Friday Review
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The end of an aesthetic era
SHYAMHARI CHAKRA
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Sangeet Natak Akademi award winner Odissi dance maestro Surendranath Jena passed away in New Delhi recently.
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Eternal steps Surendranath Jena.
I danced for joy and I will die happily that I have been able to dance throughout my life,’ said octogenarian Odissi guru Surendranath Jena, a few weeks before he was conferred the coveted Sangeet Natak Akademi award earlier this year by the President of India in New Delhi.His life comes out as a saga of struggle to emerge as a dancer. Of a poor village boy’s transition from a member of the touring folk theatre group in rural Orissa to that of an established exponent of Odissi classical dance. And that was Surendranath Jena, a man and a guru quite content with his life and creations, who had the cheer left to laugh at his failures and his detractors and who loved to laugh like a child. Because he chose to be different, he was ignored and criticized but as it happens with all pioneers, he was given due recognition towards the fag end of his life with the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi besides undertaking an audio-visual documentation of his style while the British Academy in London funded a documentary on him that was made by dance scholar Alessandra Lopez Royo of Roehampton University.
However, ironically enough Orissa Sangeet Natak Akademi never considered him worthy of an award!
How was Surendrannath special? His uniqueness lay in his convictions and in the inspirations that he drew from the temple sculptures. The basic movements in his dance vocabulary, all based on the sculptures of Konark temple, had been codified into 24 units. Unlike his contemporaries, he named his movement units borrowing the nomenclature from the ‘Shilpa Shastra’ and not the ‘Natya Shastra’. With a lot of sitting postures in his style, a trend that is not evident in the works of the other exponents of Odissi, he has also incorporated several statuesque positions where the dancer balances on one leg. He also suggested use of less space on stage retaining the size of the ‘natya mandap’ (dancing hall) in the temples.
Surendranath did not subscribe to idea of dance dramas He favoured and successfully explored solos instead. In his expressional dance compositions, he extensively explored ‘roudra’ and ‘bibhasta’ rasas (moods) while he did not believe that Odissi is a predominately feminine form. Thus, he harmoniously combined ‘lasya’(feminine) and ‘tandav’ (masculine) elements in all his compositions. It was eminent scholar Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan who was Surendranath’s
disciple and she was responsible for highlighting her guru’s unique contribution to Odissi dance style.
And while he must have died happily, that he danced till his end, there would be no end to his dance. It will only live on through his countless disciples.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
