Queer Resistance in Mahesh Dattani's Dance like a Man

Abstract

Queer resistance is about questioning the fundamental assumptions of our society. It may take different forms: an alternative reading of a mainstream Bollywood film, publicly holding the hand of someone you love, coming out to friends and family, living one’s chosen sex/gender, embracing one’s body and one’s pleasure often in defiance of the ideas of how ‘manly’ men and ‘feminine’ women should live, protesting against instances of exclusion and violence or simply existing in a daily -lived resistance that protests the hypocrisy of silence around the desires and needs of a community.

Mahesh is exploring through his play two key aspects; the general inhibitions to a man taking dance as a career and the subordination of women in a patriarchal society. Jairaj and Ratna live within such a structure where Amritlal, Jairaj’s father has antipathy to his son adopting dance as a profession and Ratna visiting the old devdasi who teaches her the intricacies of Bharatnatyam. Queer theory deconstructs these hegemonic categories which reduce identities to heteronormativity –gender roles conformed to cultural norms of all –male/all-female and heterosexuality as the normal sexual orientation and which in turn keep the patriarchal matrixes of society in place.