Freezing the Dance Moves

There was rebellion in her heavily kohl-rimmed eyes. There was exquisite sensuousness in her moves. Sometimes,in the blink of an eye,they would dramatically switch places. When iconic dancer Chandralekha died of cancer in 2006,she left behind a stage shorn of a unique aesthetic. She also left behind,in very mundane terms,photographs,video recordings and countless notebooks in which she had penned down research notes,ideas and designs for each of her 10 productions in a career spanning almost half a century. All this was locked up in her old-fashioned cupboards at her beach-facing house in Chennai until last year. But not any more,as her companion,critic and lighting designer Sadanand Menon has decided to archive them all.

“She wasn’t remotely concerned about taping a performance for archival purpose as she was hostile towards the entire concept of two-dimensional recordings. But I could not have left all of it to gather dust in the closets,and therefore this vigorous archival process,” says Menon,who is being assisted by dancer Leela Samson in sorting through things,which include a number of her costumes. The digitising process too has begun and will be completed by next year. Menon,who is financing the project himself,is planning to have all her works available on the Internet as well.

Archiving is unfortunately a foreign term in the world of Indian classical dance. When the stage becomes empty,little is done to recall the performance that unraveled there in all its glory. Even if it is by a woman who was in love with the human form,was adventurous enough to mishmash Bharatnatyam with yoga and kalaripayattu and gave so much to dance in terms of innovation and feeling. Chandralekha’s dance was erotic to a lot of people and obscene to some,yet awe was a feeling they all shared.

“I visited some government archives but was not happy with their way of documentation,” says Menon,“It has unacceptable techniques in today’s times,with no chronological record being kept whatsoever. I don’t want to see Chandra in those dusty files in some odd corner. My basic aim is to make sure that all the material is available chronologically so that scholars and students can gain something out of it. This woman was much ahead of her times and I don’t want people to forget that.”

While a lot of Chandralekha’s costumes has been donated to the Sarabhai Textile Museum,everything else that is dance-related will be stacked at her home in Chennai,a part of which is being converted into an archive. “I am going to make sure that Chandra lives on,” says Menon.