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Between Temple and Forum,
At the same time, there are tacit dimensions of South Asian cultures that are deep-rooted and resistant to change. These might be obvious to cultural anthropologists, but for most of us they work so surreptitiously and unconsciously that we only become aware of them after rigorous self-analysis. These might involve value systems, religious beliefs, language structures, child-rearing practices, family organization, even aspects of food and dress. Some of these influences go back to our childhood and are largely unknown to us. Yet they are, nonetheless, important determinants of our cultural expression and behavior. Our cultural identity is therefore neither inexorably fixed nor wholly fluid. We can alter it but only within the constraints imposed by our inherited constitution and our inadequate self-knowledge. Culture can neither be preserved like an antique piece of furniture nor discarded like an old pair of gloves. In this sense, culture is both given and constantly reconstituted. We might not like parts of it and even when we do, we might feel that it needs to be changed to suit new circumstances. All such redefinitions and changes require both a deep historical knowledge of the culture’s heritage as well as a rigorous and realistic assessment of its present circumstances and future aspirations. |
 Mavin Khoo (left) and Akram Khan rehearsing No Male Egos, Birmingham, UK, 1999. Photograph by Peter Teigen |
A note of caution, however. History has often been used in the search for a deeper cultural identity. Each contemporary group seeks its own identity in the past, while avoiding any fragmentation of identities that might distort its image. It is unfortunate when, in searching for an identity from the past, we limit our vision and comprehension to a vision of the past drawn from a narrow and restricted period in history. For instance, a minority culture in Britain cannot build itself simply on the negative postulates of anti-white ideology. This only creates a self-destroying myth. The point about examining the nature of culture and cultural expression is to open up, in the words of Duncan Cameron, the debate between two distinct stances: the traditional one of dance as a temple, and a newer one of dance as a forum. As temple, dance plays a “timeless and universal function, the use of a structured sample of reality, not just a reference but as an objective model against which to compare individual perceptions.” In contrast, as forum, dance is a place for “confrontation, experimentation, and debate.” It may no longer be credible to insist solely on the temple role. On the other hand, have we thought carefully enough about who participates in the forum? To conclude my first theme, dance is not only part of a much wider and substantive range of cultural expression, but needs to be firmly located in a wider social, economic, and political framework. In particular, it needs to be set against two major processes. The first is the democratization process in which other traditions are slowly but surely taking their place alongside the hegemonic presence of “the great” and “the good.” We are shifting our ideas that determine which particular dance forms are, or are not, worth performing and preserving. The second process, arising from the critique of the Enlightenment ideal of dispassionate universal knowledge, is the de-centering of the West and the rising impulse of cultural relativism. Taken together, these democratizing and de-centering processes place South Asian dance firmly within what has been called a global intellectual culture, marked by the politics of recognition as much as by the politics of equality; by a growing reflexivity about the constructed and contestable nature of the cultural process; by a challenge to the traditional authorities that classify, compare, and evaluate culture; by demanding to enact one's own story as part of a wider process of cultural liberation. |