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Thinking Allowed: 'Illicit' Dance; The Purpose of War

14/05/2014

'Illicit' Dance; The Purpose of War

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, 'Illicit' Dance; The Purpose of War

'Illicit' dance in Indian popular culture. Also, does war serve a social purpose?

Laurie Taylor hears about the bar dancers and transgender performers who work in the shadows of the official arts. Also, is war ever a force for good?

'Illicit' dance in India. Laurie Taylor talks to Anna Morcom, Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, about her extensive research into marginalised dancers in contemporary South Asia. From bar dancers to transgender erotic performers, she has chronicled their relationship with 'legitimate' performing arts; their struggles against stigma and the ways in which post colonial nation building has excluded these 'non elite' carriers of culture. Also, can war ever be a force for good? The historian, Ian Morris, argues that war, as well as provoking countless deaths & horrors, has also, in the very long term, allowed us to create peaceful societies.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

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