Improvised Futures: Encountering the Body in Performance (India Since the 90s)

Winner, 2022 Printed Book of the Year (English), Publishing Next

In an atmosphere of growing authoritarianism, how can we draw attention to performance as a transaction of sensorial agency – the right to be seen, heard, recognized – the right to be palpable? Improvised Futures attempts to frame performance as doing, as fraught negotiations of agency and identity. As it considers the performative effect of a range of ideas, actions and situations that have shaped society and defined cultural expression since the 1990s, it frames the body as a site of radical imagination. The volume comprises texts and artworks by artists, academics and activists, placing these works in conversation with each other in order to elicit new meanings and connections.

Ranjana Dave is an independent dance practitioner and writer. She is Programmes Director at Gati Dance Forum and has also taught at Ambedkar University, Delhi and Ashoka University.