For fairness
"My point of departure from conventional Bharatanatyam was to find space for it in the South African context, where my dance qualification, with the best of adavus and margam, was meaningless" says Jayesperi Moopen, accomplished Kalakshetra-trained Bharatanatyam dancer, now Artistic Director of Tribhangi Dance Theatre based in Johannesburg. Visiting Delhi on an ICCR sponsored tour, her company performing at the Russian Cultural Centre had a packed hall responding with thundering applause to her Bharatanatyam/South African dance dialogue, which often plays to doting audiences in all parts of the world.
"Rather than live in the comfort zone of being within the genre doing 20 padams and 10 tillanas, I wanted to make a small difference in an apartheid-locked society, looking for camaraderie through the dance with South Africans. Though I did not step outside the Bharatanatyam dance boundary, custodians of Indian Hindu art forms called my attempt blasphemous."
Kalakshetra between 1979 and 1984 when Jayasperi was a student could be stultifying with live-in students not allowed to see much outside. "An institution within itself, that controlled environment which could brainwash, was not for me - always a rebel. I was open to what was taught, but not to a prescribed life's goal.
I was a day scholar fortunately staying with Krishnaveni, and outside school hours was free to see and experience what I wanted. But that environment challenged my creative juices. I was one of the four Kalakshetra dancers allowed to take part in Chandralekha's creation for the East/West encounter and I loved it. That was one thing about Rukmini Devi. She had respect for thinking dancers like Chandralekha. She never belittled creative effort by others.
The native South Africans looked upon the Indians, who also lived boxed within their own circles, as a privileged class. But we earned our prosperity through hard work.
I tried to see if South African dancers and Bharatanatyam dancers could work together, trying to find some commonality — some humanness — without changing our respective art forms. We discussed what we could connect with. It was a long six- to eight-year process of agreeing to disagree, of laughing, of quarrelling, of sharing and of separating but being together, much like a family; that we have at last found the way out. Apartheid spread distrust for one another. Now we have created a synergy, which speaks well of our country today.
We do not see colour any more. A white dancer who joined my troupe recently was for me nothing beyond a good dancer. We can show the United Kingdom how to come out of the racial tensions. South African and Indian dancers in Tribhanga may not socialise with one another. But they are within that institution for six hours a day for five days a week - and they have a bonding."
Tools of expression
Bharatanatyam and South African dances have become tools for Tribhangi Dance Theatre, enriching dancers' perceptions of life and art.
"A production on Ganapati would only interest the ethnic Indian audience. But my productions like Chakras, `Insects in a Bottle' which is on rape, on AIDS — a big concern for us — get all types of audiences. Choreography, not everybody's cup of tea, is an everlasting challenge." through which the dancers are getting to know one another, bridging cross-cultural differences, developing respect for different points of view, "reshaping our concept of dance and life" and "ridding one of cultural xenophobia."
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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