Dancing

with
Gender
Risako Tominaga and Hamza Karamat
 A Transcultural Journey of Dance on Screen

Dance in German
Male gaze and
Expressionism and 01 02 Orientalist gaze
Indian Cinema

The South Takeaways and

Asian Context 03 04 Questions
 01
Introduction
 Laura Mulvey
● Penned the seminal 1975 text ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’
● Critically analysed the language of the screen to uncover the phallocentric
nature of mainstream western cinema.
● Called for a ‘new cinematic language’ embodied through avant garde
techniques.
● The nature of the actors in the construction of this new language are
ambiguous.

Wajiha Raza Rizvi

● Pakistani scholar of literature.
● Penned a culturally specific text critically analysing Mulvey’s theories in a
South Asian context.
● Developed a model of hijr and visaal to underline on-screen gender dynamics
in Pakistani films.
● Analysed the transition from a ‘modest, longing heroine’ on the 1940-60s to
the ‘bold and beautiful women on the 1970-90s.
Mulvey, 1975
Rizvi, 2014
Dance!
Dance on screen has been a potent form
of expression dating back to recordings
of the Serpentine dance by both Edison
Studios and the Lumiere Brothers in
1894 and 1896 respectively.
Metropolis (1927)
● Includes intertextual references to Moloch and
Babel as core narrative themes.
● Influenced aesthetically by Art Deco and
Burlesque.
● Addressed issues of the male gaze from a
critical angle.
● Problematizes the role of female agency in the
famous ‘dance scene.’
● The dance performed by the automaton is
presented from the lens of modern decadence
rather than an overt gender narrative.
The South Asian Connection
● Early exchanges between Indian Cinema and
German Expressionist filmmakers.
○ Meenakshi Shedde: Indian Expressionism
○ Josef Wirsching worked as a
cinematographer on Iconic films such as
Achhut Kanya (1936), Pakeezah (1972).
○ German Expressionism introduced specific
camera and lighting techniques that
influenced the Golden Age of Indian
Cinema.
● The founders of Bombay Talkies worked in
Germany and brought several colleagues, including
Wirsching to India to join the company.
● V. Shantaram’s Amrit Manthan (1934) and Pinjara
(1972) drew heavily from German expressionism.
● Fritz Lang’s two ‘Indian Epics’ were based on an
orientalist German novel that exoticized India:
Das indische Grabmal by Thea Von Harbou.
The South Asian Connection
A Continuous Exchange
Images on the right:

● Fritz Lang’s The Indian Tomb (1959) - Top

● Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951) - Bottom

There has long been a negotiative relationship between

Western and Indian Cinema, beginning with the impact of
German expressionism on early Indian Cinema.

● The Indian Tomb (1959) exhibited semblances of

continuity with Metropolis (1927) with its famed
‘Cobra Dance’ sequence.
● The lingering influence of Debra Paget can be
observed in later performances by Zeenat Aman
and Rekha in the 1970s and 1980s.
Influences
 The Masala Film
● The emergence of the masala (spice) film is
accredited to Nasir Hussain along with the
writing duo Salim-Javed.
● Hussain’s early work with films like Anarkali
(1953) draws a link between earlier Tawaif
archetypes and more contemporary dance
forms.
● The role of the Tawaif evolved through a
more secular tradition in Indian cinema
versus the more devotional strain dominated
by the Devadasi.
Khan and Ahmad, 2020
Khan and Ahmad, 2016
Gazdar, 2019
 02
Orientalist Gaze & Male Gaze
on American Modern Dance
Risako Tominaga
 American Female Darncers
Isadolla Duncan
1877-1927

Ruth St. Dennis Louis Fuller

1879-1968
1862-1928
White Jade
 Kawanabe Kyosai, White-robed Ruth St. Denis, “White Jade”（1927）
Nicholas Roerich, Agni Yoga (1928)
Kannon (ca.1887) American Vaudeville Museum Fresco project I
Collection (MS 421), MS 421 Box 22 Tempera on canvas. 119.5 x 73.5 cm,
Album leaf; ink and color on silk,
Folder 2, Courtesy of University of NRM Archive
14 3/8 x 11 in., The MET
Arizona Libraries, Special Collections.
 Theosophy
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Henry Steel Olcott

[Blavatsky and Olcott] also operated in two

decidedly different arenas. Influenced no doubt by
the Victorian ideology that separated men and
women into "separate spheres" of the home and the
workplace, Olcott utilized his oratorical skills and
journalistic connections to disseminate a more
esoteric theosophy in the public sphere while
Blavatsky relied on her personal charisma to spread
a more esoteric theosophy in the privacy of her
Manhattan salon.

Prothero, S. (1996). White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry

Steel Olcott. Bloomington: Indiana., 51-52
White Jade choreographed by Ruth St. Denis
 Ananda
Coomaraswamy
&
Stella Bloch

Rimer, J, Thomas. (2009).Ezra Pound, Modern

Poetry, and Dance Theater: Transliterations. In
Alexander Munroe. (Ed.). Third Mind: American
Artists Contemplate Asia. 138-40

Siva as Nataraja (c.1800)

Indian, Southern, Copper, 103 x 102 x 33 cm (40 9/16 x 40 3/16 x 13 in.)

Provenance: 1921, sold in India by Sir William Beardsell (d. 1940), through Ananda
Pronston University. (n.d.). The Art Historian as
K. Coomaraswamy (b. 1887 - d. 1947), to the MFA [1]. (Accession date: September
Ethnographer: Photographs from the Ananda K.
1, 1921) Coomaraswamy Archive.
https://researchphotographs.princeton.edu/coom
araswamy-archive/. Accessed on Jan. 28, 2023.
Rabindranath Tagore Vargas-Cetina G. (2020). India and the Translocal
Isadora Duncan
(1861–1941) Modern Dance Scene, 1890s–1950s. Review of
International American Studies, 13(2), 39-59.
(1877-1929)
https://doi.org/10.31261/rias.9805
More Citation Formats
 Women in Japanese
No play (能)

1948- the No Association allowed women

Approx. 200/1400 are female members
(https://www.the-noh.com/jp/trivia/025.html)
 John Luther Long, Madame
Butterfly (1898)
Giacomo Puccini, Madame
Asia in White Women Butterfly (1904)

Fritz Lang, Harakiri (1919)

Lil Dagover (1887—1980)
The performance of Asian femininity
thus provided an effective tool for white
women’s empowerment and pleasure as
New Women. While not all white women
who performed in these productions may
have identified themselves as New
Women, acting on stage and performing
identities that were distinct from their
own marked them as women of a new
generation.
Yoshihara, M. (2002). Embracing the East: White Women and
American Orientalism. Oxford University Press. 78
 Male Gaze
×
Oriental
Gaze
Director: Marion Gering
Actress: Sylvia Sydney
Technical Advisor:
Ito Michio (伊藤道郎)
Ito Michio
(1893-61)
 Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres,
The Valpinçon Bather
[La Grande Baigneuse] (1808)
146 cm × 97.5 cm
The Louvre
Take-away from Risako’s examples
● Movement of Gender roles
Male Avalokitesvala (India)→Feminized Avalokitesvara (China→Japan) & male oriented
No plays (Japan)→Female Modern Dancers (US)→Indian dance (male/female)
● Orientalist gaze & Male gaze towards women in American modern dance scenes

Buddhism non-Euro/America Translations

Chinese n dances with Travelogues
Philosophy transnational Photography
Theosophy movements of Filmography
women
 03
The South Asian
Context
 Defining Indian Cinema

Devotional Secular
An earlier cinematic category A later product of civic nationalistic
dating back to films such as Raja sentiment, combining Urdu and Hindi
Harishchandra (1913). as with Pyaasa (1957).
 Devotional cinema
Devotional films date back to an early
Indian cinema that derived its
plotlines from epics such as the
Ramayana. Visits to the cinema were
considered a family and/or communal
activity.
Secular Cinema
Derived much of its narrative and
aesthetic principles from prior or
concurrent Hollywood productions.
Both the filmmakers involved and the
plotlines avoided outright religious
overtones on favour of more civic and
contemporary narratives.
A Lasting
Impact
 The Partition of Cinema

Pre-Partition Studio Network

Lahore Bombay Calcutta

United Evernew East India Madan Theater

R. K. Films Guru Dutt Films
Players Co. Studios Film Company Company

Khan and Ahmad, 2020

Gazdar, 2019
 The Partition of Cinema

Indian Cinema

Lollywood Bombay Calcutta

United Evernew East India Madan Theater

R. K. Films Guru Dutt Films
Players Co. Studios Film Company Company

Khan and Ahmad, 2020

Gazdar, 2019
Female archetypes in
Pakistani Cinema
Wajiha Raza Rizvi and Srijita Sarkar breaks female types
in Lollywood down into two distinct categories:

● The Chooi Mooi Girl

● The Rain Dancer

These categories are further periodized into early and

late twentieth-century Lollywood. Both are distinguished
by their unique interaction with the male gaze in
variant spaces.

Sarkar, 2012
Rizvi, 2014
Women and Urdu Muslim Elitism
● A successor to the Tawaif archetype.
● An emphasis on submissiveness and modesty.
● Dance sequences usually took place in a mehram
space.
● The narrative of the dance revolved around Hijr
and Visaal.
● Movements and composition were desexualized.
● Accompanying music was often slow and
melodic.

Khan and Ahmad, 2016

Khan and Ahmad, 2020
Rizvi, 2014
The Chooi Mooi Girl
 The State and Public Morality
● The imposition of Martial Law in 1977 by General
Muhammad Zia ul Haq.
● The Institution of the Hudood Ordinances in 1979.
○ The enshrinement of ultraconservative
Islamic moral codes into constitutional
law.
○ The repression of the Pakistani film
industry in addition to a talent flight.
● The creation of the Motion Picture Ordinance 1979.
● A rising number of television viewers which
ushered in the Golden Age of Pakistani television
serials.
● Instigated the formation of (1981) and crackdown
against the Women’s Action Forum.

Gazdar, 2019
Kurfürst, 2021
Khan and Ahmad, 2020
Women and Punjabi Cinema
● The flight of capital from the film industry
following the Motion Picture Ordinance of 1979.
● A change in audience from urban elites to a new
wave of working class migrants.
● The mainstreaming of low-budget films,
particularly from within Punjabi and Pashto
theater circles.
● The replacement of traditional actresses with
new talent from the Mujra theater scene.
● The transition from the urban, indoor space to
rural, outdoor settings.

Gazdar, 2019
Khan and Ahmad, 2020
Rizvi, 2014
The Rain Dancer
Queer Coding
 The Indoor and Outdoors Space

Kurfürst, 2021
Cook and Johnston, 1982
Rizvi, 2014
Reclamation of the Mujra as ‘indigenous resistance.’
Reclamation of the Mujra as ‘indigenous resistance.’
 04
Conclusion
Risako and Hamza
 Map of today’s take-away
The US
“New Woman” with Germany
Asian religion & Art
Lang and Dance in
Expressionist Cinema
Pakistan
The impact of the
state on popular
culture.

India Japan
A give and take No Plays and
relationship appropriation into
Western on-screen
performance
Recap and Takeaways
● The orientalist origins of dance in early cinematic depictions.
● The existence of a network of artistic and intellectual exchange between German and Indian
Cinema, among the States, Japan, China....
● The impact of orientalized depictions of dance on Indian and, later, Pakistani cinemas.
● The reappropriation of dance in the modern age as an overtly feminist tool.
● The role of the state as a moral mediator and the (unintended) impact it could have on pop
culture.
● The use of dance within narratives of rebellion against authoritarianism.
● The negotiation between dance as a means of expression versus the demands of the market,
particularly in the field of popular cinema.
●
● R: Did the American feminist dancers succeed with the use of
Oriental gaze in addition to male-gazes
● R: Considering the feminized East, what included “females” in
American Modern dance that appropriated asian art?
● H: Are the cinematic techniques and use of Mujra in the
discussed films a viable route to break from the dominant
cinematic language of Western cinema?
● H: To what extent should the agency of women performers
involved in multilateral productions be considered when
acknowledging the product’s overall feminist merits?
Questions
 Resources
Rabe, N. (2017, January 3). How the West came to love Indian film music. Scroll.In.

https://scroll.in/article/698491/how-the-west-came-to-love-indian-film-music

India, T. O. (2012, November 30). The German connection. The Times of India.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/the-german-connection/articleshow/21676452.cms

Tilak, S. B. G. (2017, December 27). A German cinematographer’s love affair with Indian cinema. BBC News.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42422599

Indian Expressionism – The Fascinating Marriage of Indian and German Cinema. (n.d.). Montréal Serai.

https://montrealserai.com/article/indian-expressionism-the-fascinating-marriage-of-indian-and-german-cinema/

Khan, A., & Ahmad, A. N. (2016). Cinema and Society: Film and Social Change in Pakistan. Oxford University Press.
 Resources
Ahmad, A. N., & Khan, A. (2020). Film and Cinephilia in Pakistan: Beyond Life and Death. Oxford University Press.

Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6

Rizvi, W. R. (2014). Visual Pleasure in Pakistani Cinema (1947-2014). Social Science Research Network.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2987743

Rizvi, W. R. (2014). Visual Pleasure in Pakistani Cinema (1947-2014). Social Science Research Network.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2987743

Cook, P. (1982). Masculinity in Crisis? Screen, 23(3–4), 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/23.3-4.39