La Bayadère: la femme représentée et la femme représentante de l'Inde coloniale au XIX^e siècle

Nineteenth-century French artists frequently figure the Indian female dancer, or bayadère, in opera-libretti, travel narratives and adventure and love stories. She occupies a central part in the imaginary vision of the mystic and colonized East and personifies the feminine and the exotic Other. The intention is to analyse how the mainly non-verbal performative structure of Indian dance and the context of European spectators who cannot interpret the language of the dance, lead to the caricatured portrayals of these women against the background of the influence of French colonialism in India.