TY  - BOOK
AU  - Kamath,Harshita Mruthinti
TI  - Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance 
SN  - 9780520972230
AV  - DS432.B73 
U1  - 306.4/846081109548 23
PY  - 2019///]
CY  - Berkeley, CA : 
PB  - University of California Press, 
KW  - Brahmans
KW  - India, South
KW  - Social life and customs
KW  - Female impersonators
KW  - Gender identity in dance
KW  - Kuchipudi (Dance)
KW  - Social aspects
KW  - SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General
KW  - bisacsh
N1  - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Illustrations --; Acknowledgments --; Note on Transliteration --; Introduction --; 1. Taking Center Stage: The Poet-Saint and the Impersonator of Kuchipudi Dance History --; 2. "I am Satyabhama": Constructing Hegemonic Brahmin Masculinity in the Kuchipudi Village --; 3. Constructing Artifice, Interrogating Impersonation: Madhavi as Vidūṣaka in Village Bhāmākalāpam Performance --; 4. Bhāmākalāpam beyond the Village: Transgressing Norms of Gender and Sexuality in Urban and Transnational Kuchipudi Dance --; 5. Longing to Dance: Stories of Kuchipudi Brahmin Women --; Conclusion: Rewriting the Script for Kuchipudi Dance --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index; Open Access
N2  - Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance centers on an insular community of Smarta Brahmin men from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu-speaking South India who are required to don stri-vesam (woman's guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Impersonation is not simply a gender performance circumscribed to the Kuchipudi stage, but a practice of power that enables the construction of hegemonic Brahmin masculinity in everyday village life. However, the power of the Brahmin male body in stri-vesam is highly contingent, particularly on account of the expansion of Kuchipudi in the latter half of the twentieth century from a localized village performance to a transnational Indian dance form. This book analyzes the practice of impersonation across a series of boundaries-village to urban, Brahmin to non-Brahmin, hegemonic to non-normative-to explore the artifice of Brahmin masculinity in contemporary South Indian dance.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520972230
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9780520972230.jpg
ER  -