Echoes of Vilasini natyam
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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The three-day Vilasini-06 festival at New Delhi's India International Centre offered some compelling moments.
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COMPELLING MOMENTS Purvadhanashree and (below) her guru Swapnasundari.
Overriding dishearteningly scanty audiences, barring the packed IIC Fountain Lawns for the concluding evening when Swapnasundari performed, the three-day Vilasini-06 showcasing ritual, ceremonial and theatrical traditions of saani-s or bhogamvalu of the Telugu Andhra region offered compelling moments, in charged performances and post-lecture seminar deliberations.
Why did a vibrant tradition, whose practitioners despite socio-political hurdles retained sufficient cultural memory enabling a reinterpretation by scholar/dancer Swapnasundari, vanish into total oblivion, unlike the Tamil Nadu devadasi? Was it the lack of male nattuvanar gurus, who unscathed by societal censure, could have passed on the tradition to a new generation? Swapnasundari's research revealed that amidst dwindling temple/court patronage, the saani-s, who as late as the 1940s still paid for legal help with gold coins, were crippled by their own male progeny turning against the profession.
Popularising it
Dance critic Ranikumar's (Hyderabad) earnest lecture on the antiquity and ways to popularise Vilasini Natyam (the name for the Arudra/Swapnasundari researched revived form), tended to be idealistic, forgetting that these women, till driven by circumstances, were neither saints nor harlots. Veteran dance/music critic V.A.K. Ranga Rao (Chennai), with the knowledge of close interaction with the kalavantulu (as these dancers were called), ascribed the fall of an art which "appealed to the pandita and the paamara alike" to the abolition of the Zamindari and the Devadasi Acts. Nuggets of information flowed from one who from the age of six to 35 had in the Bobbili court experienced Saaniattam. His immense archival collections included records of "Era Swami", "Ninnu Kori Naanu", "Manchidinamu", Shiva-deekshaparulanarula (a nindastuti addressed to the Vaishnava deity Mannaru-ranga). He recaptured memories of Bala Bhogam dance and aspects of Mezuvaani art and temple processions circumventing the palace with women watching unseen from their "Tsoopudimadalu" enclosures. Reference to contacts with Banaras dancers and `tawaif' influence led to Swapnasundari's interesting information about "Turk saanis" in East Godavari area, who were Muslim by faith and danced in the inner temple `Ekanta Seva" before the deity.
With competing events preventing taking in more than glimpses of the performance part featuring committed students of Swapnasundari, one was still struck by the contemporary sensibilities of the javalis and padams of this tradition. No vacuous smiles and misplaced coyness here! Purvadhanashree whose mukhabhinaya felicity (her guru's emblem) is now strengthened by newly evoked confidence in her artistic capabilities, gave an evocative demonstration of Mezuvaani art (chamber style abhinaya with dancer in seated position) of the Sahana lyric "Aadadani janmamettina phalam emi ativaro vyartham Amma", the neglected wife lamenting the worthlessness of luxury and mansion. What can separation mean when there has been no union?
Regret laced with sarcasm at the inhibited lover characterised another talented Hyderabad student Anupama Kylash's demonstration of the Suruti lyric "Magavarike inta mogamatimaite maguvala gati emira?" (If men are so reticent, what happens to women like I am?) Even with the vocalist requiringcues, the lively interpretation portrayed a by-no-means loose woman trying to provoke the timid lover to being assertive. Just as Sun and Moon cannot exchange places, the bee seeks the flower and not vice versa, she ironically offers him a veil to shield himself from the public.
First male
Sanjay Kumar Joshi, the first-ever male to do Vilasini Natyam, presented a graceful choornika in Anandabhairavi and a swara pallavi in Neelambari. Sanjay also did what was interesting from the historical perspective (which for Swapnasundari is toned by neither apologies for the saani nor blinkers thrown over less palatable aspects of history) namely, the bilingual English/Telugu javali by Chandrasekhara Sastry "Oh my lovely Lallana... " from the Company School of javali inspired by western bands and aimed at the Angrezi Sahib's entertainment. Hilarious in "Etuvanti step is it fit to take now?" one's objection despite Swapna's reference to elitist preference for Jayadeva's "Adharaamrtam" to the English "kiss" lies in the totally alien and unaesthetic poetry, though a historical development cannot be ignored.
Swapnasundari's own Shankarabharanam varnam "Saami ninne kori" performance, with its loosely knit agreement with an excellent team of musicians, was masterly in abhinaya and nritta.
Taking wing
Swapnasundari's work for the revival of the female dance traditions of India's Telugu speaking region is over a decade old, and at the Vilasini Natyam festival she presented this past week at the India International Centre, it was interesting to see the progress made. Clarifying that her work should not be seen as a `project' as that might be associated with a one-off production, she agrees that at first as she was the only performer of the style, "you could say it has taken an institutionalised form." While four of her students took the stage with her, in coming years more will be performing.
Some of the stage devices found in the presentation of the theatrical aspect of the dance (as distinct from the ritual or ceremonial dances) were interesting, but there are others too.
These presentations were traditionally done with lighting provided by flaming torches or mashaals. At one point resin would be thrown into the flame, and as it fizzed, the character (here, Satyabhama) turned to the audience.
"Fire regulations don't allow you to do these things in cities. I am looking for a place to present it this way," says the veteran dancer.
Emphasising that Kuchipudi and Bhagavata Mela, well known forms of the region today, belong to the purusha sampradayam (where only male dancers performed), and have not influenced the form she has helped revive at all, she says, "This is an umbrella term where I am trying to include all the women's traditions of temple and court dance."
Huge corpus
Though her painstaking research has yielded over 100 adavus (basic dance units) and a large repertoire, Swapnasundari stresses that she does not want to create a "brand" by perpetuating this corpus of compositions alone.
"Right now I'm teaching the coastal area tradition, but we have the southern Andhra tradition where the natyarambham (arm position) and the way of holding the body are different. I will teach those too. I will be adding more and more material, exploring the regional and stylistic changes," she states, adding she would love to receive support from cultural agencies and see Vilasini Natyam recognised as a classical style of India.
ANJANA RAJAN
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