The role of criticism
NIRMALA SESHADRI
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The day an artist becomes a holy cow, the artistic process is adversely affected.
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STANDING ON THE OTHER SIDE: Nirmala Seshadri.
Recently I met a critic who had written a very critical review of one of my performances. I thanked her and told her that her review had made me pause for a moment, and question my approach to dance.
It was one of the most crucial and transforming moments in my journey as a performing artist. My first response was rage. The urge to use the same tool as vindication was a strong one. I put my dance on hold and spent the next couple of years writing on the arts, attempting to review dance in a constructive way. And I understood what it meant to stand on the other side.
The artistic journey has never been an easy one. It is fraught with challenges of all kinds. In a sense, we have to walk into it keeping this in mind. If the artist's journey has never been an easy one, then the critic's is filled with other kinds of difficulties. If you are honest, the artist hates you; if you are dishonest you hate yourself and in the ultimate analysis you aren't really being true to yourself, your reader or the art.
And it is this tension that fills the air at every performance, at every festival. I have a feeling that the performer-critic-audience triangle is hardly ever a very comfortable or stable dynamic. My question is this: as a performer, is it possible to step back for a moment and take a look at the role of criticism in our artistic journey? For, I would like to believe that there is always scope for improvement in each one of us, that criticism goes a long way in effecting growth and that ultimately good art stands above the critic, audience and even the artist.
From an artistic standpoint what this means is that once we put our work out there, it is open to any kind of reaction. Also, in a larger sense, it even ceases to belong to the artist.
The work then moves into a larger stream, thus co-existing with the work of other talented artists. Essentially, no work of art or artist is above criticism. It is the process of questioning and critiquing that will move us forward. At the end of the day, a critical comment is only one person's subjective view. It is up to us whether to carry that view forward on our journey, or to leave it behind and move on. Accepting criticism for whatever it is worth is a process of maturity not just for artists only but for any human being.
Totally incapable
Our training in Bharatanatyam has failed us by making us totally incapable of welcoming criticism. Right from our early dance training days, it is approval we are taught to seek, that of the guru's to begin with, then the audiences' and then the critics'. Since society places gurus above criticism, the doors to individual development are shut right at the start.
A performer who gains the combined approval of all these three sections is considered `a great artist'! The lay person, who feels ill-equipped to make an independent judgment, takes the cue from these forces thus reinforcing the image of the artist. And thus holy cows are created. The day an artist becomes a holy cow that cannot be touched, the artistic process has been adversely affected. We owe it to our art forms to put our egos aside for a while, and consider that the criticism might actually make us better artists, thus enhancing our contribution to the art form. The moment external validation is sought, then all reactions have to be welcomed. To accept and flaunt eulogistic reviews and to reject critical reviews is an act of hypocrisy.
Our structures and attitudes do not help nurture the art of criticism. This is why there is no critical eye in Bharatanatyam. It has to be stressed that the guru's is not the critical eye; he or she is not an outsider to the process. Just like us, they have also not been trained to receive criticism.
It is like a home industry then in which neither the artist nor art criticism is developing.
So let us shift our focus from quoting the jeevatma-paramatma dictum ad nauseam to the verse in the Gita that speaks of performing one's duty without attaching importance to rewards. This might be very valuable to the modern day student of Bharatanatyam.
While ours is a land where cows are considered holy, let's not create holy cows!
(The writer is a Chennai-based dancer.)
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