Impersonations : The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance centers on an insular community of Smarta Brahmin men from the Kuchipudi village in Telugu speaking South India who are required to don stri vesam (womans guise) and impersonate female characters from Hindu religious narratives. Impersonation is not simply a gender performance circumscribed to the Kuchipudi stage but a practice of power that enables the construction of hegemonic Brahmin masculinity in everyday village life. However the power of the Brahmin male body in stri vesam is highly contingent particularly on account of the expansion of Kuchipudi in the latter half of the twentieth century from a localized village performance to a transnational Indian dance form. This book analyzes the practice of impersonation across a series of boundaries village to urban Brahmin to non Brahmin hegemonic to non normative to explore the artifice of Brahmin masculinity in contemporary South Indian dance Frontmatter Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction 1. Taking Center Stage: The Poet Saint and the Impersonator of Kuchipudi Dance History 2. I am Satyabhama : Constructing Hegemonic Brahmin Masculinity in the Kuchipudi Village 3. Constructing Artifice Interrogating Impersonation: Madhavi as Vidūṣaka in Village Bhāmākalāpam Performance 4. Bhāmākalāpam beyond the Village: Transgressing Norms of Gender and Sexuality in Urban and Transnational Kuchipudi Dance 5. Longing to Dance: Stories of Kuchipudi Brahmin Women Conclusion: Rewriting the Script for Kuchipudi Dance Notes Bibliography Index