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Session 33	Re-reading Tradition
Dominique O. Cyrille	Lewoz a fanm, women’s lewoz: Notions of gender and sexuality in a Guadeloupian traditional dance form
	Gwoka is an African-derived dance from Guadeloupe performed during night-long events called swaré léwoz. It is a drum-dance challenge in which the dancer tries to catch the drummer off guard by constantly changing the pace of her or his moves. Men and women assume different roles in gwoka: Most gwoka dancers are women. Men play the drums and sing the lead. Some women sing the chorus, but do not drum. In July 2006, women from all over Guadeloupe gathered together in order to organize a special night for women only. Women would drum, sing, and dance as well. Taking the women’s léwoz where traditional notions of masculinity and femininity were challenged and re-visited as a starting point, I look at the interactions between dancer and drummer during a performance. My paper aims at highlighting some of the ways in which gendered identity are expressed and constructed in Gwoka performance.
Ketu H. Katrak	Innovations in Global Bharatanatyam and Contemporary Indian Dance
	This paper explores innovations in classical bharatanatyam (from Tamil Nadu, India) and parameters of change within “tradition”. Who is making change, and how does change work both in classical bharatanatyam and in Contemporary Indian Dance? I discuss the creative choreography of two major Contemporary Indian Dancers, Anita Ratnam and Astad Deboo with over thirty year professional dance careers. Their dance innovations travel transnationally, South to South, and South to North. Ratnam’s signature style, evoking the “female transcendental,” is rooted in Indian aesthetic along with a pan-Asian scope. Deboo draws from classical Indian dance styles, Kathak and Kathakali, as well as modern dance, and Indian martial arts. Deboo choreographs unique work with deaf dancers in India and in Washington D.C. Ratnam’s and Deboo’s creative choreography serves as models for second-generation Contemporary Indian dancers in the diaspora such as Los Angeles-based Post-Natyam Collective’s movement explorations among other dancers based in the diaspora.
Kelly Knox	3” Golden Lotus: The Tradition of Bound Feet as Depicted in Contemporary Choreography
	The Chinese tradition of female foot binding dates back thousands of years and has had a profound impact on the status and expectations of Chinese women well into the 20th century. This paper explores the cross-cultural collaboration between a male Chinese choreographer, a female American dancer and the intersection of metaphoric movement with female identity in Er-Dong Hu’s choreographic work, 3” Golden Lotus (2007). Addressing a personal and cultural history, Mr. Hu offers a gallery of kinesthetic images that portray the imposed practice of foot binding. What is revealed is one dancer’s psychological journey as she follows in the tiny and excruciating footsteps of her female ancestors. Lotus serves as a choreographic springboard for investigating not only the Chinese tradition of bound feet, but also its counterparts in other times and cultures, all of which represent a global subjugation of the woman’s body.
	Dominique O. Cyrille, is the Director of Research at the Center For Traditional Music and Dance (CMDT) of Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean and an Assistant Professor of African and African-American Studies at Lehman College (CUNY) where she teaches Caribbean history and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the Universite Paris-IV-Sorbonne, Paris, France. She has researched and published extensively on the music and dance traditions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and other Creole-speaking countries of the Caribbean.
	Ketu H. Katrak, born in Bombay, India, is Professor of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Founding Chair of UCI’s Department of Asian American Studies (2002). Author of Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers from the Third World (Rutgers University Press, 2006); “Body Boundarylands: Ethnicity in Performance and in Daily Life”, in Amerasia Journal (2001); “Cultural Translation of Bharatanatyam and Contemporary Indian Dance” in South Asian Popular Culture (2004). Recipient of Fulbright Research Award to India (2005-06) for current project on bharatanatyam and Contemporary Indian Dance.
	Kelly Knox is an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. She received an M.F.A. in dance from the University of Washington and a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts. Kelly taught at Mimar Sinan State Conservatory in Istanbul, Turkey from 1999-2001. She has danced professionally in New York, San Francisco and Istanbul.
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