Scent

The curve of your eyes
whispered a secret
a prayer escaped my lips
....

crafted between the sun
and its shadow
the rain drops filled my
navel

....

Drenched in your scent
I lived and died...

Choreographed to Perfection...

From vintage Odissi to spellbinding Mohiniattam, the past week was filled with goodies for Delhi's dance lovers and leading the pack was Seher's Ananya, the festival of group choreographies of Classical dance forms against the backdrop of time-sculpted Old Fort.
The juggernaut festival was organised in collaboration with Union Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Govt. of NCT, Delhi and Delhi Tourism along with Indian, FCI and Hyatt Regency, Delhi. Personally for this writer, the festival would be remembered for Mumbai's Dr. Kanak Rele and her students' Mohiniattam, which had the geometric precision of Bharatanatyam, lasya of Odissi, theatrics of Kathakali all rolled into one.

Kanak's presentation, the Lure of Lute, ran parallel histories of Krishna's outer journey from being Radha's lover to becoming a king and Rukmini's husband ; and Radha's inner journey from being vexed about Krishna's dalliances with others and her heartburns to her realization that the Lord resided within her. The motif of Lure, therefore played at two levels, firstly with Krishna's flute and love pulling Radha's heart strings in the first part of the production and secondly the lure of Radha's tapsya that pulled Krishna to visit banks of Yamuna with Rukmini where she waited

Highly crisp, with no room for melodrama , the simple sancharis made the entire production impeccable. The visual versatility of the production- from Krishna's raas with Gopis to his departure for Mathura, was accentuated by seamless dance movements.The sequence involving the granting of beatitude to the hunch backed Kubja, was brought out forcefully by Kanak, as she juxtaposed her fear of applying sandalwood to Kamsa with her hesitation to apply it on Krishna. Kanak's winsome smile and her dance-weathered body carved their memory on the scalded stones of Old Fort. Her students raised the bar for any future Mohiniattam performance in Delhi.

Kanak's troupe was supported by a talented orchestra led by MS Girishan on Vocal, C Gopalakrishnan on Nattuvangum, KNP Nambisan on Edek, N Murughan on Mridangam, Shekhar Tanjavur on Violin and Kumarakrishnan on Flute.

The concluding day of the festival was earmarked by a brilliant Bharatanatyam performance by the students of B Bhanumati from Bangalore. Neat and extremely innovative the production clearly pointed to the rigours of training and discipline that must have gone into crafting perfect lines and poses. Clean hand gestures and relaxed but confident foot work were the common feature for all the students. Though, the music built up the evening with much gusto, it was the sheer ability of the dancers to appear as thorough team players that worked most for the production. Be it the knitting of episodes from Shiva's life with refined nritta portions in Shiva Stuti or the miniature effect of Subrahmanya Namah Stuti showcasing the Lord and his life at parallel points, the items highly skilled items had as much imagination quotient. The dancers executed a jati one second and the other sculpted a pose, with perfect balance.Bramha Nandan Tyagaraja addressed to the significance of music as a path of realization was lyrically choreographed as well. The only flip side to the production was shaky Nataraja poses. Perhaps, it made for an ironic statement since the production held its ground firmly!

A quick word about recent Odissi recital by Kumkum Lal held under the aegis of Sonal Man Singh's Centre for Indian Classical Dances. But for few glaring audio glitches, the fact that Kumkum chose to dance on the 1979 recording in which her Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra played pakhawaj while Parvati Brahmachari gave vocal support and legendary Bhubneshwar Mishra supported on violin, provided the audience with a rare opportunity to relish the golden music of yore, which had a balming effect. Kumkum's performance was not so much about the neatness of dance but about the rasa, that was so magnificently created by the music. Her long introductions before every item, while testing patience to an extent, graciously brought forth a humble student, who's love for dance and her Guru had stood the test of time. Perhaps, Kumkum's best tribute in the evening was in being faithful to the choreography of her Guru, be it Nahin Ke Kori Dela or an excerpt from Geeta Govinda.

Extravagant Desires...

I happened to read this quote in a fortune cookie- " If your wishes are not extravagant, they will be granted".Come to think of it, what really defines extravagant? Isn't it relative- depending on what station of your life, you start desiring. And here one takes it as given, that we desire all the time. It's as natural to us as we breathe.


If the quote is applied to a new born child, one can draw interesting inferences.

A child, wishes to crawl and when he/she succeeds in that, he/she wants to walk and so the list goes on. As Parents, both Mom n Dad compete with Grand parents to rob the very first word a child speaks. And so the desires come into play.

These desires can appear extravagant to a child, for he/she has to "accomodate" so many hearts with his/her simple spoken word!

I guess the point has been made!

You and Me

Shaded by the trees
the Sun too grows dark.
Held in my palms
it turns moist.

The body whispers.

The aging bones, like crusted leaves
Bemoan the stars on horizon.
Torn apart from earth’s skull
They ask her, why must we shine on you?

The Moon blushes in reflection.

My heels soak the salt
disowned
by
the Sea
seeking its nirvana
as it caresses
my toes.

On a distant island
You stand.

A wrinkled silhouette,
the colours of night
fill the crevices of your body.

I stretch my hands
to capture the sound
floating around you.
Your death pursues my passion
and waters my ashes.

I stand on the cliff.

The world beneath
With parted lips
writes an obituary
And the newsprint,
crumpled with your name
piles our time
By my bedside

And I locate you
Your flesh in my palms
Your touch in the sea
Your smell in the wind
Your death in my breath….
The stars continue to shine
the graveyard
on the island…

Surprise to Sublimity....

Sometime in September 2005, having met India's dance diva Bharatanatyam exponent Malvika Sarukkai, for a 15 minute conversation that extended to 90 minutes, I vividly recall bowing to touch her feet, as a mark of respect for what she shared about herself and her dance with me. Her ideas on her relationship with dance were sacred and intense, as if the Moon had become crimson. Last week, as I watched her for the first time on stage, her voice ran a parallel discourse on dance in my mind. Inaugurating this year's IIC Festival of the Arts, Malvika's Adhbhuta – Vision of Wonder, sought to capture its shades, from surprise to sublime.

Naturally so, the evening had most ingredients that could have made any recital memorable. But, perhaps because of the intellectual verve Malvika brings to her performances, marked by ever so intangible subtlety, this particular performance of hers fell short before her incredible body of work ( packing three decades).

Though, Malvika's items reflected her incisive understanding and maturity in locating the varied shades of wonderment- as seen through the eyes of a mother/a devotee and a beloved, adhbhuta- especially in her interpretation of Krishna and Yashodha's relationship ( in Krishna nee begane baro in Yamunakalyani raga) and the latter's discovery of her child as a Universal lord, had an element of hyperbole, especially in Krishna's antics and during the sequence in which Yashoda is crafted into stillness on seeing the Universe when her son open's his mouth.

The same was the fate of the next item, Samarpan ( culled from the work of Tulsidas) , in Ratipatipriya raga which revolved around Hanuman's first glimpse of Rama. The element of total surrender, of having realized the Lord in flesh and blood, was diluted by the first few sequences in which Hanuman was introduced as a over enthusiastic monkey playing with his tail, like a woman holding her plait, in a rather ungainly manner.

One could blunt the above two arguments by suggesting that children usually run a riot at home and so they are bound to be excited. Similarly, a 'monkey' will be a monkey in its behaviour and demeanour. But, this entirely justifiable opinion does not take into account the interpretation that Malvika provided right at the beginning of her recital. She talked of adhbhuta at an entirely different pedestal-where wonder- of seeing the world around in all its maya- in the love of a mother , of a child and of a devotee- be it a man or a monkey, has a degree of sublimity attached to it. Malvika's items and their concept gave a full import of what she wished to share, but somewhere in their execution, the texture changed.

No doubt, Malvika's dance is controlled and extremely graceful. Her choreography, while being visually appealing and deftly using the proscenium space overawes her rasikas with carefully executed post-card images! Creative lighting is an essential element of her choreography, more so because it pushes the audiences to imagine what the dancer will do next, when tossing between intricate jatis, she suddenly becomes a sculpture.
Malvika's work has often been inspired by miniature paintings, be it in India or abroad and this element also came through in her item Mohana Krishna in raga malika, in which the beauty of the Lord was juxtaposed with the splendour of nature. From Krishna's eyes to his gamcha, the Lord's physical appearance resonated in Nature and this was lyrically brought out by Malvika. Mohana Krishna followed the opening item of the evening Mallari, in Raga Gambhirnaatai in which, again the detailing of the procession was impressive but perhaps, the sheer wonder of welcoming the deity lost stream before animated movements. The dancer was supported by Balakrishnan on nattuvangam, Murali Parthasarthy on vocal, M.S. Sukhi on mridangam and Vijay Venkateshwar on flute.

Conversing the Iconoclast....

During a two hour conversation, Astad Deboo ( better known to the world as India's pioneering modern choreographer) surveys all the possibilities of sitting on a couch. His hands fly, legs fidget, jaw line twitches, eyes twinkle, fingers breathe and then as a cocoon bursts itself, the room starts reverberating with his gregarious laughter. He is touching 60, has travelled just about as many countries and is a recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi's award for creative dance. But as someone who lives the life like a stretched out palm shading the Sun, this cult Guru and a brand to his followers (and some of those are in Bollywood as well), doesn't shy away from calling himself an underdog. Astad throbs with life, that's the first and the last impression you gather of the dancer, who as a young man, brought up in steel town Jamshedpur, sought dance as a carnival, which took him to different cultures and time-zones. The world-traveller set off with a backpack, hitch hiking his way through some of the most memorable events of his life. And he did it all, to understand and then satiate the hunger to learn dance (From Kathak to Martha Graham and Jose Limon's versions of contemporary dance ; from training under Pina Bausch in the Wuppertal Dance Company, Germany and with Alison Chase of the Pilobolus Dance Company to becoming the shishya of Kathakali Guru E K Panicker) - soaking everything that fell between finesse, force and flamboyance. Having watched his yet to be premiered production, Rhythm Divine, choreographed specially for the National Book Trust for an extended India evening (which includes the works of Chandralekha and Navtej Johar among others) at the Frankfurt Book fair, this writer did attempt to decode the visual geometry of the piece- Could he be inspired from the ripples in a pond or perhaps the swirl of a Sufi Dervish? Were his fellow pung cholum drummers-dancers, mere props, shifting their positions without creating a rupture or a beat, spinning around the man like his extended limbs? With Astad, and its rarely so with other dancers in the genre, you can imagine as you like. The chances are, you would be mostly right. His choreography does not wish you to determine the parameters in which you should see it, rather it finds a new shape in every perspective you attach to it. And to be at this stage, the events started unfolding nearly four decades back. However, at that time, Astad wanted to "tell a story and append a meaning" to what he was doing. It was only later, as he discovered various possibilities with his body, that he shifted from explanatory pieces to dancing with objects, in spaces and with himself. Slowly, his movements began to address his body. He found " a lover and a tormenter" in his toe, patenting it in every production of his. Their intense relationship- sometimes psychotic in it's detailing, on others exuberant in its flight, has been talked about and discussed aloud. And it grows further still. Being a modern Indian choreographer, Astad's works have undercut the notion of Indian dance and at the same time, have not inculcated the western version in its totality. The face and the body, hold the court together in his world. Whereas in India (and in east) the danced body heads towards earth's centre, it seeks a journey in space in the west. Astad has miraculously combined both the idioms of expression. But it was not an easy blend to begin with. Astad demonstrates it by narrating his experience while learning Kathakali. Often, his Guru had to tell him "not to fly but be grounded" in his actions. His training in Kathakali which started on his return to India in 1977-78, ran almost parallel to his debut performances in India which received a lot of flak from the spectators. With modern dance still locating its pillars, Astad's dance drove the audiences and the Gurus away. He adds un apologetically, " It was the mindset. People came with pre-conceived notions. And of course, there was a lot of sucking up needed to which I didn't bow".

Understandably feeling rejected, Astad continued his forays into dance, his trips to west remaining a constant feature, learning Kathakali for six years in total with a gap of two years between 1980 and 1982. It was perhaps the most critical phase of his life, with him walking an extra mile in "educating" the west that India too had something to contribute to modern dance. Astad's dance, which he defines as a combination of "Body Centricity- Theatrics and Perseverance" had the last element added during his years of struggle. Perseverance was perhaps something, he found in the hearing impaired students of Action Players, Kolkata and Clark School Chennai, with whom Astad produced some of his finest works yet. He says, "I used to do movement workshops with Action Players. After my workshops, I was told there was improvements in the students and so I was invited for an extended period. During one of those sessions, I toyed with the idea of working with these students. They had talent and could pick up the movements.So, the next step was to teach them how to dance!". He adds, "… I put my baggage behind them and decided to show their work to the public. Though the work was appreciated, I did lose my patience with them sometimes. When I work, I tend to push the level of excellence and there is no room for mistake. So naturally, there were tears on both sides, when they had to create that inner beat."

For Astad, it was important not to allow anyone to say that because the students were hearing impaired they could do as much. His work with Clark School, which presented Contraposition in Delhi December 2004, had a different approach. Because the students had trained in Bharatanatyam, they had certain movement in them. But both the experiences, did mirror Astad's penchant for things that survive out of the marked boundaries of expressions. And though he went by his instinct when he decided to work with these students, his own growth during his early years as a performer on the Indian scene naturally sought appreciation from colleagues (and it did come through from the likes of Sonal Man Singh and Leela Samson)

The "need for approval from Indian Gurus and audiences" was natural but never desperate. And his increasing interactions with the West- which had its early high point in his sudden, unplanned collaboration with Pink Flyod at the age of 22, in 1969, had given way to lasting friendships with likes of Alison Chace of the Pilobolus Dance Company, USA ( Astad has since then, as Narthaki.com reports, "performed at the Great Wall of China, and at the 50th anniversary of the American Dance Festival. Deboo was commissioned by Pierre Cardin to choreograph a dance for Maia Plissetskaia-prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet and has given command performances for the royal families of Japan and Thailand. He was the first contemporary dancer to perform at the Elephanta and Khajuraho festivals. He has conducted workshops at the London School of Contemporary Dance and the China Academy of Arts, Beijing." He has recently choreographed the promotional music video of Bollywood movie Omkara as well)
And perhaps, Astad learnt the tricks of surviving the west rather well. "During my early years, as soon as I would land, I would head straight to a University student's body and seek a platform to perform. At the same time, I would check the local dance scene, meet up with dancers, learn from them , also teach them and have this interaction going" which in the long run perhaps proved to be Astad's ready resource guide for his own works. And he never "stayed on to learn something he no longer connected with". "I moved on", he says.

And if you think, he had it all because of money, think again! He survived majorly by either teaching dance, while learning it or by having generous friends who helped him during his years of struggle, by cutting their costs helping him mount a production. That is an area where he feels, most Indian modern choreographers fail to match up with their non-Indian counterparts. " Their canvas is large and very different. Their approach to the production value of the work is exemplary. Our stage craft is so poor. You can just dream of things. An Indian choreographer can scream and leave it there." Astad moves on to distinguish between himself and the western choreographers by saying, "

They have dancers with great bodies to work with whereas I work with people who have movements. So, that is a big difference. I would also like to have live music,but I can't afford it." But there are times when western dance becomes too technical and boring for him. The element of rasa is extremely important for Astad. That makes his dance different from the one showcased in west. "They could sense that even in abstractness, I was transmitting meaning. There was physicality, there was mind and beyond that there was a certain rasa." As this writer, nudges him into further differentiating between the west and his body of work, Astad adds, " I have an Indian body, my motifs will be influenced by the culture I come from and these elements come out in my choreography."

One needs to just trace his latest production in mind, witnessed a couple of hours back, and there Astad can be seen moving his neck, using his eyes, fluttering his eyebrows and smiling shyly. The face is brought alive even as the body talks.