‘C.Tactile’: This dance show reflects on politics and power of touch
Shruti Maria Datar’s 45-minute contemporary dance piece ‘C.Tactile’, being performed in Delhi this weekend, examines how touch shapes women and their view of the world
Physically abused as a teenager, I wonder sometimes if many of my life’s choices have been shaped by how I was—and wasn’t—touched. If only the touch of someone else—a parent, sibling, friend, stranger—had been different, could I have been someone other than who I am? I think about these life episodes while conversing with choreographer Shruti Maria Datar. She has been unravelling the complexity of touch, while touring the country with C.Tactile, a 45-minute dance performance that investigates touch as a personal and socio-political act.
The piece took two-and-a-half years to conceptualise and has been shown in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Santiniketan. In Delhi, it is being presented on 2 November at Odd Bird Theatre, after which Datar takes it to Goa and Kochi. The seed of C.Tactile—named after C-tactile afferents, the nerve receptors in our skin that respond to soft touch—was planted when her niece was born in 2020, and developed further as part of a KCC Arts Fellowship she received in 2023-24.
Datar, 35, began to exploring the contradictory ideas of social distancing and touch deprivation, and eventually moved on to the idea of street sexual harassment and agency for women in public spaces. Datar worked with movement collaborator Melitta D’Souza to create a dance piece to indicate how urban women often “switched to performative modes, particularly in crowded spaces to protect themselves". Datar says these mannerisms seem identically choreographed to navigate and process aggressive, uncomfortable touch. She gives an example of how, as a college student in Mumbai, she would cover her chest with her bag, turning her body a certain way to protect herself. Later, she noticed other women, using bags as props to shield themselves.
After conducting interviews and workshops in Mumbai, she came to one conclusion: men in public spaces prioritised protecting their belongings, while women prioritised protecting their bodies. “Most women I’d interviewed said their bodies were their belongings, and that’s what we want to protect," says Datar. “Someone stealing your wallet will not give you as much trauma as someone groping you in a bus. That’s going to stay with you forever."
During our conversation, we also reflect on how families need to learn how to affectionately comfort and soothe children through gentle touch. “In Santiniketan, someone told us how our exercise in touch transported her to a happy childhood memory of her mother reading a bedtime story to her," says Datar.
A trained Bharatnatyam dancer, Datar holds a diploma in movement arts from Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bengaluru. She later studied contemporary dance at Brussels-based art and dance centre Danscentrumjette. Last year, she was a recipient of the G5A Performance Grant. Besides Jayachandran Palazhy, Attakkalari’s founder, Datar is inspired by the legendary Chandralekha, who stitched together elements of Bharatanatyam with yoga and Kalarippayattu. She is also influenced by David Zambrano, a contemporary dancer from Venezuela, who “decolonises his body" by reclaiming the natural movement of the hips, pelvis, and abdomen, all of which are vital to the place of conception. While conceptualizing this performance piece, she decided to discard anything that felt triggering. “I wanted C.Tactile to be provoking reflection and a sense of connection with the audience," she explains.
Datar, besides touring for C.Tactile, is researching her next project on the East Indian Bombay natives, the farmers and fisherfolk converted by the Portuguese. “You will still find this Christian population in Mumbai’s Virar, Bandra, Santa Cruz, Vasai, besides other areas," says Datar. “It’s a personal project in that it explores my mother’s side of the family."
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