(I've posted something similar onto my general "normal" self's site but this is from a more performance-oriented mindset.)

There was one major issue that often came up in my Creative Industries degree, in various subjects: the idea that Asian art was narrowly defined as just Japan, with a hint of China or India.

EVERY lecture on Asian artforms centered around Japan, especially the concept of ma (loosely: the space between things, or notes, or moments). My Taiwanese uni friend was in an Asian Arts and Fashion class, and her group was the only one that worked on a country other than Japan - they did Turkey.

If anywhere else (read: China and India) was mentioned, it was in context of how their artforms were taken and used by Western directors. We had a whole class dedicated to this, called Performance Innovation. The examples they showed didn't seem all that innovative to me - techniques like shadow puppets, colour-coded masks, and butoh-esque whiteface were traditional theater forms in cultures I was familiar with. Our idea of "innovative" was contemporary monologues or realist drama - stuff the Western world (or, at least my faculty) thought as "normal".

Is it only innovative when someone outside the culture does it?

My burlesque teacher is fond of mucking around with cultures. She seems to have a South Asian fascination (ironic, given my heritage) and she's done acts that subvert all sorts of religions, including a Buddhist strip show (I'm still trying to get my head around that one). She's an equal-opportunity sacreligiousist, apparently.

It looks cool; it's visually arresting and the tricks she incorporates in there (like SETTING HERSELF ON FIRE) makes you go ":O!!". But as cultural commentry, it rides a fine line.

Aside from some comparative religion courses in uni (were they as Japan-centric as our CI courses? I have a whole rant on the limited focus on academia...) I doubt that Buddhism played a huge part in her upbringing or history. I could be very VERY wrong - for all I know, she could come from a family of Buddhists, and I'm just revealing my ignorance and my biases towards white Western people. But I've also seen first-hand people not getting the right nuances or contexts about different cultural artifacts, coming to misled conclusions, misunderstanding subtle cues. I've had a lecturer completely miss the significance of colours in Indian karthik theatre.

Burlesque is an artform that largely plays on established norms, ideas, semiotics. It's parody - you take known symbols and current ideas, and mess them around. It's much like a lot of design and art: knowing the rules well means having a better idea of how to bend or break the rules. But what if your underlying knowledge of "the rules" is messed up? What if your parody is based on inaccuracy?

Then there's the question of privilege and exotification. Am I exotifying myself if I dress up in traditional Bengali garb? Am I being disrespectful to the Malays for wearing a baju kurung (even though that's what I wore for school for almost 11 years)? Between a Bangladeshi wearing a salwar khameez in Bangladesh, a Malay wearing it in Malaysia, and a white Australian wearing it in Australia, who holds the more power and privilege? Some would say the Aussie, but they wouldn't necessarily be in a position of privilege in Malaysia or Bangladesh just because they're white. Even though Bangladeshis are low-class "citizens" in Malaysia, the class status is skewed in Bangladesh - the Malays don't hold power but neither do they lose class.

If I encouraged my non-Bengali friends to wear salwar khameez or some other Bengali thing because I think they look awesome in it, am I taking part in cultural appropriation? If I wear a samfoo or baju kurung (worn by people I grew up with in Malaysia), is that appropriation? Is it appropriation if I wear a 50s rockabilly dress or a ballgown, since they never showed up in my culture? If I wear a kilt or tartan dress, is that appropriation? (It's still "white"...)

WTH is my culture anyway? I was raised on a general Malaysian culture but never really fit in anywhere specific. I'm Bengali/Bangladeshi by heritage but hardly know the nuances of that culture aside from the occasional trip back to Dhaka. I'm a foreigner in my "hometowns"! My culture is a mishmash of everything. So what can I take? What can I play with? What can I be offended by?

I don't really have a problem with "Western" (or non-originating-culture) people wearing things like bindis or cheongsams or whatever. I grew up in a mashup and did much the same. Besides, why shold Western clothes be the safe default? What if India had rules the world and everyone wore saris in their day to day life? What if A-line skirts and t-shirts were exotic?

These are questions I grapple with often, not just in terms of creativity, but in other parts of my life too. I don't tie myself to a culture; I live through the ones I'm exposed to. Does that make me culture-less, an appropriator, an assimilator? Pick-and-choose buffet?

An act Lena and I hashed out one time (out of a conversation about reverse stripping) involved me going through a wardrobe, or The Merch Girl's wares, and trying stuff on before ending up with a ballgown. Perhaps I could make that wardrobe be full of all sorts of cultural things, and play around with cultural appropriation and imagery. Gold wedding jewelry with a red samfoo and jeans? A lengha skirt paired with a bikini top and a beret? A sackcloth made out of songket? What am I meant to wear, what am I allowed to wear?