Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the construction of Indian nationalism in and through dance, but from an oblique perspective: by examining forms that have never made it to the stage. What implicit constructions of aesthetics, the emotions, and of religion, can be found by exploring attam in Tamil Nadu?

Paper long abstract:

'Attam covers an integral aspect of Tamil constructions of the body, a term derived from the Tamil verb meaning 'perform' or 'dance'. Yet it is not a figure on the stage of nationalism, either at the regional or national level. What does a phenomenological exploration of attam and of its unacceptability, reveal to us about the implicit aesthetics and affect that underlie the cultural practices that have been taken and recognized by the nation state as 'dance' in the twentieth century? Indeed, how does attam, which figures as in various states where there is no recognizable subject, challenge conventional understandings even of what it means to 'perform'?