Dance Driven

Bharatnatyam dancer Geeta Chandran’s large kohl-lined eyes are slowly filling with fear,she stretches out her arms,the fingers fanned in a final,desperate effort to stop an approaching enemy,the anklets on her feet are deathly silent — on stage,she could be Sita trapped in Lanka,dreading the inevitable arrival of Ravana. Instead,Chandran is sitting in her Delhi home,surrounded by the paraphernalia of a classical dancer,talking politics.

“My next work is on Kashmir. Four years ago,I had visited the valley for a performance and saw uniformed men everywhere. The houseboats that I had once stayed in on a previous visit were empty; even children had no expression in their eyes. This summer,I am exploring how Bharatanatyam can don a different hue to become the vehicle of a new politics,” she says.

The dancer is using the works of 14th century Kashmiri female mystic poet Lalleshwari or Lalded for her next composition. “Lalded was able to reach out to both the polarised Hindu community in Kashmir and the orthodox Muslims. Her Sufi-Saivism poetry built bridges of understanding between the communities. My political take is where have those bridges vanished today? Why has the Valley been so thoroughly polarised?” she asks.

Chandran’s previous compositions have focussed on the environment,female foeticide,dowry deaths and terrorism. Nor is she alone in using the classical dance platform to evoke modern-day concerns. For several decades,Kathak maestro Birju Maharaj,the doyen of Odissi dance Sonal Mansingh and Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam exponent Swapnasundari have been among those leading the classical dance community in incorporating current issues into their performances — all the while staying true to the classical lexicon.

“A dancer is not just a dancer. She does not exist in a vacuum. Society and its happenings have an impact on all individuals,especially artists. If an art form does not reflect the existing milieu,it stagnates,” says Mansingh. Her performance in January,called Eco Purana,touched upon subjects like the pollution of the Yamuna — depicted through the mythological tale from the Bhagwad Purana of Krishna killing Sheshnag — and Kahin-Unkahi in April — the real-life story of a 14-year-old girl who was raped by her uncle. “In Eco Purana,I ended by asking the question,‘Who will be Krishna today?’. In case of Kahin Unkahi,an NGO informed me about the abused girl and told me that she is today a police officer,” says Mansingh.

Unlike ‘contemporary dance’ choreography,these classical dancers stay true to the age-old idiom. “I am a staunch classicist and I believe it is possible to apply the classical idioms in a creative and imaginative way,to episodes from mythology and epics. As a person,I would look at the root cause of problems such as terrorism,female foeticide or eco-degradation. As a dancer,I would address the basic issue through a classical dance piece,” says Swapnasundari. Her dance pieces include Kubja-Katha which explores “how a woman with a congenital physical deformity behaves and expresses her sexuality”. The Blue God is about the trauma of a mother whose infant has been taken away; and the 2009 work called Soorpanakha: A Woman Scorned is about “a woman who expresses her sexual feelings and is treated like a prostitute”.

Kathak dancer Saswati Sen echoes Swapnasundari’s philosophy of sticking to classical style. Talking about Rabindranath Tagore’s Balika Badhu that Birju Maharaj’s troupe is currently performing,she says,“It helps us highlight the issue of child marriages that still exists in society.” From the foot movements to the gait of the dancers,everything is borrowed from the Kathak repertoire. “We interpret the order of the foot movements differently and improvise with the bols,but nothing is outside the classical parameter,” she adds.

Such issue-based pieces are not works in polemics — they are carefully crafted and with attention to detail in order to become visual masterpieces. Chandran says it is a challenge to present a piece on a social issue in an entertaining manner. So,she is grappling with questions like “what would be the language of the poetry since the audience may not understand Lalded’s Kashmiri,or,if she retains the Kashmiri dialect,would it jar with Carnatic music used in Bharatanatyam,and finally,how to ensure retains its drama.

A few decades ago,purists might have vocally disapproved “liberties” being taken with the subject matter. “But today,dancers don’t care,” laughs Mansingh,who had faced the opprobrium of purists when she began to work on themes that did not include the classical Radha-Krishna stories. “Today,I can freely comment on an issue through my medium of classical Odissi,and still be called a classical dancer,” she says.