Corpo-activism: Dance and Activist Labour in the Work of Komal Gandhar, Kolkata

This paper considers the dance and activist labour of a group of cis- and transgendered performers who lobby for the decrimininalisation of sex work in India. Known as Komal Gandhar, the group operate out of Sonagachi, Kolkata and are the cultural wing of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a collective of over 65,000 sex workers. Based on in-depth interviews with Komal Gandhar members and an analysis of their choreographic work, this paper proposes “corpo-activism”—the activation of human rights through embodied aesthetic labour—as a crucial phenomenon that mobilises the agency of minoritised groups.