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Naach (The Dance)
| What | Sarai In |
|---|---|
| When |
2008-11-07 16:30
2008-11-07 17:50
2008-11-07 from 16:30 to 17:50 |
| Where | Seminar Room,CSDS |
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Director: Saba Dewan
Length: 84 minutes
Date: 7th November, 2008
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Time: 4:30 pm
Length: 84 minutes
Date: 7th November, 2008
Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS
Time: 4:30 pm
About the film:
The Sonpur cattle fair in rural Bihar comes alive every evening when more than fifty girls take to the stage and dance for an all male audience. A barbed wire fence separates the performers from the spectators.
Originally part of the nautanki, a popular folk theatre genre of north India, the dance of the female performer today has become a replay of Bombay films and music videos that span rural and metropolitan landscape. It is a performance charged with sexual energy. The girls dance, make eye contact, beckon, gesticulate and even abuse a highly responsive all male audience.
What meanings related to contemporary construction and practice of gender, sexuality, labour and popular culture can we read in the dance of the female performer?
About Saba Dewan:
Saba Dewan is a film maker based in Delhi, India. She did her masters in film and TV production from the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 1987 and since then has been making independent documentaries. Her work has focused on gender, labour and sexuality. For the past few years she has been working on a trilogy of films focusing on women performers. Naach (The Dance) is the second film of the trilogy, the first being Delhi –Mumbai –Delhi, that explored the lives of women bar dancers. The third and final film of the trilogy is about the art and lifestyle of the courtesans and is in progress.
The Sonpur cattle fair in rural Bihar comes alive every evening when more than fifty girls take to the stage and dance for an all male audience. A barbed wire fence separates the performers from the spectators.
Originally part of the nautanki, a popular folk theatre genre of north India, the dance of the female performer today has become a replay of Bombay films and music videos that span rural and metropolitan landscape. It is a performance charged with sexual energy. The girls dance, make eye contact, beckon, gesticulate and even abuse a highly responsive all male audience.
What meanings related to contemporary construction and practice of gender, sexuality, labour and popular culture can we read in the dance of the female performer?
About Saba Dewan:
Saba Dewan is a film maker based in Delhi, India. She did her masters in film and TV production from the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 1987 and since then has been making independent documentaries. Her work has focused on gender, labour and sexuality. For the past few years she has been working on a trilogy of films focusing on women performers. Naach (The Dance) is the second film of the trilogy, the first being Delhi –Mumbai –Delhi, that explored the lives of women bar dancers. The third and final film of the trilogy is about the art and lifestyle of the courtesans and is in progress.