Dear You, 

How does one define the word ‘agency’?

As, we hear the word, again and again and again, on TV, in magazines and passionate debates. How does one unpack this word - in the context of the position of women, but especially, in our urgency - in the context of agency of the female performing body?

Wikipedia is equally unhelpful, this is what it shows:

Lying somewhere at the intersection of psychology, sociology, morality and philosophy; I wonder how incidents such as - the emergence of female voting rights, introduction of the contraceptive pill and the self-mutilating abortions practices before that, independence of colonies, notions of nationalism, the four waves of feminism, institutionalisation of dance, commodification of the arts, advent of extreme right-wing governments, populist culture, #metoo phenomenon - have informed our collective gaze of the female performing body and formulated her agency. 

But, to find out where did it all really really start, we have to zoom out of this somewhat recent timeline and go back further in history. There is a fine red thread which is stitching it all together, and that secret word is - religion.

Our gaze and her agency, have been constructed by our inherited memory - of times when female muses and apsaras, danced to please and pleasure the Egyptian, Hindu & Greek Gods. The times when God, himself, was the customer. 

Yours faithfully, Me