 | Ketu H. Katrak, born in Bombay, India, is Professor of Humanities affiliated to the Departments of English & Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. She has studied Bharatanatyam under Medha Yodh, an early and direct disciple of Balasaraswati. Katrak has published in the fields of Postcolonial Literature and Theory, Asian American Literature, Women Writers, and Feminist Theory. Dr. Katrak's current research explores the intersections of ethnicities, multiple locations, diasporic politics in Asian American Literature, and the impacts of new immigration on ethnic formation in the U.S.
She is the author of Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World (Rutgers UP, 2006), and other publications in journals such as Modern Fiction Studies and Amerasia among others. |
An Inside-Outsider Reflects on Bharatanatyam and Innovations in Tradition
by Ketu H. Katrak
In fond memory of my inspiring Bharatanatyam teacher Medha Yodh (July 31,1927 - July 11, 2007) who mentored me to face life with a dance.
A Fulbright Research Award to study tradition and innovation in the classical South Indian dance style of Bharatanatyam takes me to my country of origin, India. I have studied Bharatanatyam for over twenty years with Medha Yodh, a disciple of the legendary T. Balasaraswati. I know the dance in my body, and my being responds to the rhythms of Carnatic music.
During the Fulbright, I base myself in Chennai, in Southern India, in the heart of Bharatanatyam's original home. Landing in Chennai in October 2005, the heat and humidity are overpowering. This is a new cityscape for me, far from Bombay where I grew up. Here, I am an inside-outsider—I do not know the local language, Tamil. (My mother-tongue is Gujarati. I also know Hindi and Marathi). I take in a new cityscape with its own architecture, pulse of life, aromas of local foods--idli (flat rice-cakes), sambar (a spicy lentil and vegetable soup) and filter coffee (popularly called “kafi”). Most profoundly, I tune into a nurturing spirituality that is also sensory in the sweet aroma of jasmine flowers handled lovingly by the ever-industrious hands of women making garlands, sitting on the ground outside temples large and small. Devotees wear the flowers in their hair, offer them to deities as they close their eyes and hold the moment in the palms of their hands before leaving for work or school.
My 9-year old daughter and I are in the auto (3-wheeler) with our driver Sekhar who takes us to my daughter’s school in the mild sunshine of 8 AM, and then again in the hotter sun around 4 PM. The auto has no doors; we are open to the world around us, taking in the colors and sounds that draws us into a circle of belonging in a sea of brown faces.
My project had begun much earlier, in Southern California, my home away from home, where I had observed and published essays on the changing landscape of Bharatanatyam performances by the Indian-American diasporic community. Second-generation Indian-Americans, exposed to other eastern as well as western musical and dance traditions, experiment with movement vocabularies of Bharatanatyam, Modern dance, Jazz, Yoga and Tai-chi. Their creative choreography belongs to the Contemporary Indian Dance genre, retaining a flavor of the Indian aesthetic.
I am a scholar-observer, an interviewer-participant in this research journey. My inside-outsider position is invaluable in conducting interviews with local dance celebrities and requesting to observe rehearsals and dance classes. I become an integral part of the local environment, guided by knowledge and memories of “proper” behavior and dress codes, speech and body language from my upbringing in Bombay.
On October 17th 2005, I enter the oldest living institution of Bharatanatyam, the Kalakshetra Academy, established by Rukmini Devi in 1936 in Tiruvanmiyur, Chennai, with eagerness and trepidation. I am open to learning and challenging my own premises of “tradition” and “innovation” in Bharatanatyam. Like other Indian classical dance styles, Bharatanatyam draws from the codification of movements and emotions as outlined in the Natya Shastra, the 5th century B.C. compendium on drama, dance, dramaturgy and Indian aesthetics. Here, expressive forms of dance, music, drama are linked integrally; dance embodies music, and in the best dancers, the dancing body becomes one with the music and lyrics.
Classic and Contemporary
In interviews and discussions about tradition in Bharatanatyam, a recurring analogy came up, of tradition being like a river, flowing and gathering influences along the way. There were debates about “extending tradition”, “resisting tradition” and of “transforming tradition” from the solo form into group choreography, and “thematic” productions where traditional Bharatanatyam grammar and idiom remain intact while the theme serves as a peg to claim something new. There was another trend of using traditional technique to create new work based on medieval Tamil literature preserved on palm-leaf manuscripts and transcribed into modern Tamil. Changes in theme or content that retain traditional technique and format do not demonstrate a re-conceptualization of the style’s recognizable grammar and idiom. As such, the changes do not cohere organically so that the final product is somewhere in between the traditional and the new. A dismissive phrase says it all-- fusion equals confusion!
Some dancers reject the aharya (traditional accoutrements of silk costume and jewelry) and wear tights and leotards as in modern dance. Their work in Contemporary Indian Dance borrows equally from Bharatanatyam jatis (foot-patterns) and mudras (gesture language using the hands and facial expression to convey emotion and narrative) as from Modern dance, Yoga or Tai-chi. Others want nothing to do with “Indian Dance” since that evokes stereotypical images of the mystical East. They choose to work within the parameters of “Contemporary Dance.” I also noticed a desire to combine the “classic and contemporary”—a phrase used by the influential newspaper, The Hindu.
Today, Bharatanatyam is studied and performed in many parts of the world. Location influences its teaching and performance, be it Australia, France, Malaysia, or the U.S. The style evolves as it is embodied in the creative bodies and minds of contemporary creative choreographers. Contemporary artists use tradition in their own way, as they find relevant in their own geographical spaces, whether New York or Chidambaram, and challenge notions of authenticity in their hybrid work (sometimes with feminist and ethnic themes).
In Chennai, there are over 300 dance schools and several performances of Bharatanatyam. Perhaps, this sumptuous diet creates new audience demands, such as a turning away from the solo (often female) form to group presentations. This change is rooted both in the enormous numbers of dancers as well as their quality. Somewhat ironically, the pristine solo form that appears to have reached a surfeit in Chennai is welcomed in the Indian diasporic community in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Another artifact of our times is the individual ownership of “choreography”. Previously, male dance masters who "composed" dance, did not face the same kind of pressure and demand for novelty and entertainment. Along with “classic and contemporary”, I noticed traditional dancers making over-zealous claims of being choreographers, sometimes just by virtue of making a few changes in the jatis. Rather, choreography includes creating movement in space, along with selecting music, lighting, sets and costumes.
Art, Artists and Innovation
Part of my research included enlightening interviews with major performing artists of Bharatanatyam in Chennai, such as Padma Subramanium, Lakshmi Viswanathan, Anita Ratnam and Malavika Sarrukai. Dr. Subramaniam has published a 3-volume text entitled, "Karanas in Indian dance and sculpture" that analyzes Indian sculptures as figures in motion. In this, she renames the dance form as "Bharata Nrittyam", a style that “imitates” sculptural poses. Lakshmi Viswanathan’s text on Bharatanatyam situates the dance form within its heritage of Tamil culture. Lakshmi notes disappointment with recent BN performances, stating that this is “urban folk art, not Bharatanatyam" and that the dance has fallen in standard as dancers are frequently not as knowledgeable about its history and texts, and Carnatic music.
Anita Ratnam, also from Kalakshetra, has evolved her own signature style in Contemporary Indian Dance. Her work explores new movements and themes, and represents abstract concepts via movement. Her biographical note states, “She is rooted firmly in the traditional perimeters of Indian dance and theater while remaining open to international perspectives and trans-cultural collaborations with sculptors, painters, writers, directors, poets, and musicians.” Ratnam describes herself in an interview as “a contemporary classicist.” As a thinking artist, she wants audiences to participate in her creative process rather than be entertained with traditional BN items. The aesthetic affect of her choreography is remarkable even as she creates from diverse forms like Bharatanatyam, Jazz, contact improvisation etc. Each year in December, Ratnam (with Ranvir Shah) produces “The Other Festival” that showcases innovative movement, theater, expressive art and the spoken word, and both established and experimental work. I viewed videos (with power outage interruptions, common in Chennai!) of Ratnam’s dance productions, solo and group, over the past ten years-- “Daughters of the Ocean” that translates goddess myths into modern metaphors, “Naachiyar”, exploring the life of the 9th century female mystic Andal and “Utpala”, reflecting metaphors of the lotus through three civilizations. Anita’s creativity blends the imaginative with the sensory and the social. She is a charismatic presence in the Chennai arts scene, an outspoken advocate for women and children, and founder-director of Arangham Trust, an arts foundation. As a human being, she is articulate, thoughtful, and very generous; I learnt a great deal from her.
In Chennai, I see live performances (in different venues) of Anita’s new piece called “Arya Tara, Seven Graces”-- a solo, minimalist work that deals evocatively with abstract concepts of creation, sorrow, and rejuvenation from the struggles of daily living. The dance movements are a choreographic tour de force, amalgamating the grounded Bharatanatyam jatis that use space immediately around the body itself, with the more flowing movement and fluid use of space from modern dance, the stillness of Tai-chi, and the devotional hand-gestures of Buddhist ritual. The piece is based on the myth of Tara, who is believed to be have been born from the tears of the Buddha as he mourns human suffering. Anita is a talented dancer and a skilled choreographer in her selection of music. “Seven Graces” includes Buddhist chanting, original piano composition, Carnatic vocal music and Pavarotti’s “Ave Maria”. Ratnam has also spearheaded a revival project of an ancient 13th century theater ritual called “Kaisiki Natakam” at the renowned Vishnu shrine in Tirukurungudi, a village in Tamilnadu where Ratnam’s great grand parents lived and where, more than others in her family, Anita cherishes and nurtures ancestral links.
I am also impressed by the innovative choreography of Astad Deboo, who at age 60, “dances like a man" and commands international audiences. Astad worked in isolation for many years, facing disapproval for his departures from tradition, until 2001, when the Sangeet Natak Academy Award recognized him as a pioneer in Contemporary Indian Dance. In 2006, he received the Padma Shree, one of the highest civilian honors awarded by the Government India. Astad is a formidable artist, modest, soft-spoken and fiery in rehearsal. His choreography draws freely from a range of Indian classical dance styles, from Kathak (of North India) to Kathakali (of South India). His own distinctive style of movement has evolved over a 30 year period of serious study of the Thang Ta martial arts of Manipur, the Kalaripayattu of Kerala etc. He has a lively and eclectic aesthetic that is always delivered with superb technique. Astad has choreographed for a school for the deaf in Kolkata, the College for deaf students at Gallaudet University, Washington D.C., and recently in Chennai for the Clarke School for the Deaf. Astad has created a deeply moving work for the BN trained dancers at the Clarke school, called “Contraposition”. In this, he evokes the classical navarasas (nine emotions) as outlined in The Natya Sastra. The deaf dancers who rely on counting and sensing the vibrations of the floor, gave an excellent professional performance of the piece. My appreciation for Astad’s work grew enormously with observing this charismatic, demanding, and sensitive artist in rehearsal with the deaf dancers (communicating via sign and body language) and then in performance. Astad has opened up the world to these dancers; they performed in Singapore and Malaysia and were invited to open the Olympics for the Disabled in Melbourne, Australia.
Globalization and Tradition
My research in India interfaces with the innovative work of second-generation Indian-Americans in the U.S.--Shyamala Moorty, Sandra Chatterjee, Parijat Desai, and Anjali Tata-- who practice Bharatanatyam, as well as Contemporary Indian Dance rooted in Bharatanatyam and the Indian aesthetic. These Contemporary Indian dancers belong to a diasporic Indian-American community aware of the globalization of Indian culture and the increasing circulation of music and dance forms. These dancers’ creative choreography reminds us that no tradition is fixed and timeless but rather that movement vocabularies, as much as other aspects of culture, undergo imaginative transformations via creative bodies and minds that rejuvenate them for our contemporary lives.
* This article (with some updates here) first appeared in the Newsletter of the International Center for Writing and Translation (ICWT), 3, 1 (Fall 2006-07) at the University of California, Irvine where Ketu H. Katrak is a Professor in Humanities.