Queer/ing: The artistic process queering Abhinaya
In conclusion, I would like to briefly outline our artistic process titled Queering Abhinaya to illustrate the above discussions about collectivity, collaboration, coalition, and opening an interstitial space via artistic engagement and dialogue.*17 *(17) Queering Abhinaya exemplifies the collaborative interstitial space that is opened via mutual (artistic) engagement, via translation and via looping insights emerging from the collective’s scholarly activities and organizational insights into our artistic practice. Queering Abhinaya picks up from theoretical investigations co-written by Cynthia Ling Lee and I, in which we have been thinking about the intersections between queer theory and the South Asian performance technique abhinaya (expression of emotional intent) (cp. Chatterjee and Lee 2013), (*5) as well as the notion of cultural queerness/ing, which we have been developing in the course of scholarly comparisons between contemporary “Indian” dance in Germany and the US.*18 *(18) A working definition of “cultural queerness” served as the basis for the first assignment of this 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.*19 *(19)
However, within the collective different, conflicting notions of queerness collide and have been negotiated in this process, which, as Shyamala points out, of all the collective’s processes, has had the most fundamental disagreements around definitions, specifically around “queer” and “queerness.”*20 *(20) Our conflicting and incompatible notions of queerness range from asserting queer/ness as a term referring exclusively to identitarian categories such as gender non-conformity and sexual orientation (particularly relating to North American formations of identity politics) to a desire to expand “queer” beyond sexuality and gender-(non)-conformity-based identity politics and pushing the limits of queer as oblique to the norm, going against the grain, for example connecting to the German etymological roots of queer in the word “quer” meaning “oblique.”*21 *(21)
The assignments—each of which was an opportunity for each collective member, given a particular assignment, to emphasize their particular approach/point of view on “queering abhinaya” evoked various levels of challenge and discomfort, which were, for example, related to not personally identifying as queer, and hence feeling trepidation around dangers of unduly representing queerness by engaging with it artistically and pushing its limits, or, conversely, feeling constrained by the narrowness of queer as an identity category. An important aspect, spearheaded in our final discussion by Cynthia, centered on distinctions of queer as a noun or adjective/identity marker vs. queering as an active process. While the disagreements and discomforts around queering (as a verb) were not as disparate and intense, there was also no agreement on the meaning of queering in relation to, for example, subverting, the political and manifestations of activism (Sandra and Meena).*22 *(22)
Looking back at the process in our final dialogue/reflexion, it became apparent, as Shyamala in particular points out, that the challenging engagements with disparate notions of and approaches to “queer/ness” (contingent on our commitment to pushing our comfort zones and engaging with each others’ points of view) opened up a particularly productive artistic space.*23 *(23) This in-between space was opened by assignments that articulated the individual members’ approaches to the project’s main tenets—“queering” and/or “abhinaya”—informed by their geographical, identitarian, political, and artistic positionalities. This, at times, meant confronting each other’s positions, pushing each other to explore beyond our comfort zones and limits and translating the assignment articulated from one member’s positionality vis-à-vis queer/ing into a response articulated from each of our own positionalities and/or cultural contexts. The responses to the assignments at times, led us on paths that went beyond abhinaya as well as beyond queering, or required processes of cultural translation, such as, for example in assignment 3 („Queer Pairings“ – Abhinaya and Indigeneity”), which—formulated by Meena in relation her familiarity with indigenous communities in North America—inspired Cynthia, who is Taiwanese American, to begin an exploration of issues relating to her Han Chinese and Taiwanese indigenous heritages and challenged Sandra to investigate the notion of indigeneity in a German cultural context.*24 *(24) Acknowledging the fact that the process, through and beyond our disparate approaches and discomforts with the topics we explored yielded productive explorations in our concluding discussion we refrained from evaluating the assignments in terms of their relationship to queer/ing or abhinaya, as well as attempting to come to a conclusive agreement about a shared notion of queering or abhinaya. In the same vein, I will conclude this essay with a selection of responses to some of the assignments, in order to give a glimpse into the process.
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/