Locating the Tawa'if Courtesan-Dancer: Cinematic Constructions of Religion and Nation

Sitara Thobani
{"title":"Locating the Tawa'if Courtesan-Dancer: Cinematic Constructions of Religion and Nation","authors":"Sitara Thobani","doi":"10.3138/jrpc.2020-0014","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The development of the Hindi/Urdu cinema is intimately connected to the history of artistic performance in India in two important ways. Not only did hereditary music and dance practitioners play key roles in building this cinema, representations of these performers and their practices have been, and continue to be, the subject of Indian film narratives, genres, and tropes. I begin with this history in order to explore the Muslim religio-cultural and artistic inheritance that informs Hindi/Urdu cinema, as well as examine how this heritage has been incorporated into the cinematic narratives that help construct distinct gendered, religious, and national identities. My specific focus is on the figure of the tawa'if dancer, often equated with North Indian culture and nautch dance performance. Analyzing the ways in which traces of the tawa'if appear in two recent films, Dedh Ishqiya and Begum Jaan, I show how this figure is placed in a larger representational regime that sustains nationalist formations of contemporary Indian identity. As I demonstrate, even in the most blatant attempts to define the Indian nation as \"Hindu,\" the \"Muslimness\" of the tawa'if—and by extension the cinema she informed in ways both real and representational—is far from relinquished.","PeriodicalId":38290,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Religion and Popular Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.2020-0014","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract:The development of the Hindi/Urdu cinema is intimately connected to the history of artistic performance in India in two important ways. Not only did hereditary music and dance practitioners play key roles in building this cinema, representations of these performers and their practices have been, and continue to be, the subject of Indian film narratives, genres, and tropes. I begin with this history in order to explore the Muslim religio-cultural and artistic inheritance that informs Hindi/Urdu cinema, as well as examine how this heritage has been incorporated into the cinematic narratives that help construct distinct gendered, religious, and national identities. My specific focus is on the figure of the tawa'if dancer, often equated with North Indian culture and nautch dance performance. Analyzing the ways in which traces of the tawa'if appear in two recent films, Dedh Ishqiya and Begum Jaan, I show how this figure is placed in a larger representational regime that sustains nationalist formations of contemporary Indian identity. As I demonstrate, even in the most blatant attempts to define the Indian nation as "Hindu," the "Muslimness" of the tawa'if—and by extension the cinema she informed in ways both real and representational—is far from relinquished.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
塔瓦伊夫交际花舞者的定位:宗教与民族的电影建构
摘要:印地语/乌尔都语电影的发展在两个重要方面与印度艺术表演史密切相关。世袭的音乐和舞蹈从业者不仅在建立这部电影中发挥了关键作用,这些表演者及其实践的表现一直是,并将继续是印度电影叙事、流派和比喻的主题。我从这段历史开始,是为了探索印地语/乌尔都语电影中的穆斯林宗教文化和艺术遗产,并研究这种遗产是如何被纳入电影叙事中的,从而帮助构建不同的性别、宗教和民族身份。我特别关注的是塔瓦伊夫舞者的形象,通常被等同于北印度文化和nautch舞蹈表演。通过分析最近两部电影《Dedh Ishkiya》和《Begum Jaan》中塔瓦伊夫的痕迹,我展示了这个人物是如何被置于一个更大的代表性政权中的,这个政权维持着当代印度身份的民族主义形态。正如我所证明的,即使在最公然地试图将印度民族定义为“印度教”的情况下,塔瓦伊夫的“穆斯林性”——以及她以真实和代表性的方式讲述的电影——也远未被放弃。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
Journal of Religion and Popular Culture
Journal of Religion and Popular Culture Arts and Humanities-Religious Studies
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
27
期刊最新文献
The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church The Child in the Refrigerator: Narrative Death in 2 Kings 4:8–37 Why Being Right Doesn’t Make You Good: The Representation of Science and Religion in South Park America’s Most Famous Catholic (According to Himself): Stephen Colbert and American Religion in the Twenty-First Century Study on Manse seonhwa (萬世仙話)
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1