Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor at Highways Performance Space and Gallery

This interactive multimedia duet between Ramya Harishankar and Dr. Priya Srinivasan explores the ways that performance as research can come alive. Based on Srinivasan's book, Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor, which examines the history of Indian dance from 1880 to the present in the US in relation to restrictive anti-Asian immigration policies (1924-1965). The performance features her long relationship with Harishankar, her students and teaching processes while questioning dance not just as an aesthetic form but its relationship to socio-political, historical, cultural, racialized and gendered forms of power. While audiences of Bharata Natyam often see dance as a polished end product, Sweating Saris exposes dance as a form of labor. Using postmodern frameworks and structured improvisation (which is part of both Indian and contemporary dance), the work unpacks what is often unsaid "behind the scenes," including the ways in which the book was created. Enjoy the show at Santa Monica's Highways Performance Space and Gallery.