Towards a British Natyam: Creating a British Classical Indian Dance Tradition

The story of the emerging professionalization of classical Indian dance forms in Britain is wrought with contradictions. Though becoming increasingly popular within mainstream culture, the forms lack the clear routes to vocational training so essential for creating a dance career in the traditional sense. Towards a British Natyam uses this lens to analyze the cultural, social, and political frameworks that make a profession possible within the arts. Innovatively drawing on the work of decolonial theorists and the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Gorringe illuminates the transformative potential of a classical Indian dance profession to decenter white supremacist modes of knowledge formation and recenter pluriversality.

Magdalen Gorringe is a dancer, arts manager, writer, and independent researcher. She grew up in India, where she trained in bharatanatyam, before going on to acquire a B.A. in Theology and Religious Studies from Cambridge University and a MPhil in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford University. She subsequently spent over twenty-five years working as a bharatanatyam dancer in Britain, employed variously as a performer, teacher, workshop leader, and producer. A recipient of a Vice-Chancellor’s scholarship from the University of Roehampton, she gained her doctorate in 2021 with a thesis on classical Indian dance forms in Britain.