While the enormous display of people executing yoga postures (asanas) on the Rajpath drew a lot of attention on the occasion of the International Day of Yoga, it remains a fact that the arts and artists of India, in major and minor ways, have always been linked to the ancient discipline described in sage Patanjali’s “Yoga Sutras”. It was a welcome gesture, therefore, when the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) fulfilled its obligation to celebrate the occasion by designing a weeklong festival focusing on this relationship.
The SNA’s “Yog Parv – Festival of Yoga in the context of performing and visual arts” has been on at New Delhi’s Rabindra Bhawan since June 21. Featuring interactive talks, workshops, demonstrations and performances, the festival, with daylong schedules beginning 11 a.m., it continues till June 27.
For some dancers, yoga is primarily a medium to stay physically fit, while for others it is a means to emotional and mental equilibrium. Others have experienced a widening of vision and a dismantling of conditioned reflexes, while some find in it the tools to realise a balance between the spiritual (rather than religious or sectarian) and the material aspects of life.
Here, a few classical dancers, including those participating in the Yog Parv, discuss aspects of dance and yoga.
ADITI MANGALDAS (Kathak dancer and choreographer)
Yoga is not something that I started learning suddenly. In a way, I grew up with it, being involved with it in various capacities and levels of commitment. To me it has been one source of energy that has brought all streams of energy into a cohesive focus. From my first guru, Kumudini Lakhia, I learnt to be free and fearless and the ability to understand the relationship of my body to the space/time that surrounded me. From my second guru, Pandit Birju Maharaj, I learnt to love dance as though it were human and to find the various nuances that meander within my body. From the greatest teacher of all, life, I learnt about all the emotions that surge through space/ time.
But it was the study of yoga that brought together all these streams within myself, my soul, my mind, my body. It is through the practice of yoga that I found the centre of my dance, found the energy centre that connects all the above streams into one cohesive whole.
NAVTEJ JOHAR (Bharatanatyam and contemporary dancer and choreographer)
I would say that my enquiry into the body, into the politics of the body, into the historic manipulations of the body comes from my practice and study of yoga, study of its texts as well as the politics of the texts. I find dance too self-obsessed, I guess because it is relatively difficult to get rid of that eventual anxiety of performance. Whereas yoga offers me that un-self-conscious space to play with myself, literally, explore and experiment with no projection in mind.
I’ve become a voracious reader of the classical texts and Indian philosophy – it is my attempt to join the dots together – and this is singularly prompted by Yoga.
VANASHREE RAO (Kuchipudi dancer)
I went to learn yoga from Guru Nivedita Joshi who was herself bedridden for several years and cured after practising Iyenger Yoga under the great guru B.K.S. Iyenger in Pune. My reasons were that I was nearing 50 and had spondylosis, and knee pain had started. Also, I was aware that only dance will not help.
I wanted to learn from her because I had read about her and somehow wanted to meet her. I learnt for six years, and it helped me enormously. Iyenger Yoga is focussed on timing, precision, perfection of the asanas, and it is a strict discipline. (This yoga approach pioneered by BKS Iyengar makes use of props including belts, ropes and wooden tools to help the practitioner achieve perfection in executing the postures.)
I got cured of my knee pain and other problems, gained strength in my upper arms, confidence to do sirsasana (head stand) with the help of suitable props which only Iyenger yoga practitioners can learn. I practice asanas necessary for my dance every day.
RAGHAV RAJ BHATT (Kathak dancer and visual artist)
I captured Uday Shankar’s and his dancers’ bodylines in my line drawings from (his film) “Kalpana”. They used to do vigorous exercises to tune the body and then start rehearsals. All traditional systems also have this process. Take Kathakali, where from childhood they have rigorous body training. In Odissi too there is Bandha Nritya (which look similar to asanas or acrobatic postures) and Chhau too has vigorous body training exercises. It is there in Bharatanatyam too. If the dancer’s body is not fit, the aesthetics of the form cannot be revealed. The inner tuning and physical fitness are yoga.
Ganesha is known as sakala kala vallabha – Lord of all the arts. He is a singer, scholar, dancer, he meditates, he plays the pakhawaj, and he is a katha vachak (narrator of stories). I feel he characterises himself into various roles, as yoga teaches one to do.
NISHA MAHAJAN (Kathak dancer and yoga instructor)
The process of yoga education for the performing artist was evolved by my guru, Pandit Shambhu Nath. People have studied yoga in the context of the inner process of the dance. But that the performing artist is the instrument through which this art happens – through physical, motional, mental, spiritual processes – was thought of only by Shambhu Nathji. He was an awarded actor in theatre and films and had a long association with Habib Tanvir before Naya Theatre was set up. At 40, he went to the Yoga Institute founded in Bombay by the pioneer Yogendra, who trained him himself and in 1963 sent him to the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, to work with actors. Here, over seven years Shambhu Nathji researched deeply into yoga and what it can do for the actor. Later, he was course director of the Academy of Yoga and Research, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Delhi, at the invitation of the Bhavan’s director M.P. Chhaya. He also did a stint teaching at the National School of Drama. Then in 1979 Keshav Kothari invited him to teach yoga at the Kathak Kendra. Here he was able to explore also what yoga could do for dancers. There was a lot of commonality because of the abhinaya aspect, but also other areas. His methodology was used at the Kathak Kendra for about 30 years.
The festival will see Nisha Mahajan speak on “Yoga in the Context of Performing Art” at Lalit Kala Gallery basement at 11 a.m. and conduct a lecture demonstration at 5 p.m. on the Meghdoot lawns, June 26. Raghav Raj Bhatt’s series on Uday Shankar’s bodylines and Ganesha as the yogi-artist are on display till June 27.
