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| | Article: Bharata Natyam |
 | | When India's Bharata Natyam revival and reform movements gained momentum in the 1920s and 30s, dialectical tensions arose between the separate camps, their ideologies, and their activities; for the "perverted" dance of the devadasi was reconstructed as a nationalist emblem while the devadasi, herself, was legislatively barred from her religious profession. |
 | | For a woman may progress through stages of Bharata Natyam; and in a sublime, performative moment -- a moment that has been achieved by "gendered" agency -- she may rise to the level of the superior being. |
 | | As Bharata Natyam was codified according to ancient texts, the "new" dance became the definer of the "old" or ancient form of sadir; meanwhile, the current form of sadir was claimed to be a "faded, distorted remnant of some ancient classical dance" and denied its place as a dance in its own right. |
| www.rtjournal.org /vol_3/no_2/stiehl.html (3415 words) |
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