Gender and performance: The reinvention of mohiniyattam in early twentieth-century Kerala

Abstract

This article is an attempt to look at the practices and discourses of gendering the body within the site of a particular dance form-Mohiniyattam. Mohiniyattam is considered to be the classical dance form of women of Kerala. It is understood as a 'feminine' or lasya style of dance, based on its use of body movements. Currently, Mohiniyattam is being represented as the heightened version of the ideal Kerala/Malayalee woman's identity and femininity through tourism advertisements, films and other popular representations. This article traces the process of gendering which had gone into the reinvention of Mohiniyattam in the 1930s. It tries to see whether the reinvention of Mohiniyattam was a reimagining and refashioning of the Malayalee woman's identity. It also reads how training the body for a dance form overlaps with instructions for disciplining the female body to be ideally feminine. It is interesting to see how Mohiniyattam produces, defines and sustains a gender ideal for a regional feminine identity through bodily practices. The effort is to see how the dancer's body and her movements are constructed, and how it spills over into the shaping of female bodies within a particular culture and history.