Stories of Identity: Devadasis and Bharata Natyam

This paper examines the complex identities held by devadasis and the social and political circumstances in which these identities form and shift. I explore the devadasi dance of South India as a living tradition and critically examine the dynamic tensions found throughout devadasi history and into the global movement of Bharata Natyam. I contextualize devadasi identity first historically within temples and court systems. In this context, girls and women were dedicated and married to a deity. This created non-conjugal roles held by women who served as mediators between the divine, influences in court, and rigorous performers of music and dance. I analyze these roles in their kinship structures and social ambiguity. I discuss the abolition of the dedication practice in the 1930s and its socio-political goals, as well as the resulting effects on devadasis’ renegotiation of identity and its impacts on their art form. The revival of Indian “Classical” Dance by Rukmini Devi and other upper-caste dancers is put into tension with the devadasi tradition. Lastly, I examine the global movement of Bharata Natyam from the lens of Catherine Bell’s theory of ritualization to break down the Foucauldian fields of power at play between the dance form and its connection to devadasis. In doing so, I show that devadasi identity is subjectively shaped by ritual, reform, oppression, and resistance, and examine the relationship between Bharata Natyam, ritualization, and its connection to this complex understanding of identity in a multifaceted history