Conclusions and Works Cited
In conclusion, I believe it was fear that drove British and French colonial forces to strip these female dancers of their power through dance revivals, and postcards. The British used the dance revivals to stratify the Devadasis by labeling their movement, and the dancers, as being in “bad taste”. The French used the postcards to create a sexualized narrative of the Ouled Naïl dancers on a global scale, a narrative only the French controlled. This fear can be traced back to the liminal position of these women as dancers and to the historic link between dance and sexuality. This project sheds light to the dark history behind dances many take for granted and hopes to give tribute to the courageous women who practiced them authentically and intentionally.
Works Cited:
1) Ali, Aisha. “ISIM.” openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/17369/ISIM_5_Dances_of_the_Ouled_Nail.pdf?sequence=1.
2) Alloula, Malek. The Colonial Harem. University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
3) “AN ARAB SHOD WITH FIRE.” Wikipedia, 6 June 2005, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Dancer_of_Algeria_NGM-v31-p266.jpg.
4) Bhadani, Gangadhar. “Devadasi 1920s.” Wikipedia, 2 May 2006, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Devadasi_1920s.JPG
5) Drover, Hugh. "LAKME - Temple Dancers (Devadasis)." Youtube, 28 October 2007, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLex0NhIdbk
6) Karayanni, S. S. Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality, and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004.
7) Lobster Films. "ALGERIE,DANSE DES OULEDS NAILS." Youtube, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRWrE823IA&t=3s
8) Nieuwkerk, Karin van. "A Trade like Any Other": Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Univ. of Texas Press, 2008.
9) Soneji, Devesh. Unfinished Gestures: devadāsīs, Memory, and Modernity in South India. University of Chicago Press, 2012.