Performing Arts of Global Asia Quiz 1 Study Guide:

Orientalism

• Concept developed by Edward Said.

• The West creates stereotyped images of "the East" as exotic, mysterious, sensual, backward, and fundamentally different.

• These representations help justify Western power over non-Western peoples.

• Important in our course because dancers, performers, and Asian cultures were often represented through Orientalist fantasies rather than reality.

Memory cue: The West inventing an exotic version of the East.

Oriental dancing girl

• Stereotypical Western image of an Asian or Middle Eastern female performer.

• Viewed as exotic, sensual, mysterious, and available for consumption by Western audiences.

• Discussed by Priya Srinivasan through Indian nautch dancers brought to America in the 1880s.

• Symbolized fascination with Asian culture while actual Asian people faced exclusion and discrimination.

Memory cue: Americans wanted the fantasy, not the people.

International artist

• An artist presented as transcending national and cultural boundaries.

• Used to describe Michio Ito.

• Suggested that art could rise above race and politics.

• Wong argues this status was fragile because Ito was still racialized as Japanese during WWII.

Memory cue: Global artist whose race still mattered.

Michio Ito

• Japanese-born dancer and choreographer.

• Major contributor to American modern dance.

• Worked with W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound.

• Taught and influenced later modern dancers.

• Celebrated as an "international artist."

• Investigated and detained during WWII because of anti-Japanese racism.

Why important?

• Shows that artistic success could not fully overcome racialization.

Memory cue: International modern dancer undone by wartime racism..

Self-exoticism

• When individuals or groups deliberately present themselves through exotic stereotypes.

• Can be used strategically to gain visibility, opportunities, or audience interest.

• Appears in belly dance and Chop Suey Circuit discussions.

• Not simply imposed from outside; sometimes performers themselves participate in creating exotic images.

Memory cue: Performing your own "exoticness."

Belly dance history

• Originated in Middle Eastern and North African social and performance traditions.

• Became popular in the West through Orientalist exhibitions and entertainment.

• Western audiences often misunderstood it as ancient, mysterious, and highly sexualized.

• Revival during the 1960s-70s among American women.

• Used to discuss Orientalism, exoticism, gender, and cultural representation.

Memory cue: A real dance tradition filtered through Orientalist fantasies.

Racial cartography

• The mapping of race onto physical and social spaces.

• Certain places become associated with specific racial meanings.

• Appears in the Chop Suey Circuit reading through Chinatowns, clubs, and performance venues.

• Helps explain how geography shapes racial identities and experiences.

Memory cue: How space gets racialized.

Chop Suey Circuit

• Network of Asian American nightclubs and entertainment venues during the 1930s-1940s.

• Included places such as Forbidden City.

• Created opportunities for Asian American performers.

• Required performers to balance being American while also meeting expectations of exotic Asianness.

• Examined by SanSan Kwan.

Memory cue: Asian American entertainment through exoticized performance.

Restored behavior

• Concept from Richard Schechner.

• Behaviors and performances are repeated, recycled, reconstructed, and adapted from the past.

• Called "twice-behaved behavior."

• Central to Whitmer's argument about Ruth St. Denis and Bharatanatyam.

Memory cue: Performance is recreated, not simply preserved.

Ruth St. Denis

• Early pioneer of American modern dance.

• Fascinated by Asian religions and cultures.

• Created dances inspired by imagined versions of India and the East.

• Important example of Orientalism in dance.

• Helped shape American modern dance despite limited direct knowledge of Indian dance traditions.

Memory cue: Modern dance pioneer who imagined India through Orientalist lenses.

Rukmini Devi

• Indian dancer and cultural reformer.

• Helped transform sadir into modern Bharatanatyam.

• Founded Kalakshetra.

• Reframed Bharatanatyam as a respectable national art form.

• Example of reconstructing tradition rather than simply preserving it.

Memory cue: Key figure in reinventing Bharatanatyam.

Yoga history

• Yoga originated in South Asia and developed through Hindu philosophical and spiritual traditions.

• In the United States, yoga became heavily commercialized and associated with white, middle-class wellness culture.

• Kumar uses yoga to examine race, power, and representation.

• Janelle Monáe's "Yoga" challenges assumptions about who belongs in yoga spaces.

Memory cue: Ancient South Asian practice transformed by modern Western culture.

Black goddess politics

• Rebecca Kumar's concept.

• Describes Black women using South Asian spiritual and cultural symbols to challenge racism, sexism, and colorism.

• Seen in examples involving Beyoncé, Willow Smith, and Janelle Monáe.

• Argues that cultural borrowing can be a tool of empowerment and solidarity.

Memory cue: Using goddess imagery as political resistance.

Productive reappropriation

• The process of borrowing cultural symbols and using them to create new meanings.

• Kumar argues that not all cultural borrowing is harmful appropriation.

• Can become a form of resistance, empowerment, coalition-building, or social critique.

• Depends on how the borrowed material is used and what political work it accomplishes.

Memory cue: Borrowing culture to create positive political possibilities.

“Introduction — Issues In Asian American Dance Studies”

Author: Deidre Sklar

Central Argument:

• Movement is not just physical activity or artistic expression.

• Movement is a form of cultural knowledge and should be central to cultural analysis.

Five Premises:

1. Movement knowledge is cultural knowledge.

2. Movement knowledge is conceptual, emotional, and kinesthetic.

3. Movement is intertwined with other cultural knowledge.

4. Researchers must look beyond movement itself to understand its meaning.

5. Movement is an embodied experience that cannot be fully explained through language.

Key Examples:

• Ballet vs. hula as different embodiments of cultural knowledge.

• Episcopal church postures (kneeling, standing, sitting) express religious values and belonging.

Why It Matters:

• Challenges scholars to study the body and movement as seriously as language.

• Introduces the idea of embodied knowledge.

“Five Premises for a Culturally Sensitive Approach to Dance”

Author: Yutian Wong

Central Argument:

• Asian American Dance Studies combines dance studies and Asian American studies.

• The field examines how race, citizenship, immigration, and belonging shape dance and performance.

Major Concepts:

• Asian Americans are often racialized as perpetual foreigners.

• Orientalism has historically shaped Western representations of Asia.

• Asian Americans have often been stereotyped as"non-dancing bodies."

Key Examples:

• Orientalist works such as La Bayadère and Radha.

• The Chop Suey Circuit as an early Asian American performance space.

• Sada Yacco and Michio Ito as important but often overlooked contributors to modern dance history.

• Shen Yun raises questions about authenticity, essentialism, and Asian American identity.

Definition of Asian American Dance:

• Dance using Asian movement practices,

• Dance about Asian American experiences,

• Dance created/performed by Asian American artists.

Why It Matters:

• Shows how dance reveals larger debates about race, identity, and belonging in the United States.

“Death, Citizenship, Law, and the Haunting of the Oriental Dancing Girl.”

Author: Priya Srinivasan

Central Argument:

• Indians were being racialized in the U.S. decades before the 1923 United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind decision.

• The experiences of Indian nautch dancers in 1880-1881 reveal early debates about race, labor, citizenship, immigration, and belonging.

Key Concepts:

• Orientalism

• Racialization

• Citizenship

• Migrant labor

• Inclusion vs. exclusion

• Abjection (Julia Kristeva/Karen Shimakawa)

Key Historical Examples:

• Indian nautch dancers brought to the U.S. by Augustin Daly.

• Dancers initially celebrated as exotic attractions, then rejected and blamed for the failure of Zanina.

• White performers later appropriated nautch dance styles while Indian performers were excluded.

Important Figures/Events:

• Ala Bundi's death (age 14).

• Death of Saheb's newborn child.

• United States v. Ozawa (1922).

• United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923).

Major Takeaway:

• Americans desired Indian culture but rejected Indian people.

• The treatment of Indian dancers foreshadowed later anti-Asian immigration and citizenship laws.

“Artistic Utopias: Michio Ito and the Trope of the International”

Author: Yutian Wong

Central Argument:

• Michio Ito was celebrated as an "international artist," but that status never fully erased race.

• His career shows that artistic recognition is shaped by race, citizenship, nationalism, and power.

Who Was Michio Ito?

• Japanese-born modern dancer and choreographer.

• Worked with W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound.

• Influenced American modern dance and artists such as Lester Horton and Bella Lewitzky.

Key Concepts:

• International artist

• Race vs. ethnicity

• Nationalism

• Internment

• Orientalism

Important Events:

• Became highly successful in California and directed large Rose Bowl productions.

• After Pearl Harbor, investigated by the FBI.

• Detained during WWII and ultimately repatriated to Japan.

Major Idea:

• "Internationality" provided temporary acceptance, but racialization reappeared during wartime.

• His contributions were later minimized in mainstream dance history.

Why It Matters:

• Challenges the idea that art exists outside politics.

• Demonstrates how race remained central even for globally celebrated artists.

“Belly Dance: Orientalism, Exoticism, and Self-Exoticism”

Authors: Anthony Shay & Barbara Sellers-Young

Central Argument:

• Belly dance is not simply an ancient dance tradition.

• How belly dance is understood has been shaped by Orientalism, exoticism, globalization, feminism, and power relations between East and West.

Key Concepts:

• Orientalism (Edward Said)

• Exoticism

• Self-exoticism

• Cultural representation

• Cultural appropriation

Important Points:

• Western audiences often imagine the Middle East as mysterious, sensual, and exotic.

• Belly dance became popular among Western women during the 1960s and 1970s.

• Many claims that belly dance began as ancient goddess worship lack historical evidence.

Key Examples:

• Ruth St. Denis

• Maud Allan

• American Tribal Style

• Egypt's Reda Troupe

Major Takeaway:

• Belly dance is a site where gender, race, identity, nationalism, and power intersect.

• People from both the West and the Middle East can participate in producing Orientalist representations.

“Performing a Geography of Asian American: The Chop Suey Circuit”

Author: SanSan Kwan

Central Argument:

• The Chop Suey Circuit was a network of Asian American nightclub entertainers in the 1930s-40s.

• These performers occupied a contradiction: they challenged racial barriers while simultaneously relying on exoticized stereotypes of Asians.

Key Concepts:

• Race and geography

• Cultural citizenship

• Orientalism

• Performance creates race

• Inclusion vs. exclusion

Important Examples:

• Forbidden City (San Francisco)

• China Doll (New York)

• Dorothy Toy

• Larry Ching

• Jack Soo

Major Ideas:

• Asian Americans had to appear both "American" and "foreign."

• Chinatown functioned as an exoticized racial space.

• Performers complicated the Black-White racial system, especially in the Jim Crow South.

Why It Matters:

• Shows how performance can both challenge and reinforce racial hierarchies.

“Dancing The Past Into The Present: Ruth St. Denis & Bharatanatyam”

Author: Olivia Whitmer

Central Argument:

• Both Ruth St. Denis and Rukmini Devi were reconstructing the past rather than preserving it.

• Dance traditions are continually recreated through what Richard Schechner calls restored behavior.

Key Concept: Restored Behavior

• Performances are made from behaviors taken from the past and reconstructed for new contexts.

• Schechner calls performance "twice-behaved behavior."

Important Figures:

• Ruth St. Denis

  • Founder of American modern dance.

  • Created Indian-inspired dances based on images, sculptures, and spiritual ideas rather than direct study of Indian dance.

• Rukmini Devi

  • Helped transform sadir into Bharatanatyam.

  • Founded Kalakshetra.

  • Made Bharatanatyam respectable and associated with Indian national culture.

Key Argument About Bharatanatyam:

• Bharatanatyam is often presented as an ancient tradition.

• Whitmer argues it is actually a twentieth-century reconstruction, not an unchanged survival from the distant past.

Major Themes:

• Orientalism

• Colonialism

• Nationalism

• Dance revival

• Authenticity

• Cultural appropriation

Important Comparison:

• St. Denis = outsider imagining India through Western perspectives.

• Rukmini Devi = insider reconstructing Indian dance.

• Both created new traditions from selected pieces of the past.

Major Takeaway:

• There is no "pure" original tradition.

• Dance forms are constantly reconstructed and reinterpreted.

“‘Let Yo Booty Do That Yoga’: Black Goddess Politics”

Author: Rebecca Kumar

Central Argument:

• Black women's use of South Asian cultural and religious symbols should not automatically be understood as cultural appropriation.

• These practices can function as a form of resistance that Kumar calls Black Goddess Politics.

Key Concepts:

• Black Goddess Politics

• Afro-Orientalism

• Cultural appropriation

• Cross-racial feminism

• Colorism

• Representation

Major Examples:

• Janelle Monáe's "Yoga"

  • Criticized as appropriation.

  • Kumar argues it both reproduces and challenges dominant white yoga culture.

• Beyoncé

  • Compared to the Hindu goddess Durga.

  • Challenges gendered and racial hierarchies.

• Willow Smith

  • Uses imagery of Kali.

  • Connects Black femininity with divine power and challenges colorism.

Important Point About Yoga:

• Yoga originated in South Asia but has become heavily associated with white, affluent women in the United States.

• Monáe's work imagines yoga as a space for women of color as well.

Major Takeaway:

• Cultural borrowing can sometimes function as resistance, solidarity, and empowerment rather than simple appropriation.