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.