Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520301665)

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Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance centers on an insular community of Smarta Brahmin men from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu-speaking South India who are required to don stri-vesam (woman's guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Impersonation is not simply a gender performance circumscribed to the Kuchipudi stage, but a practice of power that enables the construction of hegemonic Brahmin masculinity in everyday village life. However, the power of the Brahmin male body in stri-vesam is highly contingent, particularly on account of the expansion of Kuchipudi in the latter half of the twentieth century from a localized village performance to a transnational Indian dance form. This book analyzes the practice of impersonation across a series of boundaries--village to urban, Brahmin to non-Brahmin, hegemonic to non-normative--to explore the artifice of Brahmin masculinity in contemporary South Indian dance.

Author: Harshita Mruthinti Kamath
ISBN-10: 0520301668
ISBN-13: 9780520301665
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 06/25/2019
Pages: 215
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.50d