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Joy of dance
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For Nirmala Seshadri dance is a tool to build cultural bridges. She shares her thoughts on her artistic expressions with RADHIKA RAJAMANI
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ABHARATANATYAM dancer with short hair - may seem a contradiction. But Nirmala Seshadri is very much at home doing the classical steps with it. For this Singapore-born Chennai based artiste with her roots in Andhra Pradesh (her father hails from Guntur region), dance is very much a part of her life and expression. Constantly endeavouring to build cultural bridges (on account of her multi-cultural background), Nirmala strives deep to find the connections. As she talks the dancer in her comes through her hasta mudras and abhinaya. Nirmala takes cognisance of the environment and issues around her addressing them as articulate expressions in her dance
Dance started as a cultural art form for her. "Growing up in Singapore helped find a connection from where I came from. Art helps build cultural bridges. I am an Indian and I loved exploring that identity initially. In fact my mother wanted me to learn dance. She said that I would have to jump at the back of my class. Initially I hated it. The `love-hate' relationship continued. But as a teenager I realised it helped me to address and resolve many issues which I couldn't talk to the elders. Later through art education programmes (lecdems and workshops) in schools in Singapore one could find parallels in culture and through this one was creating awareness in the South-East Asian children." Like many others in the field today, Nirmala too tackles contemporary subjects by performing within the parameters of Bharatanatyam yet with some experimentation in presentation. Multi-disciplinary approach is the order of the day and various methods are used to express oneself. In some productions Nirmala uses yoga and dance-theatre. "I have accepted the Bharatanatyam idiom within me. So it is natural that I use it . At the same time I allow the concept to direct. So in the production Outcaste Eternal (based on the book Outcaste translated into English from Malayalam by Vasanti Sankaranarayana which deals with the trial of Paptikutty in Kerala in 1904) where she explored gender dynamics she used dance theatre. "For the trial sequence I used theatre, whereas in the flashback dance modes emerged. For her solo to the music of the live 70-member Singapore Chinese orchestra where Bharatanatyam was juxtaposed with Chinese orchestral music where she danced to a poem The Celestial Web (Swie Han) she used yoga. "When the music reached a crescendo I went from movement to stillness and yoga fitted in brilliantly." "Indian dance forms are connected to Shilpasastra, painting and drama. In the beginning there was speech in dance and then it faded away and has come back again," she adds.
Experimentation in dance (which seems to be gaining ground), she says, "is a positive trend. There is a change in the approach to dance and the artiste is trying to understand the environment. Even in the traditional format experimentation has been happening. For example, the sanchari bhava segment of a varnam is performed differently by artistes says my guru Kalanidhi Narayanan. Exploration of the self and the connection to the outer is happening through time."
For Nirmala foray into the arts began with the piano which she gave up after she began to learn dance. Learning the nattuvangam was valuable too. Although she did a number of solos and other choreographies she just took a break for some years. "After I did Outcaste (where I broke the margam) I went into a shell. It drew all the energy out of me, made me go through layers of my life and it made traditionalists uncomfortable. And then I wondered where I was artistically heading? So I wanted to take a break and rethink. So I took up writing and freelanced for a few papers in Chennai. Then my friend Radhika Srinivasan (who was also in Singapore now settled in Chennai) persuaded me to dance in her production Ragamandala. Once I started practice, I continued. It's something I am doing because I need to do it."
Nirmala's latest production which premiered in Chennai is Then and Now: Personal and Artistic Reflections - in two parts. "The first part is a memory of a margam performance and the second part is an adaptation of a Mandarin poem. It's a dance-theatre piece about a woman reflecting in the autumn of her life. Videos and photographs are used in the presentation."
Coming to her hair she cut it when she was doing Crossroads. "This was a piece where I was trying to show there was no difference between a man and a woman. So I cut my hair a few days before and went on stage ," says Nirmala, who wears a plait when she does the margam style.
Nirmala started `jumping' from the age of seven and continues to do so many decades later. "Dance is a journey, and a search. . It's a process, which I share with people. I enjoy and experience the joy of dance. It helps me at various levels." And the search and the desire to build cultural bridges continues unabated.
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