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The art of the body talk
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Chandralekha comes to Delhi to perform `Sharira' this evening. ANJANA RAJAN finds out what the acclaimed choreographer has in mind.
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Time for Chandralekha's "Sharira" in New Delhi.
AS JAGORI celebrates the completion of 20 years in the field of feminist activism, the latest in its series of events to mark the occasion is a dance production by the eminent Chennai-based choreographer Chandralekha. Coming on the heels of seminars, plays - including Eve Ensler's much-debated "Vagina Monologues" - and evenings of music and dance, is Chandralekha's `Sharira - Fire/Desire' this Monday evening at Kamani auditorium. Though `Sharira' was produced in 2001 and has been seen in a number of cities of India and the world, it will be presented for the first time in the Capital, where Chandralekha, known for her firebrand views that set heads wagging in the classical dance fraternity, is returning after a break of six years.
Chandralekha, who left the straight and narrow path of solo Bharatanatyam performance as a young dancer in the early 1960s, returned to the stage after nearly two decades of thought with aesthetic yet deceptively simple choreographic presentations using well-trained Bharatanatyam dancers. Then she burst upon the scene with a full-length production, `Angika' that explored the nature of movement as expressed through Bharatanatyam and the martial art form of Kerala, Kalaripayattu. While the Page 3 crowd - not that the terminology existed in the mid-`80s - hailed it as a mind bogglingly new approach, it was clear to those familiar with the forms that `Angika' was more a series of theory lessons from the scriptures of Bharatanatyam and Kalaripayattu than a creative expression.
Her experimentation
But today it is clear that it was just the beginning of her experimentation and research on the body. Today her productions like `Sharira' are as different from a defined classical form like Bharatanatyam as could be, and leave many in the audience squirming at their uninhibited display of sexuality. But her tenet has been for long that sensuality, sexuality and spirituality are equally to be found in the body. Says Sadanand Menon, her long-time associate as well as light designer, "She says, let's explore which movements bring them all together. I feel in this new production you'll find a new genre evolving, though she would not put it that way."
Shock value
For all the shock value of her productions like `Raga', `Shloka' and `Sharira', Chandralekha comes across sagely. "Always, discussion and dialogue is a very good area," she says. "Instead of repeating ad nauseum what the teacher has taught you. How can you say that Bharatanatyam is a perfect art? To learn from our art is also a part of our tradition."
With music by Dhrupad exponents the Gundecha Brothers and dance by Shaji K. John and Tishani Doshi, `Sharira', she muses, is about "that which decays, that which dies, then that which is immortal. So how does one see it?"
How indeed? Whether with the mind's eye or the physical, depends on the viewer. Either way, `Sharira' promises food for thought.
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