ISBN: 9789351950974    Publisher: Hachette India Year of publishing: 2016     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 304        Language: English

Until the 1930s no woman could perform in public and retain respectability in India. Professiol female performers were courtesans and dancing girls who lived beyond the confines of marriage but were often powerful figures in social and cultural life. Women's roles were often also taken by boys and men some of whom were simply female impersotors others transgender. Since the late-nineteenth century the status livelihood and identity of these performers have all diminished with the result that many of them have become involved in sexual transactions and sexualized performances. Meanwhile upper-class upper-caste women have taken control of the classical performing arts and also entered the film industry while a Bollywood dance-and-fitness craze has recently swept middle class India. In her historical and on-the-ground study An Morcom investigates the emergence of illicit worlds of dance in the shadow of India's official performing arts. She explores over a century of margilization of courtesans dancing girls bar girls and transgender performers and describes their lives as they struggle with stigmatization derision and the loss of livelihood.
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An Morcom is senior lecturer in the music department at Royal Holloway University of London. She speaks fluent Hindi and Tibetan and has spent many years researching music and dance in India and Tibet. Her publications include 'Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema and Unity and Discord: Music and Politics in Contemporary Tibet'.
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