Transnational pedagogy of classical dance: politics of ideology between Bangladesh and India

Abstract

Hey Ananta Punya (HAP), a dance-drama choreographed by the Bangladeshi choreographer Warda Rihab, was performed in an elite venue in India in 2009. Although the dance-drama seems to be about Hinduism (the predominant religion of India) repressing Buddhism, the performance is complicated by the knowledge that the performers are of Bangladeshi Muslim background. The article explores Rihab's dance training in India and her choreographic choices in HAP to analyse the structures of power that a Bangladeshi dancer operates within when she trains and performs in India. It focuses on Rihab's use of ‘Indian’ dance forms in the choreography and the ‘high class’ aesthetics of the production to investigate the politics of dance pedagogy and performance between Bangladesh and India. It evokes Janet O'Shea's understanding of choreography, Michel Foucault's framing of bodily knowledge as a ‘political technology of the body’ and Pierre Bourdieu's theorisation of taste as being constructed by access to capital, to argue that transnational pedagogy of dance enabled Rihab to make choreographic choices that resists stereotypes that Indians might have about dancers of Bangladeshi background. The analysis of Rihab's training and her dance-drama provides insight into how nations come to acquire cultural capital and the role of transnational pedagogy in maintaining cultural hegemony.

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