Suman Bhagchandani (Jamia Millia Islamia University): I Wear My Gender on My Sleeve: A Dialogue between Gender Performance and Performativity in Kathak Dance. Guest Lecture

Suman Bhagchandani is a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of English, Jamia Milia Islamia University (New Delhi). An expert on pedagogy and performance in the Indian classical dance, kathak, Bhagchandani focuses on the body of the performer as the site for cultural narratives to be represented. By locating the body at the center of her research, she also questions the homophonic associations of the body in kathak through cite (as a point of citational practice when addressing the tradition) and sight (as the assumed visual standard of performance) as means of insisting upon the normative ways of learning and performing kathak. Her research looks at markers like costume, gender, disability and nationality of the pedagogue and the performer as bodily markers that have influenced the understanding of what qualifies as a ‘kathak body’.

Please join us investigating the dialogue between gender performance and performativity in kathak dance with Suman Bhagchandani. 

This event is free and open to the public. Please contact culturalstudies@uni-wuerzburg.de for further information.

JMU Cultural Studies