Gendering Dance

Bibliographic Data

ID3351757
AuthorsAnjali Gera Roy (0000-0001-7436-7575, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume11
Issue4
Pages202
Publication date2020-04-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel11040202
OpenAlexW4206401616
LanguageEN
References cited14

Originating as a Punjabi male dance, bhangra, reinvented as a genre of music in the 1980s, reiterated religious, gender, and caste hierarchies at the discursive as well as the performative level. Although the strong feminine presence of trailblazing female DJs like Rani Kaur alias Radical Sista in bhangra parties in the 1990s challenged the gender division in Punjabi cultural production, it was the appearance of Taran Kaur Dhillon alias Hard Kaur on the bhangra rap scene nearly a decade and a half later that constituted the first serious questioning of male monopolist control over the production of Punjabi music. Although a number of talented female Punjabi musicians have made a mark on the bhangra and popular music sphere in the last decade or so, Punjabi sonic production continues to be dominated by male, Jat, Sikh singers and music producers. This paper will examine female bhangra producers' invasion of the hegemonic male, Sikh, Jat space of bhangra music to argue that these female musicians interrogate bhangra's generic sexism as well as the gendered segregation of Punjabi dance to appropriate dance as a means of female empowerment by focusing on the music videos of bhangra rapper Hard Kaur

Aesthetics · Art · Caste · Dance · Diaspora · Electronic dance music · Hegemony · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Gender Studies · History · Law · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · South Asian Studies and Diaspora

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