Is Subaltern Dance Enough? No; I Feel and Think, therefore, I Am: The Past and the Future of Dance Studies in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Following Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, some scholars ask, can the subaltern dance? It is a question worth asking to understand the privilege of dancers. In dominant archives, the dances of the subalterns are not recorded well. Even if they are recorded, they are recorded from an elite point of view. However, it is not enough to study subaltern dance as long as it includes only visual analyses. Therefore, bringing subaltern dancers to the centre of attention is not enough. Drawing on dance studies written in Sinhala and the work of Sri Lankan writers who researched on dance performed by the Sinhala people, I demonstrate the limitation of some of their approaches. In historical or anthropological approaches to dance studies, scholars analyse how dancers look – the visual aspect, but are rarely concerned about how dancers feel – the felt aspect. This paper examines how Eurocentric methodologies dominated dance and theatre studies and discarded indigenous knowledge. Performers’ sensory and felt dimensions have been ignored and devalued due to the dominance of textual and visual culture and the methods of analysis that stem from them. Eurocentric approaches to knowledge have historically privileged the mind – thinking – over the body – feeling. Therefore, in research, visual observations and positivist methods have been highlighted. Embodied experiences and feelings have been neglected and discarded as invalid knowledge. In this paper, I argue quite the opposite. I argue that I exist as a dancer because I feel and think. Therefore, as a researcher, I use my embodied experience, including feelings, to interpret performance history. As a method, I suggest using the sensory (smell, taste, sight, sounds, touch) in performing arts research.