Gen X may have been in diapers when Boy George dressed to look like Lady Raine Spencer (Princess Di’s step-mum), but what with boy-girl Bjork and a steady trail of cross-dressers thereafter, it’s no big deal in pop music. But classical dance? Heck no, that’s wimpy, right? “Stereotypes,” moans forty-plus dancer Kalakrishna of Hyderabad, painting his mouth fuchsia. He’s transforming himself (padded lingerie et al) into the most luscious, wilful and imperious heroine in Indian mythology, Satyabhama. Warrior-princess, Krishna’s queen, Satyabhama’s got more masala than gongura chutney and the Andhras love her to bits. How does soft-spoken Kalakrishna ring the swing? Doesn’t he feel like, uh, you know — a drag queen? “No!” splutters the dance lecturer at Hyderabad U. “Bhama isn’t for sissies. She’s a strong, beautiful character and sometimes I think a man understands her better.” And just how might he manage that? Kalakrishna grins. “You have to go deep into a woman’s psyche, find out what she does and more importantly, why, in any situation. To tell you the truth, there was a dramatic improvement in my depiction of Bhama after I got married. My wife explained a lot to me, she still critiques my abhinaya (expression) and, after each rehearsal, when the musicians have gone home, she gets into the details.” “True!” twinkles Lee Ching-Ni, perky 24-year-old male impersonator with the Beijing Opera, Taipei. Lee was okay doing girl stuff but her tomboy streak led her to the vigorous dances at opera school. “It’s not our decision to play male roles,” she says. “Our teachers watch us and decide. And then we’re trained within an inch of our lives to take on the characters. It’s pure dramatic technique! I can get out of my costume and go right back to being a girl, except that my movements stay free and open.” Lin Shean-Yuan, 31, slaps her coyly. He’s a female impersonator who’s also department head of Taiwanese Opera. Slim and graceful without being effete, Yuan’s wicked humour makes him attractive to everybody. “My teachers thought I had this really cute face”, he says demurely. “But it’s not a big internal state of mind like Kalakrishna says. For us it’s pure movement. We have a role to do, we learn to do it well. That means attention to detail. But it doesn’t mean I’m a girl. I’m a female impersonator, which means I’m a man playing a woman. And I do traditional opera roles, which means we Chinese have been gender-benders for centuries”. “Sexuality is really one’s private business”, drawls Didik Nini Thowok, the Indonesian female impersonator. Didik is a big star. Not just the highest paid but the most-awarded choreographer-dancer-teacher-mime- comedian-singer (with a neat party turn singing Kuch kuch hota hai). A traditional performer who freely modernises his dance with contemporary themes and movements, Didik runs a dance school in Djakarta called Natya Lakshita and has choreographed about 30 major productions. Amongst the big stuff he’s won in Asia-Pacific is the Governor of Yogyakarta’s Kala Award. As you read this, Didik’s headed for Seattle to dance at Washington University, after touring London, Paris, Cairo, Rome and Cologne last month on a Japan Foundation tour of The Female Impersonator in Asian Theatre. Didik’s exquisite dances are flagrantly ‘queenie’ but so dignified and beautiful that he’s got a major hetero following in south-east Asia. Meanwhile, “Our macho Indian society makes it hard for men dancers. And for a man to dress up as woman is still socially difficult,” rues Singh. “But now we’ve seen other Asians at it, perhaps we’ll loosen up, too.”
