Imagining choreography as a dissident social practice in contemporary dance in India

Inspired by historic protests in India’s capital city, New Delhi, queer and Sikh choreographer Mandeep Raikhy devised The Secular Project in 2020. The Secular Project is a performance work and an archive that exists as a series of short reels, posts and story highlights on Instagram. This article analyses The Secular Project as a dissident social practice and the dancing body as a mode of dissent against majoritarian nationalism. I critically reflect on the notion of secularism in the Indian context and where it stands in reference to the rising religious fundamentalist politics in India. I ask: How is secularism embodied and enacted by its citizens, both in private and public spaces, in contemporary India? How does the dancing body intervene or help us understand the values of a democracy shifting into an authoritarian regime? I employ ethnographic research methods – participant observation, qualitative interviewing and field notes – with choreographic analysis of the work on social media to address the politics of secularism and corporeal dissent in this work. I argue that Raikhy’s choreographic work not only brings activism and dance together but also exemplifies the connection between individual dissent and desired collectivity for social change.