Raise the standard!
P.S. KRISHANAMURTI
|
The young are abundantly talented but lack direction.
|
Those who have the opportunity to enjoy music and dance only during the winter season have a chance to see how these have changed over a year, and are thus placed to form an idea of the actual growth.
In the context of today’s burgeoning opportunities, plethora of concerts and steep growth in professional standards of performance, it may sound paradoxical that the field appeared to be drifting to decadence a year ago. While skill is an essential part of music, it cannot be the totality of it. Immeasurable elements such as feeling, soul and devotion also contribute to quality. Seen in that light, isn’t the art centred more on quantity than on quality today?
Our young aspirants are perhaps elbowing their way to the limelight through accumulation and demonstration of more and more techniques, clichés and stunts, mostly in the unimaginative arithmetic of kalpanaswaras. How many of their gurus or parents will think of directing them to more profound krtis, or elaboration of raga alapana or niraval? Why shouldn’t every one of our senior artists at least eschew flamboyance in treatment, style, manner, or garb and promote musical values? If you ask the average listener to define quality or value, the response may not be crisp but he can sense quality where it is present.
Emphasis on emotions
Senior artistes could demonstrate their dedication to the art, not just by being conscientious but more emphatically through raising the standard of the prevailing music. They could do great service by highlighting the values of compositions by infusing their own feelings into them.
Aren’t deeply stirring compositions such as ‘Enduku betala,’ ‘Karuvaruseru,’ ‘Marimarininne,’ ‘Chesinadela,’ ‘Enthara ni,’ ‘Tulasi Bilva,’ ‘Dinamani vamsa,’ ‘Pahimam ratnachala nayaka’ — the list is endless — becoming extinct ?
The ears of lovers of such compositions, battered by ceaseless batteries of mighty swaraprasthara yearn for the soothing and reverential treatment given to music by an Alathur, Semmangudi, Mani, GNB or such singers and the heart weeps, not so much for the heroes gone as for the lofty values that are dwindling!
Quality cannot show up like magic in the end product; it has to be cultivated assiduously by listening to old masters. The student has to imbibe it at every successive stage of his development. Much lies in the hands of the gurus, music schools and parents
The dance scene has so far been inclined towards fashion, hype and jargon, rather than dedication to theme, lyric, music, originality and creativity, except in a few cases. Dance teachers just do not break off from over-flogged compositions and themes, which are very few in number when compared to music, where the compositions are innumerable. This is one major reason for a dance concert in general being banal. When a serious choreographer does turn up, she has to contend with indifferent accompanying artistes who will be required to do much more homework than with the other (“standard”) items, in which they will have to reproduce the same tunes, jatis, teermanams, sancharis as they have been doing for years.
There would be practically no need for rehearsals for a “standard menu” — and who wants to slog when he can get his charges by just sitting at the stage for an hour and a half? The cost factor too is more serious in a dance concert. A dedicated choreographer/dancer can get quite frustrated under the circumstances, and originality fails to find an outlet.
With the wealth of material given to us on a platter, so to say, by the countless verses and abundant prose in our literature in Tamil and Sanskrit, it is not difficult for a choreographer to identify one of these for developing any mood, concept or sentiment she chooses to depict. With a dedicated musician or music composer, she can also get them set to appropriate music. Money pays, and so she can command the right orchestra and demand the necessary practice and rehearsal commitment from its members to put up a show of quality, if she has what it takes in creativity – and money!
The dancer has far more challenges to face than the kutcheri singer.’ She cannot improvise as freely as the singer: she is bound by her orchestral team. The entire orchestra needs to practise and rehearse the improvisation – an odd oxymoron ! Secondly, while the singer is normally automatically acknowledged by the members of his team as its captain, the dancer, except for the very senior ones, is invariably looked upon by the mridangist and violinist as one who has to be subservient to them, as she depends on them for the success of the concert. She is beholden to them, and this calls for extra mileage from her. It is not surprising then why dance creativity is way back when it comes to creativity in music.
Other contenders to the forefront are the “contemporary” efforts in dance and the infiltration of films in classical dance as well as music. We seem to be drifting into an era in which the glamour of the silver screen is needed to promote classical values – a queer reversal of roles that prevailed a decade ago!
Contemporary idiom
As to contemporary dance, we rely on abstract descriptions of what it is, expressed in an arcane jargon {to camouflage the inherent vagueness ?)
Chandralekha, whose art was abstract, was crystal clear about what she was attempting – a closer look into traditional dance, the dance of Bharata Sastra. She was far from being a rebel. She was passionate about expressing her view that among the various aspects of dance, such as Expression, Lyric. Music and Posture, the last one had gone by without appropriate or even equal emphasis. She demonstrated that with exclusive attention to the body, you could generate a field of energy just as well as you can create a mood of feeling of solemnity, joy or sanctity through the other disciplines. Chandra was abstract and a success. Illogically, being abstract is taken as a prerequisite, if not the only factor for a successful dance essay!
Against all this we have today widespread competence and training and the inexhaustible energy of today’s youth with multi-disciplinary competence. Positivism demands that we steer them and produce a golden age out of the current tinsel age.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Music Season
