Cosmic Warrior

On the dark,empty stage,only an unmoving silhouette signals the presence of Bharatanatyam dancer Malavika Sarukkai. Then,the lights come on and as the mridangam sounds out loud,the dancer comes to life — she transforms into an angry Shiva,the compassionate Durga and the devotee in search of the sacred. Sarukkai,among the foremost classical dancers of the country,says that every performance is like “reaching for the stars”. On Friday,when she presented her latest work called Sakthi Sakthimaan: Energies Auspicious and Fearsome at the packed Kamani Auditorium,Sarukkai reached further— into the cosmos itself where good and evil forces are locked in an eternal war.

“In each one of us,there exists the mythical demon Mahisasur,exemplifying negative energy,and the Devi,the figurehead of goodness. Ultimately,the good wins. For the past few years,I have been exploring these energies and the result is Sakthi Sakthimaan,” says the Chennai-based dancer. The evening began with the piece Eka Lakhsya Margaha,in which Sarukkai returned to her favourite subject,the banks of Varanasi,this time to depict pluralism. She pushed the boundaries of traditional Bharatanatyam,introduced her own moves,and used music ranging from the classical to folk to North Indian to symbolise the multitude of energies that converge in a temple. One of the most powerful pieces was Mahisasurmardini,in which Sarukkai used a new dance vocabulary. “My conventional Bharatanatyam movements could not help me depict the Devi. I had to pull out from within myself a different inspiration,” she explains. In the piece,she charged around the stage,her strong expressions evoking the mythological war between Durga and the demon.