On the Value of Mistranslations and Contaminations: The Category of "Contemporary Choreography" in Asian Dance

Prelude

This essay has its inception in night-long transitory wanderings through Singapore's Changi Airport, as I waited for a morning flight connection. I ambled through the polished walkways, taking in the haute couture shops where the beautifully tailored, finely embroidered kebaya-sarongs are fitted on mannequins that look like young, thin, white, blue-eyed models. These bodies bear little resemblance to those of the many women I see slumped on the waiting room floor catching a bit of sleep—migrant workers all dressed in the distinctive green shirts of their company. I walked through the duty-free cosmetic shops, where the current deal offers yet another free skin-whitening product with the purchase of $300 in other cosmetics. It was also good to browse the bookstore where I glanced at The New Asian Hemisphere (2008), the most recent book by renowned public policy thinker and academic, Kishore Mahbubani.¹ Asia is the rising power, Mahbubani argues, and by 2050, China, Japan, and India will share the market with the United States as the world's largest economies, despite the latter's petulant response and backlash against Asia's rise.

These experiences dovetail quite neatly into each other, revealing their support of certain deep hierarchical structures. Fashion reminds me of the "white desire" that so dominates our understanding of beauty, and the growing trend among global communities of middle-class women to drastically modify their bodies to fit the stipulations of the beauty industry of the West. Indeed, draconian measures—for example, an increasing range of plastic surgeries—are not inconceivable; they are marketed through the rhetoric of agency and access, where women can now do what they need to determine how they look. As to Mahbubani's idea of rising Asian economic glory that will be achieved through learning and copying the seven principles of Western capitalism's "best practice," I can only shake my head in dismay. Jockeying for power is all well and good, Mr. Mahbubani, but what about the tremendous damage being done internally in this reiteration of colonial mimicry? What about the erasure of difference? And how do we begin to dismantle the stereotypical associations and the symbolic legacies that have accrued to bodies marked as "different" through modernity's long expansion of capitalism? I am still mulling over these issues as I board my next flight.

Choreographies That Translate

[T]hey create the kind of transformative effect we normally expect from the synchronised poetry of a great corps de ballet, such as the Mariinsky.

(Judith Mackrell, reviewing the Nrityagram Dance Company)²

In 2011, the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble was touring the United States with a new program, Sriyah/A Decade of Dance Making, comprising selections from works made by artistic director Surupa Sen over the last ten years: a landmark accomplishment indeed. The direct translation of the name Nrityagram is "dance village." Part dance institute, part professional company, Nrityagram was established by dancer Pratima Gauri Bedi in 1990 on the outskirts of Bangalore, in Karnataka, India. By now, the company has managed to establish for itself a strong reputation as the tour de force Indian dance company of the twenty-first century. The choreography is crafted by Odissi dancer Surupa Sen who, by her own assertion, has also familiarized herself with the conventions of Western modern and postmodern dance-making. Marked by the specificity of the Odissi movement aesthetic and traditionally classical themes, Sen's choreography is yet able to reimagine the form and structural principles of this classical dance in a way that "translates" well for Western audiences: she incorporates jumps and dynamic level changes, and departs from the traditional solo format to include duets and ensemble pieces. The company, which regularly performs to sold-out houses and rave reviews in the United States, from the Joyce Theater in New York City to World on Stage in Stamford, Connecticut, definitely offers...