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Rethinking Collective Artistic Production

“Yes to process!” Constituting a virtual interstitial space via translation and Looping

Challenges for the collective have been our geographic dispersal, the difficulties to raise funding and produce visibility for transnational contemporary choreographic works that engage with non-Euro-American aesthetic and movement forms, the uneven local support structures available to the individual members, as well as cultural and aesthetic differences that are heightened as we consciously engage with our local surroundings and contexts. Our shared and highly structured artistic process, which includes giving each other assignments, posting artistic raw materials on our blog*13 *(13) (which we have called our online open rehearsal studio), giving each other feedback and support, as well as entering into dialogues and disagreements, has facilitated the creation of a shared, in-between space constituted by the individual members’ studies and ideas in dialogue with each other.*14 *(14) It is a space created through and for our transnational negotiations, a space for expanding and testing the limits of ideas and meanings, re-articulating non-essentialized identities and cultural difference.
My notion of an “in-between space” is informed by postcolonial theoretician Homi Bhabha’s theorizations of interstitial and in-between spaces, the “realm of the beyond” (Bhabha 1994: 1), (*1) an “interstitial passage between fixed identifications [that] opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy” (Bhabha 1994: 4). (*1)

Processes of translation (I am conceptualizing translation broadly here, as translation between languages, cultural translation, and translations of artistic methods, approaches and materials, passed down or created within the collective’s long-distance process), I believe, is crucial for establishing the Post Natyam Collective’s in-between space for and through our artistic process and dialogues. We make a conscious effort to negotiate and interweave local contexts and their differences, which get consolidated in the collaborative process via discussion and engagement with each other’s artistic studies. At times, we actively translate each other’s materials, questions, and arguments into the different cultural contexts that collective members operate in. The members are free to develop aspects or elements from the process individually or in small groups into projects/products such as performances, papers, talks, videos, etc., that circulate locally or virtually. Via posting and commenting on our blog, our “local” or small group translations, which spin out from the joint process, are virtually “looped back” into the shared space.

Similar to literature on collective authorship, as well as Derrida’s notion of authorship as Ziemer utilizes it, we have thought about translation in the past as a choreographic approach that is opposed to a notion of choreography as a singular act of innovation. With our emphases on translation and recycling, on the other hand, we are “rewriting the choreographer as translator rather than author” (Chatterjee and Lee 2009: 150). (*9) Translation, therefore, for us, has to do with engagements with and re-contextualizations of received materials and insights, meanings, approaches, concepts that emerge from new connections that are being drawn (cp. Chatterjee and Lee 2009). (*9) For Bhabha’s “beyond,” too, translation is crucial. Shaobo Xie summarizes in a review of Bhabha’s The Location of Culture:

Living in the interstices of culture and history, he maintains, the subject of cultural differences assumes the status of what Walter Benjamin describes as the element of resistance in the process of translation (224). In translation there are many interstitial points of meaning whose determination is also a violation. In much the same way, the ambivalent migrant culture, the interstitial minority position, ‘dramatizes the activity of culture’s untranslatability’ (224), and therefore reveals the indeterminate temporalities of the in-between. (1996: 162) (*1)*15 *(15)

The notion of an in-between space also resonates with Hannah Arendt’s notion of “Erscheinungsraum“ (space of appearance),*16 *(16) which Irit Rogoff connects to the realm of art in her article on collectivities and mutualities. However, Arendt’s “’Erscheinungsraum’—the spatial in-between in which people appear in front of each other,” is temporal and “does not last beyond the actions in which it started to exist“ (Arendt in Rogoff 2002: 58, my translation), (*15) which is in tension with the permanence that is created by our blog. But, Arendt also argues that through action and speaking, one can create a spatial in-betweenness, that is not tied to a home and can settle anew anywhere in the world (ibid.). This aspect of “Erscheinungsraum,“ I believe, can connect to Post Natyam’s system of creating local “products” out of the shared process, which circulate and temporarily interface local audiences with our transnational process. The challenge here is to undo patterns of presenting and reception that easily relegate transnational and collective dimensions into the background.

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Bergquist, Magnus (2003): Open Source Software Development as Gift Culture: Work and Identity Formation in an Internet Community. In: Garsten, Christina/Wulff, Helena (eds.): New Technologies at Work: people, screens, and social virtuality: Oxford and New York: Berg, pp. 223–241.

Chatterjee, Sandra/Ling Lee, Cynthia (2013): Internet, Intermedia and Consensual Collaboration: Blogging Choreography by the Post Natyam Collective. In: Digital Proceedings: Canadian Society of Dance Studies’ Conference 2012. http://csds-sced.ca/English/Resources/ChatterjeeLee.pdf

Chatterjee, Sandra/Ling Lee, Cynthia (2012a): Choreographing Coalition in Cyberspace: Post Natyam Collective’s Politico-Aesthetic Negotiations. In: Zobl, Elke/Drüeke, Ricarda (eds.): Feminist Media: Participatory Spaces, Networks and Cultural Citizenship. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 146–157.

Chatterjee, Sandra and Cynthia Ling Lee (2012b): Initiate, Transform, Sustain, Reach Out: Post Natyam Collective Members Reflect on Long-Distance Collaboration. In: p/art/icipate – Kultur aktiv gestalten # 01, https://www.p-art-icipate.net/initiate-transform-sustain-reach-out-post-natyam-collective-members-reflect-on-long-distance-collaboration/ (accessed 15/6/2015).

* 1

Cynthia Ling Lee and I have dialogically retraced this development (2004–2012) in a previous issue of this ejournal (Chatterjee and Ling Lee 2012): https://www.p-art-icipate.net/initiate-transform-sustain-reach-out-post-natyam-collective-members-reflect-on-long-distance-collaboration/)

* 5

Here we encounter a parallel moment of untranslatability: Ziemer focuses on the German noun Komplizenschaft, which translates into English as complicity. The English noun complicity, however, resonates differently than the German Komplizenschaft does, as it has already been redefined beyond the legal realm for critical contexts of resistance and is used to refer to various modes of participation in the perpetuation of hegemonic structures. In a recent article on female complicity, Guiliana Monteverde provides the following definition for herself, which resonates with my understanding: “The definition of complicity advanced here refers to the broad notion of participation in a practice, belief, behaviour, or understanding that can lead to oppression, discrimination, or exploitation of your own or another group (group here is a loose term referring to identity politics; I acknowledge that all people cross several identity groups).” (Monteverde 2014: 63-64).
The English accomplices and “partners in crime” are similar to the German “Komplizen”—but do not describe the state of the relationship that is discussed in Komplizenschaft.
In my considerations I will hence use the invented translation “accomplice-ship.”

* 6

These reflections on the collective draw extensively on materials that were written prior to 2014, when there was a change in membership: Anjali Tata is at the moment not a member of the collective, and Meena Murugesan joined since then. The extensive citations of co-written material come out of an effort at creating a text that is infused with multivocality.

* 7

All the members of the collective have studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Los Angeles, UCLA, and the grassroots (politicized) art scene of Los Angeles are part of the context out of which the collective emerged. Geographic dispersal happened over time.

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Taiwanese-American, mixed heritage Indian-American, Indian-Canadian, and mixed heritage German-Indian; queer and allies/accomplices. Meena Murugesan has pointed out the shared identity category “of color” in the process of revisiting our manifesto with her as the most recent member.

* 9

Exploring the (identity political and historical) differences of notions of community, collectivity and collaboration in the transnational contexts Post Natyam operates in (USA, Germany/Austria, [South] Asia, Taiwan), will be important and necessary, but goes beyond the scope of this article.

* 10

In a recent internet “provocation,” which Cynthia has pointed out to me while reading a draft of this paper, the term accomplices is proposed to substitute “allies” in a critique of the “ally industrial complex” (Accomplices, not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex, 4 May 2014. Online at: http://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/ (accessed 20 August 2015). The critique targets allies, who “advance their careers off the struggles they ostensibly support [… ] in the guise of ‘grassroots’ or ‘community-based’” work (Ibid.). Accomplices, on the other hand, share the risk. The provocation defines accomplices:
Accomplices listen with respect for the range of cultural practices and dynamics that exists within various Indigenous communities.
Accomplices aren’t motivated by personal guilt or shame, they may have their own agenda but they are explicit.
Accomplices are realized through mutual consent and build trust. They don’t just have our backs, they are at our side, or in their own spaces confronting and unsettling colonialism. As accomplices we are compelled to become accountable and responsible to each other, that is the nature of trust (ibid.).

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See Chatterjee, Sandra with contributions from Cynthia Lee, Shyamala Moorty, and Anjali Tata (2009), “Case Study: The Post Natyam Collective—Towards sustainable, transnational, collective practice,” in Gesa Birnkraut, Karin Wolf (ed.), Kulturmanagement konkret: Interdisziplinäre Positionen und Perspektiven, 03/2009, Hamburg: Institut für Kulturkonzepte Hamburg, e.V., Eigenverlag), 101–107.

* 16

“Dies räumliche Zwischen ist der Erscheinungsraum im weitesten Sinne, der Raum, der dadurch entsteht, daß Menschen voreinander erscheinen und in dem sie nicht nur vorhanden sind wie andere belebte oder leblose Dinge, sondern ausdrücklich in Erscheinung treten“ (Arendt in Rogoff 2002: 58)

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We have first developed our thoughts around “cultural queerness” in the joint conference presentations: Chatterjee, Sandra and Cynthia Ling Lee, “Decentering Nationalist Discourses and Remapping Identity in Contemporary (Indian) Dance.” SDHS/CORD Conference, Riverside, CA, USA. 15–17. November 2013. Presented by Cynthia Ling Lee. We are further discussing and developing the notion in our forthcoming article: Chatterjee, Sandra and Cynthia Ling Lee (forthcoming): “’our love was not enough’: queering desire, gender, and cultural belonging in contemporary abhinaya,” in Clare Croft (ed.), Meanings and Makings of Queer Dance. Under contract with Oxford University Press, projected publication date: 2017.

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Assignment One: Queering Cultural Memory

“We (Cynthia and Sandra) have been formulating a theoretical concept, “cultural queerness,” which we’d like to use as the inspiration for this assignment. Here is a working definition (still in process): “Cultural queerness refers to the disruption of a dominant essentialized cultural norm in a way that complicates notions of cultural authenticity, cultural appropriation and identity-based representation. It aims to undo the easy equation between nation, race, and cultural/artistic production without ignoring uneven power hierarchies or histories of inequality.”
Think of a personal memory of feeling uncomfortable with a dominant essentialized cultural norm. For instance, Cynthia might address how it feels to be a non-Indian classical kathak dancer, while Sandra might reflect on a “relegation to Indianness” and the resulting exclusion from Germanness.
Explore this memory through a 10 minute free-write. Translate the memory into a subversive artistic or embodied product (such as choreography, writing, dance-for-camera, photos, etc…).”
http://www.postnatyam.net/work/queering-abhinaya/ (accessed 27 June 2015)

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Assignment Two (created by Sandra): Abhinaya as a Tool for Queering

“This assignment focuses on utilizing techniques and compositional strategies associated with abhinaya for queering beyond a Indian/South Asian context. Therefore, I would like you to focus on an aspect of your work, which explores a context/content/form that is not Indian/South Asian. This could, for example, be a study inspired by a specific cultural context (i.e. in my case the German context of the integration debate), by a narrative set in a specific cultural context, or a formal/aesthetic exploration/deconstruction (i.e. in the German context: a deconstruction of conceptual dance).” http://www.postnatyam.net/work/queering-abhinaya/ (accessed 27 June 2015)

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Assignment Three (created by Meena): “Queer Pairings” – Abhinaya and Indigeneity

“This assignment is inspired and informed by a talk I went to given by Professor Gayatri Gopinath at UCLA on April 17th, 2014 as part of Professors Anurima Banerji and Sue-Ellen Case’s course “Queer Performance and Politics.” Gopinath used queer theory as a tool of analysis (not as a term of identity) to connect diasporic communities and indigenous peoples as part of the same colonial expansionist project that among other things, attempts to contain and police racialized bodies (often literally i.e., low income housing projects and residential schools were mentioned). Gopinath analyzed the work of visual artists Tracey Moffatt (Australian Aboriginal) and Sehar Shah (Pakistani US) to develop a strategy that was termed as a “queer pairing” in order to talk about braided histories and non-normative bodies. For this assignment: 1) Choose an indigenous artist (the artist identifies as indigenous) that works with any medium – photography, sculpture, movement, performance, film, sound, poetry etc. I am most familiar with indigenous communities in North America so First Nations, Native, Aboriginal. However, please invite into this assignment what indigenous might mean in relation to places you have lived – Germany, India, Taiwan, Hawaii or other places. I am interested in this idea of home – who used to (and still) call the places we now call home, home?” http://www.postnatyam.net/work/queering-abhinaya/ (accessed 20 August 2015)

Sandra Chatterjee ( 2015): Rethinking Collective Artistic Production. In: p/art/icipate – Kultur aktiv gestalten # 06 , https://www.p-art-icipate.net/rethinking-collective-artistic-production/

Erstellt am 08.Okt 2015

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Sandra Chatterjee

Sandra Chatterjee is a choreographer and cultural studies/performance studies scholar who combines her interests of choreographing, writing, and organizing. She is currently a postdoctoral research assistant at the Department of Art, Music and Dance studies at the University of Salzburg. In her choreography she draws on her training in classical Indian dance – Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam – Polynesian dance, modern/postmodern dance, and yoga. She is a recipient of the Hawaii State Dance Council’s Choreographic Award and Cultural Preservation Award and holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. As an independent choreographer she primarily performs in India and Europe, creating solo work, working with the Post Natyam Collective, and engaging in collaborations with artists such as Eko Supriyanto (Surakarta), P. Senthilkumar (Vienna) and Aditi Biswas (New Delhi). She has been a visiting scholar teaching at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures and has completed a diploma in Arts and Organisation in Vienna, Austria (University of Vienna and Institut für Kulturkonzepte).

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Rethinking Collective Artistic Production

“Yes to process!” Constituting a virtual interstitial space via translation and Looping