Interview - Geeta Chandran celebrates 50th anniversary of her arangetram - Shveta Arora

Soloist, choreographer, teacher, scholar, a shaper of arts policy and a leading light in Bharatanatyam, dancer Geeta Chandran performed a one-hour varnam, old-school, at the golden jubilee of her arangetram in Delhi on 25 October. 'A varnam is actually a one-hour piece, it's not something that is finished off in 20 minutes, like it is today. It is like a vilambit khayal - it needs that kind of delineation. Each line needs to be slowly delineated. I'm planning to do a varnam in the old style,' she said of her recital on marking exactly 50 years to her arangetram on 25 October 1974.

Geeta Ramakrishnan was only 12 when, on that day 50 years ago, she took the stage under the watchful eye of her first guru, Swarna Saraswati. On 24 October, her students performed 'Pravahati' showcasing the work and the philosophy she has imparted to them over the decades. The two-day programme took place at Kamani auditorium, Delhi.

It was learning with no stakes.
Geeta Chandran describes the teaching methodology, the attitude towards the arts and even the approach to a piece's choreography when she was a student, all radically different from today's structured, limited, time-bound learning.

The learning was never geared towards performance. None of my teachers came from a space where they only talked about performance. They talked about acquiring knowledge and going deeper into the learning process, because there were no workshops like there are today, no way to teach items. It was all long years with the teacher, imbibing an ethic for the work and a philosophy towards the arts. The learning was very different from what it is now, when it is all about what to do in the next programme and the next item. It was (then) always about increasing the base of knowledge.

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