{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.016966067864271458, 'fraction_numerical': 0.000998003992015968, 'mean_word_length': 5.115853658536586, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
A Nautch Girl to Teach Us Delsarte

Chapter 5 grapples with the dynamics of Orientalism, specifically as enacted by white women with regard to India and its two central personas: the yogi and the dancing girl. It first addresses how the ambiguous gendering of yogis as Oriental men allowed white women to inhabit this persona as a specific way of legitimating their spiritual authority. As a complement to this masculine model, St. Denis’s popularity represents the rise of the “nautch girl” as the symbol of a specifically feminine Orientalism. The appropriated image of the nautch girl reflects broader trends not only within the dance world but within popular culture, as Oriental imagery increasingly becomes co-opted by white women at the turn of the century to express their lingering fantasies and their newfound freedoms. Women’s physical culture quickly begins to mirror this trend as “Oriental dance” exercises are increasingly diffused through the preexisting practice of light calisthenics.