The Dance

The Sonpur cattle fair in rural Bihar comes alive every evening when more than fifty girls take to the stage and dance for an all male audience. A barbed wire fence separates the performers from the spectators. It is a dance charged with sexual energy. The girls dance, make eye contact, beckon, gesticulate and even abuse a highly responsive all male audience. What meanings related to contemporary construction and practice of gender, sexuality, labour and popular culture can we read in the dance of the female performer?