Androgynous Pariahs : Gender Transformations and Politics of Culture in the North Indian Folk Theater Svang (original) (raw)

Theater in general and so-called "folk" theater forms in particular transpose derivative behavioral patterns onto performers by arranging them spatially within a circumscribed area. This power of theater to transform a person from his familiar, normative life to an altered "persona," temporally and spatially, lingers on with the performer, individually as well as collectively, even when outside of the performance arena. At the same time, however, even while on the stage, a performer is never really an individual in the sense of having a distinct consciousness, for he carries with him a considerable amount of baggage based on gender, caste, and other cultural determinants prominent within the Indian social sphere. While utilizing his dramatic capacity to transform his individual self into another being on stage, performance confers on the actor an opportunity to transcend social and gender boundaries. The present article seeks to understand the role played by ontological transformations and disguises as factors responsible for cultural condemnation of a well-known form of folk theater called svāṅg, due to the challenge it poses to the structural view of life undertaken by cultural purists as stable and fixed, particularly in the case of gender and social identities. At the same time it traces the genesis of opprobrium on folk theater as low-caste or low-class activity, resulting in its relegation to the margins of human society.

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