Dancing into the New Dawn: Decolonizing Dance

The world of art and artists is at an interesting and an important new junction. The pandemic and the lockdowns in 2020 have opened up several questions which existed before, but no one had the time or the energy to get down to the bottom of it. The Black Lives Matter movement worldwide has made arts organisations, grant giving bodies and festival organisers realise that it won’t be long before subaltern voices that have been heard as murmurs from afar will gather force to such an extent that all that has been as before will be wiped out. This has led to a complete rethink of how things are done and have been done in the past.

The first act was the turning off the taps of funds by the grants giving bodies to major dance festivals. The reason given ‘unofficially’ was a lack of demographic representation in the choices of the works and artists. With that being an absolute truth a major shift was required. I was recently a part of a focus group that was then formulated to understand and hear ‘divergent’ voices. To understand what needs to be done and how to create a ‘festival of dance’ for the ‘brand-new world’ which will surely be there post the Covid phase worldwide. Being the first one to speak, by the act of me grabbing the zoom floor as soon as it was opened up, gave me an opportunity to set the flow of the narrative. It came as no surprise to me that the moderator within the first five minutes of me having spoken, and continuing to speak, thought it prudent to patronisingly let me know that the “time will have to be shared with everyone as all have to have a go.” As a 47 year old professional educated brown woman this mansplaining could be seen as infantilising my intelligence, but I choose to not be offended but move beyond, to offer a deeper intelligent alternative to the brevity of time on offer. Several points come to mind from this experience, of this talk. First, the fact of why are we so short of time. Time itself lays no restrictions upon us. In fact, our universe has suddenly opened up possibilities of using time wisely, by deep listening, deep understanding and deep hearing. If time is so short, well give each one the freedom to have a go to their heart’s fill, and reschedule more time and more future focus group meetings. Because the fact of the matter is that the very reason we are even meeting this way is because this is precisely what hasn’t been done ‘for centuries’ … and yes, I say ‘centuries’ because that is a fact.

Artists from art fields that are non-mainstream, non-white, so called non-contemporary (so proclaimed by the powers that be) have been sidelined, invisibilised, and conveniently put into categories that I can only state as the ‘side cupboards’ of the art world. I am not writing this to point fingers, or to beat up any section of society or the power corridors. But truth be said we all are trapped in this goldfish bowl that our collective history has placed us into. Decolonizing our artistic playing field will require us to look within ourselves. The progeny of the colonial masters and the progeny of the oppressed masses, be it in South Asia or Australia are still continuing a narrative that is coloured by that historical burden. The benefactors of that history are still continuing a narrative in their respective fields, reaping spaces, and platforms of privilege and ease that are neither open nor available to those who have been historically unseen or unheard. To say that we are now in a democratic set up and that it’s an open playing field, with open spaces for each of us to make a mark based upon our talent and hard work, or to say that it’s not fair to single out people of today who have no direct hand in what happened in the past is essentially what white washing history is all about.

Equality as an idea and notion is all quite great to wave as a placard but the talk here is about Equity. A systemic problem, a systemic structural violence of historical narratives, a systemic gaslighting of people who begin to question the orgies of power on display at festivals where even the brown skinned participants /performers are essentially using the art vocabulary of the white world to gain entry, just a toe hold, just a tick in the box of the complete festival circuit of privilege that is up to its gills festooned with a white continuing narrative of privilege. Equity will require a complete scrapping away of all that was in the past, done as it was in the past, going back to the drawing board and starting from ground zero. That creation of Equity will require Time, Courage, Humility….and most of all compassion for all of us. The ‘us’ referred to is every one of us. Those who have been privileged by history are as much the victims of that history as are the rest of us. No one wants to be a participant of an unfair system, no one wants to be creating cycles of continued suffocation for fellow artists, no one wants to be on the other side of the fence no matter how festooned it is if it is unjust. Collectively we all need to believe in the best in all of us and be each other’s deep listeners as we open up the field to speak and be heard. The creation of Equity is a long process and takes anywhere between thirty to thirty-five years before we can even begin to speak of equalising with each other.

Amongst some of the points to ponder as we begin the process of decolonizing our mindset is to begin to first see the problems for what they are and not be in a rush to set things right. It was the great rush in the first place that got us into this sticky place. Let us stand back and look at our country for what it is. It may feel like I am going off on a tangent here but please do bear with me, it is all related. Australia despite it being one of the socially progressive and modern democracies is still not a Republic. The last referendum came back as a total wash out and we are still left pandering to the ‘Royal House’ even if it’s a so called ‘rubber stamp’… it is still a stamp on our collective national conscience as a nation and as people. Who are we? A continent that has the oldest living known continuing civilisation in the world, the First Australian people, as a nation being forced to officially be rubber stamped by a tiny Island nation in the far away upper north west of the globe. The original colonising royal house that has even as colonisers continued its existence and land-owning rights post its use-by date. The colonisers unlike in India and the rest of the South East Asia continued to stay on the land. So technically despite it being a post-colonial world, we still are in a process of decolonizing ourselves. That requires education. Not the kind one gets inside a university or the schools which sadly still do not even have the courage to decolonize its taught histories and its continuing untruthful, shameful narratives that still glorify the first fleet, and the marauding murdering captains. The mass graves still being unearthed and the research that has come out in books like the “Dark Emu” about the truth of this land is sadly still not part of the main curriculum.

The political scene is a continuation of that same historical wave, this in turn informs the finances and the arts sectors of the country. The inflow of immigration post the “white only” policies from the mid 1960’s required economical, cultural policies that seemed and deemed itself as an egalitarian society. The penchant that the Anglo-Saxon world has for categorisation is clearly seen in its policies. Communities stand united by division. So, we have the ‘community arts’ and the grants that follow, sometimes generously sometimes a bit stingily, which keep the appeasement policies of the old colonial order in place. Please bear in mind, I come from India where nearly three hundred years of this special tactic has created a rift so deep in the community that not even god himself can stitch it into any healing.

What do I mean by this? Let me explain further. Communities are kept happy in their own corners of the cities, regional areas, by giving them a fake notion of autonomy and privilege of destiny as long as they are busy playing away from the mainstream political, socio-cultural and economic field. I shall stick to the cultural narrative as that’s my main purpose here. Organisations with headings like Multicultural, or Diversity, or South Asian, or South-East Asian arts, Ethnic Society – you get the flow – are created to serve the communities in a better way. The Chinese, Malaysians, Philippine, Vietnamese, Burmese, the entire countries that make up the Indian subcontinent, Japan, Korea, you name it they’ve got it … is all lumped in to one grand circus of Cultures and Arts. The immense vast differences in all the art forms, their histories, and the range of styles, methodologies of presentation, pedagogy, nuances, subtleties are all just mishmashed into one grand bundle to serve this grandiose purpose of support to ethnic communities or so they are called… but ethnic from whose perspective? My question: is the Anglo-Saxon world also not a part of that Multicultural, Diversity, etc whatever? And if not so, then why not? So then is the Anglo Saxon (White) one whole complete one side and this multicultural, diversity circus with all the lumped cultures the other side? Does it not look like a very limp sad state of democratic equality equity building exercise? Would you have an artistic presentation of classical ballet on the same event and stage as Irish tap dancing? Or would you invite your best opera singers to sing along side the most ribald, sea faring, pub rollicking country singing? When art forms of such vast differences and such major cultures are presented in a patronising set of multicultural fare it is as ridiculous and unseemly as that which is just stated above.

Where is the Equity? Where is the desire to actually self-educate by a real term engagement? Where is the understanding of the grand ignorance that has been operating this unsightly mess that is pandered out as Arts and Representation? Is this not tokenism? And yet I am also against the grand organisations that speak of South Asian Arts, South Asian festivals because it is again a category, a label, a box … why do we have such a desperate need to label things? Are we in a chemistry lab where un-labeled stuff can be potent and lead to a blast? What is this fear that needs to label art forms into various categories instead of look at each individual art form for what it is, as it is? Why not start an engagement based on deep engagement with each form, going into its historical and cultural roots, subtle nuances and presenting them in a format that does true justice and gives respect to the culture it comes from? The Dance world is specially so divided by the word “Contemporary” and “Traditional”. When modern, contemporary people engage out of their own freedom and volition with any art form does that not make the art form itself contemporary? Art which is supposed to be a uniting glue of hearts, due to labelling and categorisation ends up dividing us as contemporary or traditional/classical hence not modern. 

What essentially is traditional? Well as I see it, it’s a river flowing timelessly and continuously, being fed by new streams that emerge along its path, replenished and invigorated. It is a path on which walked our ancestors, teaching and passing on and then passing away even as the new novice takes over and adds something of their own along that path and passes on something from the past and something from themselves to the continuing path, and the cycles are repeated through the ages, through the times, through millennia. Tradition is the most contemporary form of contemporary, yet the word is used as a stark divide, thrown in our faces, come a festival of dance or a grant application in the world we now choose to inhabit. I refuse to apply for my art form in the category as anything other than contemporary. I refuse to be labelled and pacified by being lumped into community backed narratives. I refuse to be shoved into the corridors of Multicultural, Diversity circus; I refuse to be a part of the colonising narratives that discriminate against me and my art form because the powers that be have chosen to be ignorant and uneducated about the nuances and the vast artistic ability and capability of my art form. For that we need to become each other’s allies by actually taking real interest in each other’s art form, looking, touching, feeling, learning and relearning ways of being with each other. Even as one of the participants at the forum commented that “but we all are each other allies already and stand in support of each other” … I have to turn back and ask the question, if that was so then where are my allies? Who stands for me? Who wishes to know and understand what we do and how we do it?

For ten years even as I started with just two students in the heart of the city in one of the most contemporary dance studios Melbourne has, I have not felt a part of the community of dance in its wider circles. I choose to be in that space so that anyone and everyone felt open and welcome to walk in and learn the art form free from any tag of community or backgrounds needed. We are a complete representation of the demographics of the city of Melbourne itself. Going from strength to strength by word of mouth even as we gained ground of authenticity and acclaim worldwide in our field, sadly not just Australia but the dance studio itself and its community are blind to our existence or our excellent work – being the only Dance group that works through the whole year, without any time off, booking and hiring the studio for the highest number of hours as a totally independent hirer. Organising festivals out of our own savings and inviting international artists for workshops and shows, we have had zero grants, zero adverts, zero free hours, and zero support from the dance community. All we are and wish to become has been slow plodding and us supporting the dance community of this city from the monies we bring in as footfall of people joining in and bums on seats for our sold-out shows. Yet, when the large bucks roll in, the grand massive dance festivals roll out across the many venues, grants, sponsors and supporter’s for the so called main stream dance arts we are left to eat in the kitchen, while the continuation of post-colonial art orgy happens in the dining rooms upstairs. In fact that would be untrue; we don’t even get to be in the kitchen. As a matter of fact we are left homeless for nearly two months, with no space to dance in or gather, and my home with its little garage in regional Victoria becomes our recourse place to go to, when we find no other hall with open dates or spaces for us in the city. The dancers car pool or V-line and try to keep moving ahead with our work, doing what we can to survive in this unkind situation. Where are my allies? Being invisible cannot be a reason. Why I have been right there in the heart of the dance town/studio and dance world yet it’s an invisibility of choice that not once have we been invited to dance for any of those myriad festivals that are organised by monies paid for by the state into which I and our dancers pour in our payments as tax paying citizens. So the invisibility is not a lack of presence, but a normalisation of culture to not see that which is there in open sight if it does not fit a box, an agenda a label or a category, that it serves the purpose of a mindset that has not yet decolonized its sensibilities.

Yet my understanding is that to look for reform we need to create a broader structures of deep listening to voices that are just now being approached to speak, they have a long history to speak about and much to cry and grieve about. Give it time, give it space … don’t interrupt it, nor be in a rush to find the solutions. If time is short, make more time, there is no lack of time in the universe of our lifelines. Solutions that will be based on rushed band-aid ideology, tokenism, and formality will again create a structure that is only described as structural violence because it violates the human right to speak and be heard, to see and be seen. Voice and Visibility is the first step to creating that Equity that will slowly create a society that is based on the beauty of all our artistic endeavours that nourish the society. Let us all join in and start with a new language, a clean slate as allies of each other and not historical adversaries any more.