INIDA ABROAD
Multiple journeys: New idioms of grace
KETU H. KATRAK
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The festival of contemporary Indian dance held in Toronto in January not only paid tribute to past masters but also showcased developing trends in contemporary choreography.
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The curtain opened to Sridhar leading a group of women with bent backs (an image made iconic by Chandra through this work and now part of our collective unconscious)...
Photos: NEDU, Manpreet Sokhi, Indance And Tamara Chatterjee
Different directions:Anita Ratnam in 7 Graces
A unique festival of contemporary Indian dance in Toronto, organised by Kalanidhi Fine Arts, Artistic Director, Sudha Khandwani, and Menaka Thakkar Dance Company in January hosted performing artists in new and revived choreography — Aditi Mangaldas, Anita Ratnam, Madhu Nataraj from India, and Indian-Canadians Natasha Bakht, Hari Krishnan, Lata Pada, Nova Bhattacharya among others. Khandwani and Thakkar continue (since 1993) providing an invaluable platform for Indian dance, now a global phenomenon. The audience comprising artists, scholars and rasikas enjoyed the four-day programmes at Harborfront’s prestigious Fleck Theatre.
A fitting tribute in movement to the late Chandralekha included her final work, Sharira, performed by Tishani Doshi and Shaji John , both trained by Chandra. They executed Sharira’s extraordinary choreography in 64 minutes of spell binding movement and to live Dhrupad music by the Gundecha brothers. The performance that evening held the audience in a magic, near-transcendent circle.
Magnificent revival
Bollywood Hopscotch
Khandwani and Thakkar with Sadanand Menon (Chandra’s long-time collaborator) also successfully mounted a magnificent revival of Chandra’s Shakti (a segment of Sri). London-based Geetha Sridhar, trained by Chandra for the original Sri (1991) was persuaded to impart rigorous training to Menaka Thakkar’s Indian-Canadian Bharatanatyam dancers with Shaji John’s assistance in Kalaripayattu. This method of having Chandra-trained dancers teach others for future revivals is worth emulating.
Sridhar commented, in an email, on the challenges of inculcating in a short time (different from Chandra’s method and to Indian-Canadian bodies) what Chandra called “consciousness”, an awareness in movement of dancers’ womanhood and life-experiences to be communicated via rasa (emotion), the cornerstone of Indian aesthetics. Chandra’s goal, noted Sridhar, was never to show only mastery of movement.
Polished performance
Shakti’s revival was riveting, polished and memorable. The curtain opened to Sridhar leading a group of women with bent backs (an image made iconic by Chandra through this work and now part of our collective unconscious) moving laboriously across the stage, replicating their hard lives, focusing inward and suddenly fixing a sharp, confrontational stare at the audience. The image echoed ever so intangibly in the group energy of bodies moving with backs to the audience and then turning to give them a sharp look in Hari Krishnan’s Bollywood Hopscotch. Toronto’s multiethnic InDance Company energetically performed Krishnan’s hybrid choreography humorously and sarcastically showing both melodramatic Bollywood acting and speedy Bharatanatyam. The bent back image was visible again in the opening of Anita Ratnam’s evocative solo, 7 Graces (a 15-minute excerpt) as she pulled imaginary energy into her gut/womb in a slow walk backwards referencing femaleness and mothering.
Shakti’s recorded music by V.V. Subramaniam had a haunting tone that kept our focus on the slow moving bodies delineating female journeys from oppressive experiences (bent backs) to a startling awakening (via the female community on stage) of the human spine (central in Chandra’s conceptualisation of the human body’s strength) in standing erect.
Exploring paradoxes
A scene from Shakti.
The Festival also showcased contemporary Kathak by Delhi-based Aditi Mangaldas and Drishtikon dancers in timeless, contemporary Bharatanatyam and Kathak in Indian-Canadian Lata Pada and Sampradaya Dancers in shunya exploring “the paradox of zero and infinity at the same time” (Pada). Mangaldas’ Kathak was admirable though the piece was ambitious in exploring too many aspects of time/lessness: “Is time parallel? Is time still? Does time flow?” (Program Notes)
Although Timelessness and shunya are both contemporary works, the choreographers did not integrally refashion classical Indian dance idioms. Such artistic journeys, where classical forms remain inspirational, are significant today though an important distinction must be drawn between artists contemporising the classical via innovative costumes, multimedia, new themes, and eclectic sounds, from others like Indian-Canadians Hari Krishnan, Natasha Bakht, and Indian Anita Ratnam who rethink the classical vocabulary from within, who disrupt familiar symmetry, and create new hybrid movement not defined by binaries of “classical” and “contemporary”. They remind us that dancers need space to create new, edgy, even risky work relying on artistic integrity for successful new creations.
One cautionary note to diaspora Indians is to exert judgment and sensitivity in using recognisable hymns such as the Gayatri Mantra and Sanskrit slokas in their choreography. Even as they borrow from their Indian heritage, they must not appropriate text and music as cultural props without the same professional rendition of sound, accent, and accompanying movement that they give to other aspects of their creative work. Uneven work by Roger Sinha, Usha Gupta (though Madhu Nataraj’s energetic Kathak was noteworthy), and Janak Khendry needed more focus and development.
Among the Festival’s most outstanding performances was White Space, by Indian-Canadian Natasha Bakht (Ottawa-based, a lawyer) — intense, precise, virtuosic, deconstructing the body in sharp shoulder jerks, or slow foot placement and then reintegrating it, supported by Alexander McSween’s original recorded music. Bakht trained in Bharatanatyam for 20 years with Menaka Thakkar, apart from three years with Britain’s Shobana Jeyasingh. White Space, danced in a white ballet-like dress, initially behind a white screen, then in front of it and beyond it presented a skilled collage of recognisable mudras flowing into yoga asanas, and deliberate breaking of symmetrical body-lines. A momentary image resonated at the end — an index finger held in front of the dancer’s heart, evoking a brief sense of unity/harmony.
The Festival’s presentation of 14 works demonstrated the variety of contemporary choreography in Indian dance. Dance today faces enormous competition from popular film and television. More platforms such as this highly successful one provided by the Toronto Festival are needed in India and the diaspora.
The writer is Professor of Humanities, University of California.
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