The wheel has come full circle
ANJANA RAJAN
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The process of discovering what we don't know and what has been forgotten continues.
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Photo: K.V.Srinivasan.
CLASSICAL: Sattriya of Assam presented by Sharodi Saikia and her troupe.
Anything new under the sun? Maybe not, but there are many definitions of newness. What you don't know is new, what you have forgotten is probably more so! Our classical dance forms have proven it. India's dance arts, with innumerable regional variations, are far older than the India that took its place as a sovereign state after independence. Yet in the period building up to Independence and immediately after it, the classical dance forms were rediscovered, and acquired a `new' feel, fuelling national pride and helping to carve out a national identity.
Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Mohiniyattom, Kathak and Manipuri are no longer `new' to those who observe the art scene. Technically termed neo-classical, they are products of an intensive period of reconstruction in which sculptural and textual evidence, human memory (individual and collective), and contemporary perceptions played an important part. Today they have become benchmarks of tradition. But the process of discovering what we don't know and what has been forgotten continues. Over the decades, other forms have taken the stage, staking their claim to recognition as classical dance arts. Sattriya of Assam is one such, declared by the Sangeet Natak Akademi as a classical dance style in 2000.
Back in the early 1990s, when Indira Bora, Kalakshetra-trained Bharatanatyam dancer, presented Sattriya for the first time in New Delhi, rasikas gasped and found it new! Sattriya practitioners point out that research into this dance, nurtured in the monasteries of Assam and initiated by 15th Century Vaishnavite social reformer Shankara Deva, began in the 1950s. Today there are numerous performers, and the art of the monks has acquired a sophisticated sheen, if only because the nature of a stage performance is necessarily different from ritual worship.
Changing, expanding
In Chennai the other day, Sattriya dancer Sharodi Saikia and her troupe performed to a rapt audience. Sharodi points out a difference between the packaging of Sattriya for the stage and the revival of dances like Bharatanatyam and Odissi. "It is not exactly a reconstruction," she explains, "because it is an existing tradition." But there is no doubt that the tradition is changing and expanding.
One could call it `evolution.' That is the word used by another dancer dedicated to bringing to public notice another regional form: Gaudiya Nritya of Bengal. Mahua Mukherjee, who might be considered its chief practitioner, is vocal in her writings and presentations in explaining the distinct qualities and textual evidence that render this art distinct from any other classical dance style and worthy of being categorised as a separate classical form. Mahua is not perturbed that Sattriya has got the SNA label though Gaudiya has not. "Universities and the Department of Culture consider it on a par with the other classical dances," she avers, in the context of scholarship grants and the like. "Rabindra Bharati University and the University of Ohklahoma recognise it as a classical dance form." Mahua says she has over 80 students, some of whom have started their own institutes of Gaudiya Nritya.
On being the sole fountainhead of the art in its modern `avatar,' she says, "That is the fate of all the classical dance styles. There was always one pioneer who started the process."
Mahua, who learnt under Gurus Sashi Mahato, Narottam Sanyal, Gambhir Singh Mudha, Mukund Das Bhattacharya and other traditional practitioners of the Nachni and Kirtaniya traditions of Bengal which are part of Gaudiya Nritya, says making changes to the dance form is inevitable: "This is evolution."
Another dance form attracting attention is Vilasini Natyam, an umbrella term for the art of the women dancers of the Andhra region, championed by Swapnasundari. In her performances, the eminent dancer presents the parallel repertoire of the temple, the court and the stage. She too has embellished the traditions for the modern stage, but a significant difference in her approach is the revival of temple dancing. For the past decade, every year she has been dancing as part of the religious rituals at the Sri Ranganatha Swami temple in Hyderabad. It seems the wheel has come full circle from the days of the Devadasi Abolition Act.
Anything new under the sun? Maybe not, but we are certainly enjoying the sunshine!
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