India has an enviable tradition of government support for the arts, a system which requires a large bureaucracy and intricate rules to administer. A recent Delhi High Court ruling, however, threatens to establish a maximum age for performing dancers, a move which, according to Lewis Segal, would be devastating to the counry’s dance community. The court “ruled that dancers over 45 cannot be said to give performances, merely lecture-demonstrations. The ruling came in response to a petition filed in the court by Komala Varadan, a 62-year-old classical dancer insisting that she be listed as a performing artist in the files of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.”