This chapter explores the aesthetics of refusal as it is articulated in contemporary performances... more This chapter explores the aesthetics of refusal as it is articulated in contemporary performances in India and South Africa while debates around the #MeToo movement continue to agitate and exhaust womxn around the globe. In the aftermath of the Indian Supreme Court acquitting the Chief Justice of India of all sexual harassment charges in May 2019, artists and activists are beginning to feel let down by the failed promises of the movement. The incessant pressure to vocalise narratives of sexual harassment preclude self-care, rest and strategic (non) productivity by burdening womxn with the emotional labour of reliving the trauma in public. This chapter discusses the artistic works of Thandiwe Msebenzi and Lebohang Motaung in South Africa, and Vijila Chirappad, Vanitha Mathil (women’s wall) and Blank Noise in India to explore their engagement with rest, sleep, beauty, stillness and community as forms of performing refusal. It examines the workings of racialised capitalism and raises questions about labour and production – who has the right to leisure and who needs to keep working – and how they are intertwined with markers of class, caste, sexuality and gender. The discussion affirms the affective potential of art and performance as a powerful mode of creating community while #MeToo exhausts our faith in the legal infrastructures of the state.
With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Blac... more With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Black and Global Majority people under threat during the spread of Covid in the UK and elsewhere, a discussion of colonialism, migration, borders, and equality – in the classrooms and outside – is more pertinent than ever. Situating the ongoing Decolonise the University movement as part of broader social justice struggles to address the political, social, and economic crises we find ourselves in today, I propose a few ways of decentering Theatre and Performance Studies in the form of a manifesto. What follows is a meditation on precarity, critical pedagogy, Black study, feminist survival, ethical research praxis, and the violence of caste, colourism, and racialisations.
The essay discusses Maya Rao's Walk and The Mothertongue Project's Walk: South Africa to explore ... more The essay discusses Maya Rao's Walk and The Mothertongue Project's Walk: South Africa to explore the languages of transnational and embodied feminist politics that these performances conjure. The two performances are instances of artistic responses to sexualized violence in India and South Africa as they engage with the politics of walking in the city. Working with Chandra Talpade Mohanty's formulation of feminist solidarity (2013) and Boaventura de Sousa Santos's translation-as-dialogue (2014), I discuss the radical forms of feminist methodological imaginations attempted and nurtured by them. This essay examines the political and aesthetic potential of translatability of performance in the world of global asymmetries and the implications it holds for intersectional feminist conversations in the global South.
I discuss the walking practice of Delhi-based artist Mallika Tanejain the context of its engageme... more I discuss the walking practice of Delhi-based artist Mallika Tanejain the context of its engagement with, and intervention in, the contemporary conversations on sexualised violence, gender, space and mobility in India. Taneja’s work is part of a variety of feminist activism to take place in India since the horrific gang rape of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in December 2012. Taneja organises regular midnight walks in various parts of the city, which are advertised via social media. This essay ex-plores the significance of walking as a pedagogical tool to understand the relationship between gender, city, space and mobility in Delhi. When conversations on sexualized violence are acceler-ating in the wake of #MeToo, I examine the contours of embodied knowledge practices enabled by collective walking by women at midnight. I discuss how walking-based methodologies allow for a learning process that is lived, somatic, and personal and which is rooted in specific spatial contexts based on listening and care. Using an intersectional perspective that pays close atten-tion to the role of region, class, caste, sexuality and ethnicity (Mohanty, 2013), this essay is also a prompt against a unified theory of gender, safety, and mobility.
This chapter explores the aesthetics of refusal as it is articulated in contemporary performances... more This chapter explores the aesthetics of refusal as it is articulated in contemporary performances in India and South Africa while debates around the #MeToo movement continue to agitate and exhaust womxn around the globe. In the aftermath of the Indian Supreme Court acquitting the Chief Justice of India of all sexual harassment charges in May 2019, artists and activists are beginning to feel let down by the failed promises of the movement. The incessant pressure to vocalise narratives of sexual harassment preclude self-care, rest and strategic (non) productivity by burdening womxn with the emotional labour of reliving the trauma in public. This chapter discusses the artistic works of Thandiwe Msebenzi and Lebohang Motaung in South Africa, and Vijila Chirappad, Vanitha Mathil (women’s wall) and Blank Noise in India to explore their engagement with rest, sleep, beauty, stillness and community as forms of performing refusal. It examines the workings of racialised capitalism and raises questions about labour and production – who has the right to leisure and who needs to keep working – and how they are intertwined with markers of class, caste, sexuality and gender. The discussion affirms the affective potential of art and performance as a powerful mode of creating community while #MeToo exhausts our faith in the legal infrastructures of the state.
With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Blac... more With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Black and Global Majority people under threat during the spread of Covid in the UK and elsewhere, a discussion of colonialism, migration, borders, and equality – in the classrooms and outside – is more pertinent than ever. Situating the ongoing Decolonise the University movement as part of broader social justice struggles to address the political, social, and economic crises we find ourselves in today, I propose a few ways of decentering Theatre and Performance Studies in the form of a manifesto. What follows is a meditation on precarity, critical pedagogy, Black study, feminist survival, ethical research praxis, and the violence of caste, colourism, and racialisations.
The essay discusses Maya Rao's Walk and The Mothertongue Project's Walk: South Africa to explore ... more The essay discusses Maya Rao's Walk and The Mothertongue Project's Walk: South Africa to explore the languages of transnational and embodied feminist politics that these performances conjure. The two performances are instances of artistic responses to sexualized violence in India and South Africa as they engage with the politics of walking in the city. Working with Chandra Talpade Mohanty's formulation of feminist solidarity (2013) and Boaventura de Sousa Santos's translation-as-dialogue (2014), I discuss the radical forms of feminist methodological imaginations attempted and nurtured by them. This essay examines the political and aesthetic potential of translatability of performance in the world of global asymmetries and the implications it holds for intersectional feminist conversations in the global South.
I discuss the walking practice of Delhi-based artist Mallika Tanejain the context of its engageme... more I discuss the walking practice of Delhi-based artist Mallika Tanejain the context of its engagement with, and intervention in, the contemporary conversations on sexualised violence, gender, space and mobility in India. Taneja’s work is part of a variety of feminist activism to take place in India since the horrific gang rape of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in December 2012. Taneja organises regular midnight walks in various parts of the city, which are advertised via social media. This essay ex-plores the significance of walking as a pedagogical tool to understand the relationship between gender, city, space and mobility in Delhi. When conversations on sexualized violence are acceler-ating in the wake of #MeToo, I examine the contours of embodied knowledge practices enabled by collective walking by women at midnight. I discuss how walking-based methodologies allow for a learning process that is lived, somatic, and personal and which is rooted in specific spatial contexts based on listening and care. Using an intersectional perspective that pays close atten-tion to the role of region, class, caste, sexuality and ethnicity (Mohanty, 2013), this essay is also a prompt against a unified theory of gender, safety, and mobility.
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Essays by Swati Arora
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682761.2021.1881730?scroll=top&needAccess=true
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10137548.2020.1742781?journalCode=rthj20
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682761.2021.1881730?scroll=top&needAccess=true
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10137548.2020.1742781?journalCode=rthj20