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Performance traditions are not preserved solely through archives, manuscripts, photographs, or published texts. They also survive through memory, experience, practice, and conversation. The Performer Voices & Oral Histories series seeks to document these living histories by bringing together the perspectives of dancers, musicians, scholars, teachers, archivists, and cultural practitioners.
Through interviews and recorded conversations, this project explores how individuals understand their artistic practice, training, creative process, and relationship to history. These discussions provide valuable insights into the transmission of knowledge, the evolution of performance traditions, and the ways in which artists engage with questions of heritage, identity, memory, and cultural change.
Particular attention is given to subjects including Kathak, courtesan culture, dance history, music history, pedagogy, performance studies, cultural memory, and South Asian performance traditions. While archives preserve traces of the past, oral histories allow us to understand how that past continues to be remembered, interpreted, challenged, and embodied in the present.
The interviews featured here are not intended to produce definitive historical accounts. Rather, they preserve individual perspectives, experiences, and reflections that contribute to a broader understanding of performance cultures. Each conversation serves as a valuable historical record while also highlighting the diversity of voices that shape contemporary artistic discourse.
By documenting these narratives, Performer Voices & Oral Histories aims to create a growing archive of testimony, memory, and lived experience for future researchers, artists, students, and readers interested in the histories and futures of South Asian performance.
Share Your Insights
We warmly invite practitioners, scholars, and cultural custodians to share their experiences, reflections, and interviews with Re-Learning the Nautch . Your contributions will help us document and preserve the rich histories, pedagogies, and practices of dance across cultures.
Your privacy is our priority: any personal information you wish to keep confidential will be fully respected, and anonymity can be maintained upon request.
If you would like to contribute, please email us at: relearningnautch@gmail.com
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