Assimilation

Chapter 2 theorizes the flexibility of, specifically, male British South Asian dancers in relation to debates about assimilation and citizenship that (re-)emerged in the wake of the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London. In neoliberalism, assimilation is required to participate in globalized capitalist markets; otherness must either be integrated or eliminated. The 7/7 bombings, carried out by four British citizens, called into question the allegiance of Britain’s South Asian/Muslim communities, which led to hotly contested debates about the perceived failures of multiculturalism to assimilate Britain’s “Others.” The bombings ossified stereotypes of the British Asian/Muslim man as “rigid” and “inflexible” (in beliefs and ideologies), unable or unwilling to assimilate. Analyzing works by three choreographers, zero degrees (2005) and Abide with Me (2012) by Akram Khan, Faultline (2007) by Shobana Jeyasingh, and Quick! (2006) by Nina Rajarani, this chapter examines how British South Asian choreographers countered popular (mis)conceptions of British Asian/Muslim men as rigid and inflexible in the post-7/7 national imaginary by staging more fluid, flexible, and, thus, more assimilable British Asian masculinities. It also foregrounds the onstage and offstage experiences of some of the male dancers in these works and how they navigated increased surveillance, racism, and restrictions on movement in the aftermath of the bombings.

Introduction

Flexible Bodies situates the late twentieth-century emergence of British South Asian dance as a genre in relation to the parallel rise of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in Britain.1 Specifically, it tells the story of British South Asian dancers and the creative ways in which they negotiate the demands of neoliberal, multicultural dance markets through an array of flexible bodily practices, including agility, versatility, speed, mobility, adaptability, and risk-taking. Attending to pain, injury, and other restrictions on movement, it also reveals the bodily limits of flexibility. Theorizing the flexible aesthetics of British South Asian dancers as both a bodily practice and political tactic, ...

Risk

Chapter 4 theorizes flexibility in relation to neoliberal discourses of risk. The beginnings of neoliberalism in the 1970s are marked by a significant shift in capital’s relationship to risk, from risk-aversion to risk-seeking. The emergence of British South Asian dance in the 1980s roughly aligns with this late twentieth-century rise in risk-taking. This chapter examines how neoliberal demands for risk echo and intersect with British multiculturalism’s expectations on South Asian dancers to display virtuosity, speed, and versatility. Together, they create conditions of physical pain and economic precarity for racialized dancing bodies. Dancers’ bodies, however, are not merely inscribed by neoliberalism and multiculturalism. South Asian dancers use choreographic tools and other bodily tactics to gain creative control over their bodily labor and continue to circulate within a competitive British dance economy in ways that are safe and pleasurable. Drawing on Talal Asad’s notion of “pain as action,” this chapter demonstrates how British South Asian dancers intentionally and strategically respond to demands for risk-taking and flexibility through small, seemingly insignificant corporeal tactics, such as enduring pain, modifying choreographic tasks, and practicing care of self and care of others.

Innovation

Chapter 1 theorizes flexibility in relation to neoliberal demands for innovation. In the late 1990s, during an era of expanding economic globalization and increasing European integration, Britain capitalized on the diverse cultural practices of its postcolonial communities to showcase the country’s “cool” cosmopolitanism and global investment appeal. However, the state was keen to promote a certain kind of diversity, one that was legible and assimilable. In order to be considered for funding, South Asian dance had to be both diverse (i.e., ethnically marked) and innovative (i.e., ethnically unmarked)—different but not too different. After decades of racial division and growing fears that British Asians were a threat to social cohesion, innovation was key to cultural integration. Balancing the dual demands for innovation and diversity required great flexibility on the part of British South Asian dancers, including the ability to stretch the boundaries of the form through experimentation; to be fluent and versatile in multiple techniques; and to adhere to competing demands to make work that was both culturally distinct and legible to a wider (and whiter) public. This chapter shows how one particular British South Asian dance company, Angika, struck a balance between ethnic particularity and mainstream appeal through an array of flexible choreographic and artistic choices. In doing so, Angika’s performances not only helped audiences reimagine Britain as inclusive, cosmopolitan, modern, and “cool,” but also allayed public fears about South Asians in the UK as unassimilable outsiders.

Epilogue

On March 29, 2017, the day after I left the UK on one of my last research trips to conduct fieldwork, Prime Minister Theresa May (2016–2019) triggered Article 50, which started the official two-year process for the UK to withdraw from the European Union (EU), more commonly known as Brexit (a portmanteau of “Britain” and “exit”)....

Value

Chapter 5 theorizes flexibility in relation to the neoliberal discourse of value through a close reading of the 2013 dance film The Art of Defining Me. Following the 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures and budget cuts to the arts, artists had to justify (even more than before) the economic value of their work vis-à-vis their “Unique Selling Point.” While neoliberalism demands that all artists frame their work in economic terms such as cost and profit, multiculturalism layers an added demand on South Asian artists to perform ethnic and racial difference in recognizable and sellable terms. Through the subversive power of satire, the film exposes the neoliberal underpinnings of multicultural arts funding in Britain and brings into sharp focus the economic value of authenticity and exoticism in an increasingly market-driven dance industry that prizes difference insofar as it can be made profitable. Taking a humorous look at the arts funding system in Britain and the complex racialized landscape that British South Asian dance artists must navigate, the film renders visible the absurdity of British multiculturalism and funding demands on South Asian dancers, and the flexible, auto-exoticizing maneuvers they deploy to thrive within it.

Mobility

Chapter 3 theorizes the flexibility of migrant South Asian dancers in Britain in relation to neoliberal demands for the transnational mobility of labor, on the one hand, and restrictive British immigration and citizenship policies, on the other. The artistic contributions of migrant South Asian dancers have been integral to the aesthetic development of British South Asian dance but have gone largely unacknowledged. This chapter tracks the various legal, economic, cultural, and political factors that both facilitated and hindered the mobility of transnational dance labor from India and the Indian diaspora to Britain between the 1990s and 2010s. In particular, it examines how immigration policies have choreographed the movement of transnational dance labor across borders, both speeding it up and slowing it down and, sometimes, stopping it altogether. Keeping the lives of transnational South Asian dancers and their experiences of migration at the forefront, the chapter takes an intimate look at how dancers negotiated volatile economic and political conditions. It argues that transnational dancers present a unique case in the study of flexibility insofar as they are hyperflexible: versatile (across dance forms), but also agile (across borders) and adaptable (across cultures). Focusing on these three aspects of flexibility, the chapter explores how hyperflexibility was demanded of and cultivated by migrant dancers to various ends and effects, and with varying degrees of stretch-ability.