Many faces of the art

The Delhi International Arts Festival had its flag-off at Purana Qila with the three-day International Dance and Music Festival sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Marking an auspicious beginning, the inauguration with Vedic recitation (the verses pertaining to the different Vedas) symbolised a continuum from an ancient past to the present — the rich legacy of the past still vibrant flowing through the corridor of time, and its interactions with several outside cultural influences being absorbed. The recitation synchronised with the hastas in Shukla Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda, for many foreigners in the large audience, was a first exposure.

The all-female Gakku Dance Ensemble with the slim lovelies from Kazakhstan, was a visual delight. The group formations, with very simple movements of the erect Kathak-like stance, with occasional pirouettes, through just the togetherness of trim-bodied female dancers turned out in deep pink skirts and black tops with attractive head dress moving gracefully, created a spectacle. If these dancers epitomised lasya, the male and female performers from Turkey underlined tandav speed and quick-footed, mercurial rhythmic virtuosity.

The Aswara Dance Company from Malaysia fell between two stools. While one applauded dancers from another culture being able to master the Bharatanatyam technique, the extreme martial drill-like tone given to the Nattakuranji varnam “Saami naan undan adimai enru ulagamellaam ariyume” (Oh Lord (Shiva) – the whole universe recognises my devotion to you) from the traditional repertoire, was baffling. When training for technique makes the available repertoire into a ready-made product to be transmitted, it can lead to some strange manifestations of each item.

At the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, an event sponsored by Spic Macay, despite a very slender audience, projected one of the best faces of Kerala’s Ottamthullal, S.P. Mohanakrishnan, trained at Kalamandalam for this very popular art form initiated by Kunjan Nambiar. The oft-told tale pertaining to the 18th Century is of this Nambiar, who was the mizhavu accompanist for a Chakyar’s performance, being ticked off for faulty play by the Chakyar — upon which the Nambiar rebelled by starting his own method of performance, thus ushering in a new art form — Ottamthullal. Largely a one-man show, notwithstanding the percussion and vocal support from the wings, Ottamthullal with the main actor taking on all the roles of the narration, while reciting and singing the dialogue, dancing and acting simultaneously, demands unbelievable reserves of stamina from the actor. Without a break, keeping the audience utterly absorbed in the enactment, involving them while addressing the dialogue to different persons in the audience, the Ottamthullal performer is given a licence which is special. Mohanakrishnan, perhaps the most sought after artist in this Kerala dance theatre form, earned a strong ovation from the small audience, his enactment of the Bhima/Hanuman tussle in the play “Kalyana Sowgandhikam” (also popularly shown in performing art forms like Kathakali and Kudiyattam), revelling in dramatic contrasts. Bhima’s arrogance of might, never having tasted failure in battle (till humbled by a seemingly decrepit monkey), contrasted with the quivering picture of enfeebled Hanuman. All the simian scratching and what have you were just the opposite of the jaunty tread of Bhima searching in the Gandamardhan mountains for the exotic Kalyana Sowgandhikam flower, coveted by his wife Panchali. The peremptory orders of Bhima (directed at the photographers by the actor), the digs at Panchali having five husbands, the mighty Bhima’s humbling, the two half-brothers — both sons of Maruta — bonding after the combat wherein even Hanuman’s tail blocking the way is too heavy for Bhima to remove and push to a side, were all dramatised with the actor constantly changing roles, holding the audience spellbound for over an hour. The fast narrative with constantly changing rhythmic gaits of 3,5,7, etc., the recitative bits with parts sung in typical Carnatic ragas like Todi and Kurinji to the mangalam at the end, even for persons on nodding terms with Malayalam, had not a dull moment. As an introduction, the support singer K. Bindu gave a demonstration of the 24 fundamental mudras and facial expressions in nava rasas, harnessed in Ottamthullal. Providing accompaniment were main singer Ninan and percussionist Rajiv Sona.

Art Matters, in an event held at the India International Centre, had what turned out to be one of its most animated sessions discussing “Aesthetics of Excess and Transgression”. As popular representatives from theatre and literature and journalism gave their viewpoints, the arguments from the dance point of view by Navtej Johar made one of the most convincing statements. Starting with the observation that dancers have no agency and hence have little to say about excess or transgression, Navtej went on to state that in a confused nation as we are, with an amorphous sense of India, doubts persist when it comes to creating something with the individual dancer’s centre of initiative. Delving into this subject, he found it necessary to go into the history of India’s problematic philosophies. All the astik/nastik confrontation, the God speak (right from the Natya Shastra), hierarchy of caste system, one was drawing lines where transgression was out of the question. Old India found both dancer and Yogic practitioner embarrassing — for how did you reconcile the low caste profane devadasi being sanctioned by society to be in the sacred space of the temple? Domesticated and without spaces of slippage where both the sacred and the profane are naturally part of one entity, dance, by deleting all mystery out of the system, has in a shift in premise, taken away the space for transgression. No wonder that both padam and thumri singing are lost arts today, for experiencing that world which gave rise to these genres is gone. The sankhya purush/prakriti nodal philosophy, where material was treated to make it spiritual, where sensuality, sexuality and polarities were important in the Shiva /Shakti amalgam (Shakti is Itchha Shakti) the comfort zones in which the dancer lives now, cuts out the living on edge, which alone can lead to transgressions. S. Kalidas maintained that unlike the West the impulse to transgress is not felt in India. While Navtej did not refer to any dancer’s work,Kalidas’ mention that Chandralekha’s works too were not transgression led to almost frenzied interventions. Definitely an evening out of the ordinary!

It was a convivial evening in an intimate and aesthetic atmosphere created by Geeta and Rajiv Chandran, as Natyavriksha hosted the launching of the latest edition of Ashish Mohan Khokar’s “Attendance”, with Yamini Krishnamurthy presiding as the chief guest. A small but meaningful gathering of dance lovers was treated to a delightful six-minute invocation based on Balamurali’s composition, sung by O.S. Arun (so suited to launching the latest “Attendance”, which is on Telugu dance traditions) with dance composed and rendered by Geeta Chandran’s disciples Sharanya and Aishwarya. The two made a fine synchronised duo dancing with perfect understanding and spacing.

The gathering was next treated to video clippings of the launching of 15 earlier issues, marking 16 eventful years of struggle to keep the journal going. So it is, with all dance related journals! Ultimately, it is for the dance loving constituency to support such ventures, if it is really interested in keeping traditional dances alive.