Projects/Processes: Essays on select curatorial projects from Serendipity Arts Festival 2019, 2022
Various forms of sexuality have been represented through characters in the prose and poetry of In... more Various forms of sexuality have been represented through characters in the prose and poetry of India, in various languages over centuries. The performing arts across the country depict these characters with great ingenuity. Most artists specialise in portraying and performing a particular character, which they hone over many years. A large number of dancers, storytellers and theatre artists depict these characters-male or female, as per the requirement of the story they are telling, especially in solo forms. Cross-dressing with male performers portraying female characters has existed in the performing arts of India for centuries. Cross-gender culture took form in rituals and socio-cultural performances, as women were limited to domes
Our article attempts to problematize the relations between the politics of performance, media and... more Our article attempts to problematize the relations between the politics of performance, media and disappearance. We propose that performance is both constituted and challenged by our heavily mediatized present. We address performances that engage the political in an environment where capital, politics and media are inextricable. We understand that it is not possible to escape the interpellation and penetration of the media in the present. Analysing performance in the subcontinent requires an integration of the configurations of media and technology with that of state and history.
Redefining the public, naturalizing the private: the rewiring of cultural policy discourse in India, 2016
This essay will examine the nuances of the concept of the 'public' as it appears in the context o... more This essay will examine the nuances of the concept of the 'public' as it appears in the context of public or state-funded institutions established to promote the performing arts in the decades following Indian independence (1947). My interest here is in the trajectories of institutionalization and cultural policy-making, set against the backdrop of the political economy of Planning and nation-building between 1947 and the mid-1980s, and the setting in motion of the processes of neoliberal globalization after 1989. Both instances provide evidence of the intricate imbrication of the discourses of culture with those of statist rationality and economy.
Tribal Epistemologies has been a hard book to review, its opinions and methodologies in large mea... more Tribal Epistemologies has been a hard book to review, its opinions and methodologies in large measure opposed to my own. First published in 1998, and reprinted in 1999, it seems to have evaded engagement with many of the debates -on questions of representation, the visual bias of Western culture and philosophy, the imbrications of anthropological projects with those of colonialism and area studies, and finally the teleological understandings of time and modernity characteristic of most anthropological studies that have animated and divided anthropology departments since the 1970s.
In a democratic regime, the arts can derive their sustenance only from the people, and the state ... more In a democratic regime, the arts can derive their sustenance only from the people, and the state as the organized manifestation of the people's will, must therefore, undertake [the] … maintenance and development [of the arts] as one of [its] first responsibilities. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education, Government of India. 1
Projects/Processes: Essays on select curatorial projects from Serendipity Arts Festival 2019, 2022
Various forms of sexuality have been represented through characters in the prose and poetry of In... more Various forms of sexuality have been represented through characters in the prose and poetry of India, in various languages over centuries. The performing arts across the country depict these characters with great ingenuity. Most artists specialise in portraying and performing a particular character, which they hone over many years. A large number of dancers, storytellers and theatre artists depict these characters-male or female, as per the requirement of the story they are telling, especially in solo forms. Cross-dressing with male performers portraying female characters has existed in the performing arts of India for centuries. Cross-gender culture took form in rituals and socio-cultural performances, as women were limited to domes
Our article attempts to problematize the relations between the politics of performance, media and... more Our article attempts to problematize the relations between the politics of performance, media and disappearance. We propose that performance is both constituted and challenged by our heavily mediatized present. We address performances that engage the political in an environment where capital, politics and media are inextricable. We understand that it is not possible to escape the interpellation and penetration of the media in the present. Analysing performance in the subcontinent requires an integration of the configurations of media and technology with that of state and history.
Redefining the public, naturalizing the private: the rewiring of cultural policy discourse in India, 2016
This essay will examine the nuances of the concept of the 'public' as it appears in the context o... more This essay will examine the nuances of the concept of the 'public' as it appears in the context of public or state-funded institutions established to promote the performing arts in the decades following Indian independence (1947). My interest here is in the trajectories of institutionalization and cultural policy-making, set against the backdrop of the political economy of Planning and nation-building between 1947 and the mid-1980s, and the setting in motion of the processes of neoliberal globalization after 1989. Both instances provide evidence of the intricate imbrication of the discourses of culture with those of statist rationality and economy.
Tribal Epistemologies has been a hard book to review, its opinions and methodologies in large mea... more Tribal Epistemologies has been a hard book to review, its opinions and methodologies in large measure opposed to my own. First published in 1998, and reprinted in 1999, it seems to have evaded engagement with many of the debates -on questions of representation, the visual bias of Western culture and philosophy, the imbrications of anthropological projects with those of colonialism and area studies, and finally the teleological understandings of time and modernity characteristic of most anthropological studies that have animated and divided anthropology departments since the 1970s.
In a democratic regime, the arts can derive their sustenance only from the people, and the state ... more In a democratic regime, the arts can derive their sustenance only from the people, and the state as the organized manifestation of the people's will, must therefore, undertake [the] … maintenance and development [of the arts] as one of [its] first responsibilities. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education, Government of India. 1
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Papers by Anita Cherian