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Magazine
Culture
New journeys of discovery
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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Kalakshetra is exploring new directions and disciplines while nourishing and keeping alive the rich legacy of its founder.
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These excursions are giving aspirants an enormous sense of history of the art and how art inter-relationships have worked in enriching dance.
Photo: M. Karunakaran
Students practising Bharatanatyam in the campus.
Kalakshetra, the grand vision of the late Rukmini Devi, poses administrative challenges for every Director and the Board on how to nourish and keep alive the rich legacy left behind by the founder, while not seeming to stagnate at one point. Over the
years after Rukmini Devi left the scene, the institution has had its fluctuating fortunes.
For the visitor to Kalakshetra now, the packed auditorium with long queues of art enthusiasts buying tickets, with the general air of expectancy and happening surrounding the campus come as a pleasant surprise. The Rukmini Devi museum, very artistically laid out with all the personal collections of the founder, is a treasure trove of handicraft, sculpture and painting.
Thrust on research
But the greatest surprise is the research wing, started about six months ago and already a treasure trove of material. All the scrolls, notes and records left behind by the great teachers who worked for Kalakshetra have been neatly bound, with photo copies easily available for research. The considerable material available on the shelves is already expanding so fast that soon space will be a problem. The sound wing is working on old recordings of Tiger Varadarachariyar and others. “We are in consultation with library and archival specialists so as to proceed the right way,” says Leela Samson, the Director.
“Our main thrust has been to expand the syllabus. Along with Sanskrit and Telugu as important dance textual languages already taught we have now added Tamil, for, we thought that this was one area where more work was needed, apart from Tamil being the mode of communication that all students follow. But old Tamil history and its contribution to the dance need to be fully understood. Fortunately we have Dr. S. Raghuraman from the University giving us full support in teaching and advice.
A vibrant tradition: Kalakshetra founder Rukmini Devi.
“We have also added two other sections, History of Art and Vedic Studies, to our syllabus. Students are taken on excursions to temples. The first year we concentrate on the Theosophical Society, Museum of Sculptures and temples in and around Chennai. The second year, the students visit temples in North Arcot and Vellore Districts and the final year is devoted to temples in Chidambaram, Thanjavur, Tiruvalur, Kumbakonam, Pandanallur, all with such a rich dance history.
The students go in batches to different temples. They study not just the history of the temple, its sculpture and inscriptional material (with experts), but also try and cull out anecdotes, musical and poetry compositions associated with each of the temples. “The students have shown an unexpected sense of adventure in getting information from the gurukkal (priests), who are generously cooperative on seeing the genuine interest, and managing to visit homes and old families to ferret out any information about musical lineage pertaining to old scrolls of musical writings and whatever other details they are able to procure. These projects entail writing a thesis on what they have found. They pool their resources acquired from various sources and generally have written extremely interesting essays which at times have become the topic for later symposium discussions. And these excursions are giving these aspirants an enormous sense of history of the art and how art inter-relationships have worked in enriching the dance. So there is a feeling of a precious inheritance which should not be frittered away.”
Young teachers are a part of this journey of discovery. They are also being made aware of the learning methods of the past with retired veterans like Sarada Hoffman, Chandrasekhar, Adyar Lakshmanan, Seetaram Sharma the music expert being coaxed by Leela to regularly interact with students and teachers.
A new arts department of pottery is resulting in very interesting work by students. Young people are being given the chance to choreograph new work. “Space has to be found for young creativity.” At the same time, the old, like Rukmini Devi’s “Shyama”, based on Rabindranath Tagore’s work, after over 20 years of hibernation, has been resurrected this year.
“Built through the blood, sweat and tears of selfless workers and not to be taken for granted, Kalakshetra is the place to make students realise why we dance as we do in Bharatanatyam, by fully understanding the strands of history. Nothing could have been achieved without the unstinting support of the Board,” says Leela.
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