Dancing Beyond Identity
my name
is christopher gurusami and i’m a
buddhist nigerian dancer
now straight away many of you have
decided that because i’m a dancer
i must be effeminate gay or pansy
you could believe that what i do is old
and creative and boring
that only girls dance or you think that
i dress up like a girl when i perform
maybe you’re trying to figure out if i’m
catholic or hindu maybe an
atheist or a brahmana or if i’m donald
or not indian
or maybe i’m a foreigner or which one of
my parents is the
brown one now some of these things
might be true and some of them false
and in reality none of it matters
because
through my dance i’ve learned who i am
i’ve learned not to be afraid because
well why should i be
most of you might have heard about
bharatnatyam and have possibly seen
it and no i’m not talking about the
dancing in that movie chennai express
some of you might have avoided and have
been scarred through watching
bad performances of endless outer
natures and look
fair because like most things
when it’s bad it’s bad but when it’s
good it’s a
whole different story there’s been a
long debate about boys and dance and i
feel like it’s done
where boys we dance get used to it
but what does it mean to be a boy who
dances better than i do today
it’s very important for me to
acknowledge the privilege that i have
both economically and socially and with
the able body that i have
this is talk from my point of view and
from my understanding
because dance is my life dance has been
my companion my entire life
my english mother learned bharathanatyam
who was a student of my tamil paternal
aunt in the language of khalakshetra
this is in perth western australia
my mom met my father through dance
and after they got married my mother
danced with me through her pregnancy
and straight after having me we both
went back to dance class
though i was an observer i quickly
became a student
and when i turned 18 in 2005 i came to
india
to try to learn to dance in kalakshetra
and 15 years later
here i am talking to you about what i
love
i’ve always danced and if it wasn’t part
of an item it was jazz
or tap or gymnastics i even tried irish
dancing once
because all i wanted to do was dance
growing up in australia as a child i
would put on a full performance with
my barbies very little notice i would
dress myself
in a dance costume for any visitor that
came to our house
my friends in primary school were the
girls from my dance class
and out of a thousand plus students in
my high school i was the only boy
to choose down to the subject now was i
bullied
in school for being a brown family
dancer
bet i was but what if i had listened to
the bullies on the playground
growing up oh you know to some of my
teachers in college and in schools
maybe if i thought you know what
everyone’s right bollywood and jazz is
so much more exciting than better than i
do
i might have not i might not have had
the guts to be here today because it
takes a lot of
balls to be a male dancer the form like
many styles of dance in india has its
own unique texts and treaties
but what’s very special is the artistic
musical legacy that comes with the form
that we have by the hereditary community
of artists
right now is a very important time in
the dance world
and it’s necessary for us to to listen
to the voices of these hereditary
artists from these marginalized
communities
you know as they share their views in
helping us understand the past
where the form comes from and the
continuing
invisibilization of these voices and
their art
now when you dance a large component of
the form is a motive which we call
abhinaya we explore through these texts
a myriad of human emotions and
relationships
where the gods we venerate in temples
become friends
kings become lovers and friends become
the deliverers of messages
through these songs that are three to
four hundred years old
we can try to explain to krishna how
much our friends find in love with him
we can accuse murder of infidelity and
tell him to leave at once
we can tell lord shiva how in love with
him we are in this very room
and request baby to show us grace and
mercy
for us dancers the gods become tangible
the spirit of the lyrics is so beautiful
in their simplicity
and allowing the dancer to really find
themselves within each of the stories
that we have
though through the pieces though the
piece of the
female first-person narratives
predominantly i believe they’re so much
more they’re
more feminine in spirit rather than
practice
for me when i take away these
romanticized ideas you know the gods the
kings
the hand gestures and facial expressions
the costumes and the jewelry
the talents is really about
relationships and in many ways the
yearning of the human soul
for love and acceptance i look at these
pieces
as an opportunity to explore the human
experience
you know as a male dancer who learns and
practices and performs these
compositions
it’s actually a lot to wrap your mind
around
for me as an nri i not only choose to
understand what a woman could feel like
in a particular situation
she has an indian and tone a notion to
fit the time of the peace and do justice
to the message
but how do i do this how do i find my
truth in the peace simultaneously during
performance
for me life and the experiences of my
journey in many ways seem
almost half lived as i go through
emotions i also try to
to store how i feel in that moment for
example
killing my nephew for the first time
open my mind to understanding what
unconditional love of a mother
like your shoulder could have being hurt
by love and lovers are wounds that i
sometimes have to
open up to relive the experiences to
make the experience for myself and the
audience to be you know
true but the greatest joy is being in
love and
understanding how that feeling can
radiate through your entire being
this is the foundation of emotion for me
and then
it takes me to bigger and a harder step
how do i become this neighbor which is
pretty much the same as
what does it mean to be a woman
as a cisgendered man i have to
understand the tightrope
that is understanding and embodying
rather than perpetuating over
exaggerated false stereotypes
from what i’ve understood it’s about
it’s about embodying what a woman
is intent plays such a huge role
in deciding and negotiating these ideas
but what i’ve always been baffled by was
this idea that women aren’t equal to men
women surpass men in my opinion i’m so
lucky to have been raised educated and
befriended
by so many women throughout my life that
the idea that they could be lesser
makes absolutely no sense to me
there have been two women in my
downstream really
influenced and helped shape my dance
ideology the first is lever samson
i was fortunate to be in kalakshetra
during her tenure as director and was a
member of spun the dance company for
five years
which was almost like an incubation
period for me
i got to watch her and process and
create i brought my approach to dance
made me view what i had learned in a new
and
interesting way and brother bessel who
i’ve learned from for
almost a decade and i continued training
with she opened my eyes
to the poetry of dance and is someone
who guides and shares rather than
teachers
these and so many women have continued
to make me feel strong
and i feel lucky that through dance i
get to explore the intricacies of
of the feminine and in turn you know
what it is to be a badass
but at the same time apparently it’s
extremely simple
i asked one of my dance heroes a
lakshman
who really ted he treads this tight bro
with ease
one moment needs another and the next
second is krishna i said one day
anna how do you do it how do you lose
yourself in composition
now i thought this was a profound
question and waited a profound statement
he looked at me and he said you have
lyrics
you do them
why should i be afraid of anyone let
them talk
is this love some secret for them to
hide if i love him
and he loves me then why should be
anyone’s prerogative to say
anything let them talk it is my luck
that i’ve gotten to be with him i’ve
accepted it willingly
how can i hide this love it’s like
trying to squeeze an elephant through a
door
impossible why should i be afraid of
anyone’s words
these are the words of my favorite piece
and the central idea of this talk
a thermal pattern of mother and covey in
bangor from the 18th century
i honestly believe in many ways it’s as
true today as it was then
here the nayaka the protagonist was
walking to meet her lover the king of
this town
noticing others gossiping about her she
cares very little about their opinions
and
clearly states to her friend and anyone
who’s in
earshot now that’s a total badass the
idea
is similar to so many pop songs that we
listen to today
this and so many puzzles in japanese are
modern in notion
you know there is modern ideas that can
be found in classical bonds
it’s up to each of us to go in and
explore
to me this is a very interesting piece
it speaks of so much
you know in this in its historical
context i think that it’s a very bold
choice
of character she speaks her mind she
isn’t afraid of
others opinions and is proud of the love
that she’s managed to get for herself
but look enough about her why do i see
this is such an important piece in my
dance journey for me it has so many of
my experiences
what if what if i had listened to the
words of other people
what if i’d worried about what you
thought of this talk
what if what if i’d worry about what
other people thought about me
and what i do and who i love
what if my parents had listened to
others and put me in soccer
instead of letting me follow my passions
i know so many boys who want to learn
dance but were not necessarily allowed
or corralled into learning different
arts or sports or other
manly things by parents who didn’t want
them to turn out a
particular way still not sure which way
that is but
anyway i’m sure it’s fabulous
there’s nothing wrong with the life of
dance
and i’m so lucky to be on this journey
in so many ways it helps me to strip
myself of an identity
i don’t think that dance makes you girly
or effeminate and if it does
so what that’s your inner truth coming
out and that inner truth in a world
that’s full of lies
a world with no empathy a world full of
misinformation is the most
beautiful and honest thing you can share
and we need more of that today
this piece can be it’s such a positive
message of believing in oneself
it reminds me of a famous quote of
rupaul if they ain’t paying your bills
pay them no mind now i have 1 000
believe that this character would have
said something like this and looked
absolutely
fierce in her sari while she was saying
it it speaks of pride
that love is love and as the beatles
said all we need is love
on september 8 2018 when section 377 was
amended here in india
i remember hearing this problem in my
head and this
like the second i heard the news and
though there are many many things that
we need to do moving forward
what a major step was for the queer
community here in india
there was though there is continued
prejudice and i by no means think that
the fight is over
it was a small step in saying
why should i why should we be afraid
it is this intent that informs my choice
to perform a piece like this
that doesn’t mean to get this across i
need to come out wearing a rainbow flag
costume and look quite honestly if
i did so what but it makes the piece i
believe
it makes it my own i can form the hands
as i’ve been taught by my teacher stream
of the brevard vessel
but it’s when i use my intent to make
the piece speak my own truth
that it starts to have or at least i
hope to have
more resonance and as for me and both
the audience
self-acceptance is such an intrinsic
part of my dance journey
i found that knowing my truth allows me
to live the truth of others through
dance
i believe it’s so important to
understand yourself to take
to take on these characters to give them
life by forgetting yourself
and living in their shoes oh well i
guess in this case it’s anklets you know
whatever
it’s so important that we learn to love
ourselves because if you can’t love
yourself
how the hell are you going to love
somebody else and yes that is another
quote from rupaul’s drag race
i think when we leave the rules at home
and explore without
walls and boundaries that’s when we
begin to understand the possibilities
within a form
down to me is so much more than than
even this talk
this is a small sample of the world of
indian classical advanced forms
there is so much thought that is going
into creating dance
there is so much waiting in books to be
discovered
there is so much happening performances
waiting for an audience to give dance
enough to go
dance dance to me is not for the elite
it’s for everyone
dance should be for everyone there are
the echoes of
everyone’s stories that can be found in
dance if you open yourself to the
experience
that the arts have the idea
of dance as i understand is to go beyond
body and gender and for the dancer to
bring the audience along with them
while looking at universal truths now
look i know this all sounds a bit cliche
but
it’s honestly true for me my dance has
really
forced me to look at myself and discover
who i am and accept my faults and flaws
and to then leave them in the door or in
the wings
so i can i can try to enter into the
spirit of someone unknown
because why would i be afraid to just be
myself
thank you so much for listening