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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 (woman's 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.

Brahmans --- Female impersonators --- Gender identity in dance --- Kuchipudi (Dance) --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General. --- Dance --- Cross-dressers (Female impersonators) --- Crossdressers (Female impersonators) --- Impersonators, Female --- Impersonators of women --- Persons --- Brahmins --- Caste --- Ethnology --- Hindus --- Kuchipudi Bharatam --- Social life and customs. --- Social aspects --- 20th century. --- brahmin to non brahmin. --- female characters. --- gender performance. --- hindu religious narratives. --- impersonation. --- kuchipudi village. --- localized village performance. --- male body. --- masculinity. --- men. --- practice of impersonation. --- smarta brahmin. --- south india. --- stage. --- stri vesham. --- telugu. --- transnational indian dance form. --- village to urban.