Priyakshi Agarwal’s dance
AT age 16, Priyakshi Agarwal’s passion for dance led her on a solo trek — leaving home in the village of Banera in the south-east of Rajasthan, India, to pursue her passion.
Nowadays, the woman, the “Feminist killjoy”, sees her ultimate goal in life to give back to society, using her gift as a dance artist. She has been engaged in many social projects that include teaching dance to disenfranchised children, and performing for orphanages and old age homes.
Agarwal, who is trained in the Indian classical dance Bharatanatyam and Kalaripayattu, a form of martial arts, and also practices Chenda (percussion from Kerala), Aerial, Theatre, Chhau, Ghoomar, Terah Taali, Garba and several other folk dance forms of India, is pursuing her research paper in dancehall, and looking at similarities between Indian dance forms and the Jamaican dancehall and its empowerment for women throughout Jamaica and the diasporas.
She met up with All Woman to discuss her mission in Jamaica, and her artform.
AW: You’ve said that you knew from a young age that you were a dancer, tell us about this realisation.
PA: I went to school with instructions in Hindi for 16 years of my life in the village of Banera. This is not to begin from the original location in chronological order and claim any indigeneity, but rather to mark this point of departure as a constitutive condition of my journey with dance. [As a young child] I participated in complex dances in my village such as Ghoomar and Terah Taali in festivals in the village, marriage celebrations, state celebrations… It was quite later on that I came to see being raised in a middle-class joint family of 16 people, the obstructions to my requests to dance [as a career], creation of hostile conditions towards my desire of expression through my movements, the constant demand of duty and care, making it clear to me in no fuzzy terms my role in society — the iron curtain of ‘girls don’t go out’ as continuing the violence of a paternalist society. As a kid I just used to move and move. I used to love dancing like crazy and it was OK for the family, but as I grew older and started taking dance seriously I remember around the age of six I felt “I am a dancer”. There was no one in my family and in the village who danced professionally. What I think is that dance chose me, I didn’t choose dance.
AW: What was it like to leave home, to pursue your passion?
PA: It was very difficult and frightening. My mother was very supportive but she did not have much say in the house. When I left home, I decided to give it to the universe that, “You want me to go back or want me to go and shine in the world”. It was challenging as you meet many people on the journey and not everyone is the same.
Throughout this process of nagging, crying, fasting, looking out from a locked room, countering incredible period pains, moving to the nearby city, winning dance competitions, ducking unending requests for… arranged marriages… getting past that to a Masters in Business Administration in Mumbai, I learned to patiently deconstruct the complex web of multifold violent structure through which I can sync in desire in my feet and epistemology handed to me by my ‘folk’. I was announced as a ‘rebel’ when I refused neo-liberal management jobs. This is when I went to see Dr Mallika Sarabhai dancing Bharatanatyam and asked her to accept me as her student after her performance. She did and I consider this acceptance one of my major achievements — an affectionate extension of support from one feminist to another.
AW: What was it like as a teenager both finding yourself in regards to your passion, and also traversing the new world on your own.
PA: I was the youngest in the house among a big joint family. My childhood was strange as I have been dancing from when I was probably three. I was dancing on every music and was very famous in family weddings and school events, but also it was very difficult to make my family understand my passion for dancing and my will to make a career in dance. But more than that there was a big lack of information. I did not know to whom I could talk about it and ask about various dance schools in the country and how to apply, etc. There was no Internet like it’s easily accessible now.
AW: What have been some of your achievements since?
PA: Well, the biggest achievement is I am able to inspire the young women who want to make their career in dance but I can say every day felt like an achievement. Being able to study in a very good university and awarded as the best student, to working with an internationally acclaimed dancer, activist and feminist Dr Mallika Sarabhai. My recent big achievement was to get a scholarship awarded by the European Union to pursue a Masters in Dance Anthropology from four different countries in Europe. I also performed in Norway and will perform in Paris this year.
AW: What are some of the social projects you’ve worked on, and how have you worked to change how dance is seen in your culture?
PA: I have worked on several social projects like teaching dance to disenfranchised children, performing for orphanages, kids suffering from cancer and old age homes. I’ve organised blood donations and Thalassemia check-up camps, polio awareness, menstruation hygiene awareness… these are some of them. And I think this attitude of giving back to society comes from my grandfather and my father.
My father always tells me, “You do not need to do big projects every time, even feeding someone or giving water to thirsty birds can make your day”.
I try to bring a change in my society by being an example, proving by doing. My mother always says, “Don’t say it but do it and then you don’t need to say it. The whole world will see it”.
AW: How important is it for women to take the reins and take control of their life, in the way that you have?
PA: It is very important to understand the rights every individual has and if we do not take control of our lives as women someone will take advantage of it. And we need to understand the strength we have within us, and here I am not talking about just physical, but mental and spiritual. Now is the time to be proud and feel free as a woman.
AW: Explain the concept of calling yourself a “feminist killjoy”
PA: The term feminist killjoy was coined by the feminist scholar Sara Ahmed. Feminists, by declaring themselves feminists, are already read as destroying something that is thought of by others not only as being good, but as the cause of happiness. A feminist killjoy is someone — could be any gender — someone who feels uncomfortable with the status quo. And the status quo currently is things like racism, misogyny and certainly patriarchal culture. And so not just being uncomfortable with them makes you a feminist killjoy, but speaking up, naming the inequities that are in our world and working to change them so that the world is more equitable for everyone. So you speak up at the kitchen table, or the family dinner table, when somebody says something racist or misogynist, but it comes with a cost…
And I have always been a big spoiler for many patriarchal men in my country and this term was given to me by my brother who is the most incredible feminist person I have ever known.
AW: How did you fall in love with Jamaican dance of all the other forms around?
PA: It’s been quite some time since I wanted to study Caribbean dances. Then several events occurred, like I listened to a talk from Dr Carolyn Cooper, and watching the Netflix film Move. I was also reading books on black feminism and decolonisation. Also there is a big debate that dancehall is anything but feminist which made me more curious about this research. When I see Jamaican women dancing dancehall it makes me feel so empowered; it gives me so much energy. And I always wonder how other women in the global south take dance as a tool for resistance the way I did. I also fell in love with Kumina in the process.
AW: How similar, or different, is your kind of dance in comparison to Jamaica’s?
PA: Well, I see many similarities between Jamaican dances and Indian dances and probably because of the historical connection of India and Jamaica, but also because of the south-south connection. Both the dance forms are very grounded. But I also see some strong differences and I feel that is because of different cultures and political situations. The sense of music is also very different as well as the representation of sexuality.
AW: Have you done what you wanted to do in Jamaica? How productive has been your time here?
PA: I have been taking many interviews, going to dancehall parties, taking dancehall classes and the most important is talking to people in the streets — taxi drivers — and eating local food. It feels good that people have been very supportive of my research and talking openly about different issues.
Though because of COVID things are not the same, I am glad that I am still able to do this research.
