Ameera Nimjee

The South Asian dancing body is racialized multiply on the American dance floor. While this brown body is held to the performance of culture in a structure of power that is built around white creativity, it also performs a dominance that is intertwined with caste and religious nationalism. Racializing Creativity explores how South Asian American dancers claim the term “contemporary” as a generic strategy to work within and beyond their racialization on the American dance floor. The grant will fund field research toward a book project on contemporary creativity in South Asian dance.