In the realm of the heart
ANJANA RAJAN
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To dancer Wendy Jehlen, performance is not about presentation, but about communication.
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THE SELF AND BEYOND Wendy Jehlen performing at the Jahan-e-Khusrau festival in New Delhi.
When the U.S.-based Wendy Jehlen goes on stage, you know you are in the realm of the heart. So it was when she danced at the Jahan-e-Khusrau festival that culminated in New Delhi this past Sunday. It was a stage performance that went beyond the limits of a particular dance form, and yet it was not the kind of `overt' fusion where the components vie for attention as unique parts of a whole. In that sense, the performance eminently qualified to be described as more than the sum of its parts. What could be more natural in that case, than for Wendy to say later that she feels her base in dance is Bharatanatyam, a technique that was the most unobtrusive of all in her movements?
While her dance contains many of the core elements of Bharatanatyam — the tautness of body, the flexibility and concentration and attention to detail — these belong equally to any other dance well taught, and Wendy has learnt a number of forms, including Japanese Buto, Modern Dance and African dance. But, as Wendy explains, it is the spirit of Bharatanatyam, "the philosophy and why people dance" that has most deeply influenced her. She began learning Bharatanatyam under Neena Gulati in the U.S. and has taken advanced training under the Dhananjayans of Chennai.
Wendy, married to Nand Lal Naik, a folk musician and composer who hails from Ranchi, laughs when you describe the music she danced to as Dhrupad accompanied by piano. Like her, it would seem, he does not let stylistic boundaries impinge upon his creativity, and comes up with an expression, not a technique.
Moth in bliss
At Jahan-e-Khusrau, Wendy performed a piece titled "Moth", based on the Sufi image of the moth drawn to the flame and finding bliss in being annihilated in the fire. Wendy has choreographed a number of Sufi themes. How does she reconcile the idea of performance, which in the present day has become a presentation, with the ideas of a Sufi seeker, who talks of obliterating the self?
"Performance to me is about communication, not presentation," says Wendy. "It's not about myself."
This approach, she says, is natural to her. She has grown up hearing discussions on philosophy. Her aunt, a Theosophist, whom she considers "a second mother", has had a strong influence on her.
As Indian classical arts become increasingly commercialised, and "packaging" replaces performing while marketing replaces sadhana, Wendy's remark, "The dancer is the intermediary between the Divine and the audience," rings a faint bell. Isn't this the premise on which the classical arts revival of the early 20th Century was built?
Not surprising, then, that Wendy was granted a Fulbright scholarship to study the changes that have come about in Modern Dance in the U.S. and classical dance in India over this past half century, when Indian classical dance moved out of the temples and on to the stage.
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