Bloomsbury Dance and the Secular: Embodiment as Political Imagination (Dance in Dialogue)

This volume draws on a travelling venture called The Secular Project, which travelled across India as well as within the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Vatican City, Italy and Greece, and deliberately chose to address the secular through the moving body. The question of the secular has so far been studied in philosophy, theology and law departments. Rarely has the secular been imagined, configured and negotiated through the moving body. The Secular Projects catalyst was the recent wave of Hindu nationalism engulfing Indias socio-political landscape and set out to explore the experience of creating and performing various iterations of the secular in different global contexts through dance, movement and performance with over 200 collaborators across the world. Drawing from this far-reaching project, the book offers a range of performative reflections on the subject. In addition to the editors overview of the scope of The Secular Project, throughout the book are short, curated dialogues with a diverse selection of cultural practitioners, including dancers, choreographers, directors, film-makers and more, who engaged with the project in various capacities. The form of these dialogues captured here range from WhatsApp messages, email exchanges, photo essays, transcribed conversations, short essays, Q & As and dialogues via multi-modal AI to notes and even doodles. Overall, the book demonstrates the transformative potential of moving bodies and their ability to galvanise collective action globally and across generations.