus bronze was found by male colonialists, it is time to reconsider both her infantilizing moniker of “dancing girl” and the predictable destinies to which she and others Indian dancers have been doomed.

Bio

Mrinalini Rajagopalan is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. She is an architectural and urban historian of modern and contemporary India. She is currently working on a book titled Marks She Made: The Art and Architecture of Begum Samru, 1803-1836. Her book Building Histories: The Archival and Affective Lives of Five Monuments in Modern Delhi (University of Chicago Press, 2016) won the 2018 Annual Alice Davis Hitchcock Award presented by the Society of Architectural Historians for the most distinguished book in the field.

ADMISSION INFO

General Public: $20

Student: $5

Members: FREE

LOCATION

Cincinnati Art Museum

953 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45202

Full map and directions

PARKING INFO

Parking: FREE. Bike Racks are available outside the Main Entrance of the Art Museum. Hook up to one of our Marcel Duchamp-inspired racks during your visit! Accessible Parking is available in our north parking lot, just past the main visitor parking lot and entrance. Wheelchair + Stroller Entry is available via our DeWitt Entrance, on the east side of the museum, near the accessible parking. Access to the Mary R. Schiff Library + Archives is available via our Castellini Foundation Entrance, just to the right of the main entrance on the west side of the building.

CONNECT WITH Cincinnati Art Museum

    Email
/
    Website
/
    Facebook
/
    Twitter
/
    Instagram
/
    Donate

ArtsWave Newsletter Signup

Stay connected to what's going on in Greater Cincinnati's arts with ArtsWave's newsletter, Arts All Around. You'll find recommendations for arts events using ArtsWave Guide, hear about upcoming shows with ArtsWave Pass deals, the latest from our podcast and blog, plus so much more!