Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor

Introduction

xvi Acknowledgments i am also thankful for the camaraderie and support provided by family, friends, and well-wishers over the years, who have cheered me on and provided food, shelter, prayer, and moral support when needed through phone calls, e-mails, and skype messages from far-flung cities such as melbourne, Chennai, los Angeles, and shanghai. They include shyam srinivasan, swetha rajagopalan, Arnaliss Urquhart-O’Connell, Kalyani sridhar, Dr. T. sridhar , Tara rajkumar, Dr. raj rajkumar, Prasanna srinivasan, the late B. T. sampath, Professor G. narasimhan, Kavitha mcGinty, Priya saratchandran, Anu vats, Dr. sunil Kothari, Dr. Anita ratnam, Hema srinivasan, Geetha nath, ramya Harishankar, Harish K. murthy, the late lakshmi Krishnamurthy , Chandrika Kedhar, Dr. rajasree seshadri, Anita Desai, rekha rohila , Amisha Gupta, sunil shivaram, Kala Ganapathy, mina and sam Chamberlain , Anita moorthy, Dr. Ketu Katrak, Ginley regencia, shikha Jamwal, Aranga lokuge, shikha Kela, and Xiao Wen. my family encouraged my thirst for knowledge, my love for and appreciation of the arts, and especially my desire to question. my parents, indira and C. s. srinivasan, and grandmother, C. s. rangam, have shared the burdens and successes of my academic life, albeit from thousands of miles away. Their unwavering support and faith has enabled me to arrive at this juncture. my father, an engineer by profession (and a closet intellectual), has read everything i have written since the age of five and continues to this day to correct my grammar and provide helpful feedback, even on this book. my mother has helped take care of my children in all corners of the globe and rushed to my aid whenever needed so i could write, publish, and teach. They have taught me to follow my dreams no matter what, and for this i am extremely grateful. This book could not have come about without my partner, Ashok, and our two boys, rishi and Anjan. it is Ashok’s patience and enthusiasm for my work that enable me to pursue dance as an artist, scholar, and teacher in various parts of the world. Nachwalis, 1880. “nautch Dancers,” New York Clipper, January 22, 1881, 345. nautch girl’s wake, 1881. “Waking a nautch Girl,” National Police Gazette, February 19, 1881, 4. nautch girl’s wake, 1881. “Waking a nautch Girl,” National Police Gazette, February 19, 1881, 4. ruth st. Denis as radha. “ruth st. Denis in Radha,” Denishawn Collection, c. 1906. st. Denis and students. “ruth st. Denis and Denishawn Pupils in a nautch evening at the Denishawn Tent Theatre at Westlake Park,” Denishawn Collection, 1918. st. Denis and indian men. “ruth st. Denis with native Hindus in Radha,” Denishawn Collection, 1906. Kapaleeswarar Temple, Chennai, india. Introduction n ew york was cold in December 1880 when the nachwali1 sahebjan, who had traveled from india2 with other company members to perform in Augustin Daly’s theater production Zanina, went into labor and gave birth to her baby boy. To many new yorkers’ amazement, sahebjan was back on her feet within days, performing with her troupe. she stomped her feet on the hard, cold stage floors, turning softly so that the cloth she wore spun out from her body as she gestured to a carefully selected love song. Her troupe was featured during the intermission between acts of the main show, and they had only thirty minutes to make their mark. it was difficult to know what would please the audience. initially they received excited applause, but within a week, the audience had dwindled. The baby, too, did not thrive. He became sick, and when February came and the weather grew colder, he died. The doctors said he had had typhomalarial fever. sahebjan’s son had been a citizen of the United states, if only for a brief time. sahebjan, on the other hand, was merely a visitor. she had come to the United states a contract laborer and was forced to leave after the show’s failure. i encountered sahebjan in 2000 in warm, sunny southern California, while studying in the library archives of the University of California–irvine. A few years earlier, in 1996, my friend, dancer and guru ramya Harishankar (a naturalized U.s. citizen), had given birth to a healthy son, an American citizen, who is now fifteen years old. ramya went back to dancing within a few weeks of giving birth, performing an indian classical dance called [18...