Emotion Regulation and Academic Stress in Adolescents: The Role of Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression | RISE Research

This study examines how male dancers in Indian classical forms like Bharatanatyam and Odissi navigate gendered expectations, and how caste and class shape their visibility and legitimacy within these performance spaces. Drawing on Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity and R.W. Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity, the paper analyzes how a traditionally feminized art form becomes a site where male performers must constantly negotiate artistic authenticity against social acceptability, especially given the forms' colonial-era reconstruction under upper-caste reformers, which historically displaced Dalit and non-Brahmin practitioners. The mixed-methods study surveyed 72 respondents online, combining Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions with open-ended prompts analyzed through thematic coding. Findings show that 75% of respondents associate classical dance with femininity and 66.7% reported strong surprise at seeing a male dancer perform, indicating that male participation is still widely seen as an anomaly, though this surprise often fades into admiration with more exposure. While a majority (69.4%) agreed male dancers face judgment or stereotyping, public awareness of caste and class as shaping factors was more limited and inconsistent: only 13.9% agreed upper-caste or wealthier individuals have more access, even though qualitative and theoretical analysis suggests caste privilege operates as a subtler, less consciously recognized filter on who is seen as an 'authentic' performer. The study concludes that male dancers experience a 'constrained masculinity,' continuously adjusting their presentation, movement vocabulary, and narrative choices to satisfy audience expectations, while institutional and media structures still under-support and under-represent them. The paper calls for institutional reforms, including gender-inclusive funding, curriculum integration in schools, and broader media representation, alongside further research using more diverse, practitioner-inclusive samples and cross-cultural comparisons.