On July 8, 2015, I presented a paper, “Cutting Across, Identity Politics, and Abhinaya: Transnational Queerings by the Post Natyam Collective,” at the International Federation for Theatre Research conference at the University of Hyderabad in Hyderabad, India.

Abstract: This paper gestures towards emergent, transnational notions of queering by analyzing selected choreographic studies from Queering Abhinaya, a process-based collaboration of the Post Natyam Collective.  The Post Natyam Collective is a web-based coalition of women dance artists critically and creatively interrogating South Asian performance.  Queering Abhinaya engages in praxis-based research on queering, queerness, and abhinaya through an open-ended, dialogical, and collective process mediated by internet technologies.  Grounded in the embodied affective techniques of Indian abhinaya, we examine notions of queering beyond the borders of North American identity politics to include German notions of quer (“oblique,” or going against the grain) and South Asian embodiments of gender fluidity and erotic possibility that are distinct from performing western LGBT identities.  As our primary aesthetic technique, we draw on an expanded notion of abhinaya, usually associated with Indian classical dancers interpreting love poetry through gesture and facial expression.