Anita says...February 2025

 PEOPLE WHO SAY IT CANNOT BE DONE SHOULD NOT INTERRUPT THOSE WHO ARE DOING IT.

- George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic

IF YOU HATE A PERSON THEN YOU ARE DEFEATED BY THEM.
- Confucius, Chinese philosopher

Against the awe-inspiring backdrop of the MahaKumbh - a once every 144 year event - that witnessed the largest human congregation on earth at Prayagraj, millions of devotees congregated to pray and plunge into the meeting point of the sacred rivers - Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. This created a visual canvas that no scenographer could hope to emulate. A powerful and undeniable testament to the power of faith.

Dancers and musicians were part of the daily celebrations. The experience has been described by every artiste as "deeply moving", "extremely humbling", "life altering". Shovana Narayan and Geeta Chandran, whose dance ensemble were invited to perform last month shared their individual perspectives on the impact of being a part of this human tidal wave.

Shovana Narayan says, "The atmosphere was charged with a million hearts drenched in devotion. I felt a powerful current of energy as I dipped into the waters."
Geeta Chandran says, "The Kumbh makes you deeply aware of your own insignificance both on earth and in the cosmos. A moment that shakes one to the deepest core."

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Moments of movement and melody from Music Academy's mega dance festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

It was Madras Music Academy's 18th dance festival - a mega event featuring thirty two dancers over a week! One took in as much as a strained back, thanks to hours of couch potato sitting, would accommodate. 

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Solo projections of high quality and promise in Dance for Dance festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Curated by dancer Malavika Sarukkai, the fifth consecutive Dance for Dance festival (Dec 20-22, 2024) held at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan with the co-sponsorship of Kartik Fine Arts, would seem to have carried further, Kalavahini’s principle aim of a platform where the best among established dancers, perform in tandem with the specially selected promising young talent. Really deserving dance aspirants struggling against slender resources, will surely benefit from Kalavahini’s programme comprising intensity of the Dance Immersion Classes with seed money provided for a new venture – to which is, now, an added heartening introduction of a scholarship. It is a welcome sign when senior dancers who have made the grade, exercising concern for the future of the art form and for preserving an unassailable adherence to quality, step forward to enlist support for genuinely deserving younger talent. 

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Interview - Divya Warier on cross-discipline mentorship - Shveta Arora

During the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns in 2020, dancer Divya Warier organized Pratiroop, an online cross-mentorship programme that put dancers and mentors from different dance forms together. The result was short solos that were extremely concept-rich and innovative, with the dancers pushing the boundaries of their creativity and form under a guru who brought the influences and perspective of another discipline to bear on the usual production process.

Pratiroop started as an online, video production platform for lack of choice, when lockdowns made it impossible to meet in person or perform on stage. However, the dancers used the opportunity to create well-produced videos and adapt to the medium. Some of dancers also exploited the video medium effectively, creating solos that were not one unbroken stage performance, but used angles, cuts and editing to create dance movies. Pratiroop has had four iterations so far, two during COVID in 2020 and 2021, and two after. Divya also organizes a cross-mentorship residency in Kerala.

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Prism - NAVARASA SADHANA: An alternate actor training module based on Indian Traditional Theatre and Natyasastra - G Venu

 

...However, notwithstanding the Indian theatre possessing such a rich tradition, all the present theatre training methodologies practised in India follow the Western theatre practices. The Method Acting, evolved by Stanislavski who had lived during the first half of 20th century is still the most popular acting methodology in India. The techniques based on Natyasastra are limited to the training of the classical dance forms. This has given rise to a popular misconception that the Natyasastra is a system that pertains only to the dance forms. Such a misapprehension in turn arises from the misreading of Natyasastra that it just encompasses a stylised rendering of the four-fold acting methodology comprising of Angika, Vachika, Aharya and Sathwika abhinaya-s. The Indian theatre schools diligently follow all the Western masters of theatre right from Stanislavski to Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski etc. It was during my own training of Kutiyattam under Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar that I started learning to tell apart the major differentiations between Kathakali and Kutiyattam. I had entered Kutiyattam after learning Kathakali for eight years. As I started distinguishing between the dance theatre of Kathakali and the theatrical form of Kutiyattam, I started to contemplate seriously on the notion of what makes up the Indian theatre.

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Twenty fourth year of Natya Darshan Festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Unlike earlier Natya Darshan festivals, this year's celebration, convened by dancer Narthaki Nataraj was built round a theme of the body as a temple, with the motto Connect, Communicate, Elevate, while dealing with a subject. Involving the Pancha Kosha or five layers or sheaths of the human body from Annamaya Kosha, the outermost layer sustained by food, to Pranamaya Kosha, the physical body with life breath, to Manomaya Kosha the vital mental body, to the deeper recesses of mind in Vighyanamaya Kosha, till finally to the total silence and complete harmony of bliss in Anandamaya Kosha, underlines an evolution from gross to subtle body - signifying the route that art also takes with the practitioner - from the physical dancer to the one who communicates from his innermost being. Instead of the comfort of presenting items selected from the common Margam repertoire, here was a need to go through literature in the vernacular languages, to find material suitable to the prescribed theme, and all the participants one saw, had spared no efforts to live up to their allotted theme. 

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Obit/Tribute - Kathak Guru Chitra Venugopal (1936 - 2025)

Her middle name ought to have been SMILE. That was her best abhushan (jewelry) too. She was a picture – Chitra - of poise and graciousness. Actually, all the three sisters were: Maya Rao, the lighthouse of Kathak in Bangalore; Uma Subbarao, affable and amiable artist and art lover; and Chitra Venugopal, illustrious teacher of Kathak to hundreds.

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Chennai swamped by Margazhi music/dance deluge - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Come Margazhi Season and with the deluge of music /dance and lectures on art in Chennai, one jumps grasshopper like from one Sabha to another, trying to absorb as much as one's energy and trafficking through bumpy and in places water-logged roads and alleys, will allow. In the desire not to miss out on opportunities, one often misses out on the luxury of sitting through entire events, ending up seeing parts of festivals playing out at various centres.

LECTURE BY BRITISH HISTORIAN WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

NRITHYA CHOODAMANI AND SANGEETHA CHOODAMANI

NAVIA'S VIRODHABHASA INTENSITY STRUGGLES AGAINST AUDIENCE RIGIDITY

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Anita says...January 2025

Happy New Year, everyone!
Here we are at the start of yet another year.
A year that brings with it all the hopes and promises of something better and brighter than the year that has just gone by.

Are you looking back at 2024 with gratitude, joy, delight? A twinge of regret and sadness? Are you a better person today than a year ago? It is a brand new start and moving beyond resolutions, there are 12 brand new months to reset, pivot or simply get up, dust the knicks and scratches off our knees and keep going-dancing!

For me, 2024 has been one of big ups and downs. A broken bone mid year and weeks of rest put me in a reflective mood about my own journey. It's been 60 years since my arangetram! How much and how far I have travelled in my life and art! How many new initiatives, new platforms, new brands. So perhaps 2024 has rightly been a year of pause, reflection and perhaps a pivot!

My travels took me to many countries but in December alone I went to villages, towns, cities, mountains and the seaside. I watched a gamut of performances - ritual theatre, folk art, mythic plays, classical and neo classical dance, performance art, film music orchestras, contemporary dance and, skipping (almost) the entire Chennai Margazhi season. I felt a huge surge of gratitude for the opportunity to encounter new cultural experiences while staying curious with a multitude of questions about walking the creative path.

To take the entire month of December off was always the plan. Knowing only too well that Chennai would be drowning in too many Bharatanatyam shows from morning to night, I intentionally planned to turn my lens onto other kinds of creative endeavours. I wanted to absorb a greater diversity in arts programming, to personally witness the push of bristling young minds curating inter-disciplinary events with courage and bravado - to acknowledge (with a wistful twinge) the shrinking space for classical dance and to envy classically trained musicians who are able to easily straddle so many worlds simultaneously. 

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