Performance
Desiring motherhood meant veering into a more ‘girly’ territory, a notion that I had simultaneously been fighting and trying to embrace since childhood. I had understood that to be a feminist I had to be independent, be wary of men, dislike families and relationships.
Just like sex can be happy, sad, awkward, angry and so many other emotions, rather than the mere act of pounding, so is BDSM.
The dance therapy project therefore squarely locates itself as a supplement to economic skill building and psychological counselling, in developing a holistic sense of self among the women beneficiaries of the project.
But what about the “moments we don’t Instagram”? What about the uglier parts of our physical lived realities? What about the parts of our body, our identities, our sexuality we don’t perform on social media, but are still an intrinsic part of who we are?
In a society ruled by heteronormative patriarchal structures, expressing one’s gender or sexuality outside the trimmings of what is socially acceptable is an act of resistance.
Drag is more than a form of entertainment or art form or a form of comedic release, it’s the realization of the fun of being queer or having a queer perspective.
This issue of In Plainspeak while inviting us to embrace the joys and pleasure in movement, also questions the ways in which movements are facilitated or obstructed, visibilised or invisibilised, and the spaces that we must envision to find freedom in/to movement.
Stories hold power. They shape how we understand the world, and if they are stories of distorted facts and falsehoods, they spread unease, discord and hatred. But stories also allow us to imagine other possibilities; they give us hope that we can overcome oppression and injustice.
Are certain forms of femininities denigrated more than others? Not just by misogynists but also by feminists? Is there a particular way of manifesting an ‘appropriate’ femininity, one that is just right, and is not ‘too girly’ or ‘too tomboyish’?
We are many selves. Or rather, like a series of Russian Matryoshka dolls nested one within the other, we perform…
During my interaction with students as a part of sexuality education classes in schools, one frequently asked question by boys is,“How to charm a girl?”
I’ve essentially thought of movement as a kind of freedom, but one that has the capacity to destabilise you in some way. My most creative moments are when I’m not moving, when I am in fact rooted and still.
To think of sexuality as performative disrupts the need for stable categories and identities, instead suggesting that we all reinforce and disrupt normative formations as we attempt to inhabit the world in messy ways.
“I’m afraid because I bring to bed more than just one soul of a scared conflicted boy. I’m bringing to bed a whole army that not only runs the streets within me but also spills out over my body and the body of the boy next to me.”
The governing eyes throughout history have dictated the acceptable forms of the performance of sex.