Celebrating Bharatam

Source - http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/01/09/stories/2009010951200600.htm

SRI THYAGA BRAHMA GANA SABHA

Celebrating Bharatam

RUPA SRIKANTH

A panel of distinguished dancers brought out many unknown facts about Bharatanatyam.

Photo: M. Vedhan

Informative: (From left) Jayanthi Subramaniam, Nandini Ramani, B.M. Sundaram, Adyar K. Lakshmanan and Indira Rajan at the Symposium.

A discussion on ‘Aesthetic Purpose of Bharatanatyam’ led by eminent music and dance scholar, Thanjavur B.M. Sundaram, with a panel of distinguished practitioners such as gurus Adyar Lakshman, Indira Rajan, Nandini Ramani and Jayanthi Subramaniam last Sunday, turned out to be a very lively and informative one. It was organised by Sri Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha and as the secretary said, “It is through symposiums like this that sabhas educate the art world.”

The discussion began with the name of the dance form, Bharatanatyam, which is supposed to have come into being when Sadir was ‘renamed’ in the 1930s by social activist E. Krishna Iyer and others.

This was contested by B.M.Sundaram who says the name Bharatanatyam was in usage much before that. His earliest reference is from a book by Raghaviah Chari dated 1806 that says, ‘The dance of the Devadasis is called Bharatanatyam.’ He also quoted Pudukottai Ammalu, a famous devadasi, whose descendants are his neighbours in Thanjavur. A letter was found in her belongings that read, “... I went to Ramanathapuram to dance Bharatham.”

One more clarification came from the musicologist, this time about the name of nritta pieces- according to him, sequences ending with ‘thadinginathom’ adavus are theermanams and those ending with ‘kitathakatharikitathom’ are jatis.

Discussion moved to the performance arena and Guru Lakshman was emphatic that the Thanjavur Quartet-streamlined margam was still the best way to plan a programme. It allowed the dancer to unveil her skill in stages. He also underlined the role of music in dance and quoted the famous abhinaya-exponent Balasaraswathi who believed that a musician’s ‘kalpana’ should not be hindered.

Balamma’s style

Balamma’s style was to allow the music to soak in before the dance began. She would have the musicians sing the pallavi once and begin her dance only in the second repetition. Senior dance critic and student of the abhinaya maestro, Nandini Ramani, said that veteran Guru Kandappa Pillai, Balamma’s guru, introduced Thiruppugazh singing during the Alarippu. There were many who did not approve, but it found acceptance in time.

Guru Indira had an explanation for this change of heart. She feels that singing alongside in the Alarippu has gained acceptance because sollus are no more sung like before but recited. She had an opinion on the sancharis - she feels that the simple ‘kai’ is enough to explain the sahitya especially in a varnam, though she admitted she too includes stories to maintain audience interest. And what about nritta? The panel agreed that bhava cannot be incorporated into pure dance, but dancer Jayanthi Subramaniam wanted exceptions to be made in special cases such as ‘Ravana Pravesham’ or an equivalent keeping ‘ouchithyam’ or appropriateness in mind. Jayanthi also made a point about executing adavus in their proper manner.

The experts also agreed on the futility of dancers coming on stage to render explanations. Some felt it was wrong to submit the rasikas to watch the mime twice over. Another opinion was stronger, ‘The dancer is not educating the public; she is brainwashing them!’ The alternative? Print pamphlets or announce from the wings... Nandini went a step further, “The greatest thing about Bharatanatyam is that it should communicate without words. Why not elevate the audience by dancing with feeling?”

Anecdotes

Besides the animated discussion, B.M.Sundaram’s anecdotes about the devadasis he met and about the legendary nattuvanar Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, to whom he is related, were most interesting.

He related an instance about the nattuvanar’s star student, Pandanallur Jayalakshmi. During one of her recitals, the guru sitting in the audience thought of a new theermanam. This he communicated to Chockalingam Pillai who was handling the nattuvangam on stage. When Sundaram questioned the wisdom of a new, unrehearsed theermanam, the guru brushed it aside. The new sollus were recited; there was a moment’s discomfort on the dancer’s face. In a few seconds she caught on and understood the sequence to follow. When she finished, the guru turned to Sundaram and said, ‘See, thats my Jayam!’

There was another tale, this time about a devadasi from the Tirunelveli district, Shanmugha Vadivu Amma, whom Sundaram met to collect material for his books. She was an old woman with a crinkled face drying her wet sari outside a very modest dwelling. She turned when addressed, and Sundaram was struck by her expressive eyes... ‘Who are you,’ they asked. ‘I am not free, go away. Come later!’ The whole conversation took place without a word being uttered. This is the depth of our cultural ancestry where such artists live unsung, in obscurity.

Transcending reality

Source --http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/09/12/stories/2008091250730300.htm

Transcending reality

DAVID SHULMAN

The staging of ‘Ashokavanikangam’ proved to be a unique, evocative experience for teachers and students of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

What happens on the stage is so thick with associations, layers of meaning, memories, dramatic action...

Team work:Koodiyattam is a complex interactive work utilising the synergy of actors, drummers and the spectators who put their own imaginations to play .

It was in many ways an exquisitely unique experience. For 15 nights we, the teachers and students of Sanskrit and Malayalam from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and one actor and playwright from New York watched the unfolding of the single act ‘ ;Ashokavanikangam’ from Shaktibhadra’s play ‘Ascharya-chudamani’ in the Koodiyattam tradition of Ammannur, with Margi Madhu taking the lead, primarily in the role of Ravana. Madhu embodied gracefulness, precision, fined-tuned sensitivity and an astonishing richness of feeling and imagination.

Synergy

But Koodiyattam, is not the work of a single performer but rather a complex interactive work utilising the synergy of actors, drummers and the spectators who put their own imaginations to play in the space opened up by the performers on stage. Over these 15 nights, our own sensibility deepened and expanded.

We felt that Koodiyattam is an art of great intricacy and complexity, at times reaching levels of perception and emotion that are far beyond any ordinary intellection.

Koodiyattam, at times, is thought of as a ‘slow’ art form with each night’s performance lasting between two to four hours.

But, in our experience, the time involved was actually short, indeed too short, a mere 50 hours or so.

What happens on the stage is so thick with associations, layers of meaning, memories, dramatic action, allusions, inter-textual references, segments of text, the expressivity of abhinaya and laya, and sheer visual wonder, that our attention was fully engaged throughout and the time passes very rapidly.

Saktibhadra’s play is named after the Chudamani jewel that Sita was given by sages in the forest. The jewel allows its bearer to distinguish whoever he or she touches in their true form or true self. Thus, when Ravana, who has turned himself into a Maya-Rama, attempts to touch the kidnapped Sita the Chudamani dispels the deceptive surface and reveals his true nature.

Theme

This theme of piercing the veil of surface reality and seeing through to a deeper truth is also enacted by the Koodiyattam style itself, which brings the hidden recesses of the mind and the heart into a very tangible, visible form. Within this strangely intensified space flitting between the future and the past, a reality is allowed to emerge that resists the usual, somewhat trivial questions such as: Is this true (or false)? How true? Is there illusion operating in our minds as we watch? Where are we, inside the drama or outside it? And so on.

This particular dramatic reality, a glimpse into the world of the gods slowly materialising before our eyes, is probably never achieved in Western drama. Except, maybe in ancient Greek tragedy where the god Dionysus sat in the midst of the audience as the prime spectator. It is also something quite different from the classical (Kashmiri) modes of analysis of Abhinavagupta and rasa theory.

Koodiyattam is a profoundly serious medium requiring the utmost discipline of its performers and its spectators, but it also is replete with moments of humour, direct and highly accessible dramatic events, and a recurrent lightness of touch and heart. Over the 15 nights, there was a constant accumulation of emotional and cognitive experience, a kind of ripening into a state of lucid receptivity. We witnessed a performance mode that in some ways goes back to the earliest levels of Sanskrit drama as recorded in the ‘Natyashastra,’ but in other ways has cut itself free from the ancient theoretical norms and has evolved its own highly charged system in which the actor’s freedom to improvise and play is central.

Indeed, this degree of freedom, within the strong visual and aural language and meticulous training demanded by the tradition, is perhaps unparalleled in other, more modern forms of theatre.

(The author is a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.)

On the horns of an artistic dilemma

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On the horns of an artistic dilemma

SUGANTHY KRISHNAMACHARI

Koothu To pursue or not to pursue… is the theme of Purisai Sambandam’s new production.

Photos: S.S. Kumar

Delightful: Lakshman’s Dream being visualised.

The scene is a koothu school, where one of the pupils has decided to quit, because he sees no future in Koothu.

His friends persuade him to remain, for they have a show coming up.

The teacher (Purisai Sambandam) shows them how to perform as monkeys in Rama’s army. But even as he rehearses for the show, the teacher dies. The grief-stricken students gather round him. The boy, who is to play the role of Lakshmana (Cordis Paldano), has a dream, in which he battles Yama, the God of Death, and finally vanquishes him.

Substitute the teacher for art, koothu to be specific, and the symbolism comes alive in “Lakshman’s Dream, But Today We Are Playing Indrajit,” at the Alliance Francaise on September 13 and 14. It was presented by Indianostrum Theatre in association with Purisai Duraisamy Kannappa Thambiran Parambarai Therukoothu Manram.

More a nightmare

Lakshman’s dream is therefore more in the nature of a nightmare. He manages to save his art in his dream. But is it as easy in real life?

The inroads that modern life has made into traditional/folk art are indeed deep. Can the onslaught be stopped through commitment alone? What can we do to preserve our arts from being overtaken? These are questions the play addresses and concedes that it is not easy to get the answers.

What happens when tradition is diluted and even distorted? How can people be sensitised to the purity of art? Shown when intrusions happen inflicting crudity on style? This is where a play like “Lakshman’s Dream” comes in. It shows the dangers of making a mockery of traditional art, in the desire for popularity. And holds out hope. It is a wake up call to those who are complacent in the belief that nothing can substantially affect an art, simply because it is centuries old.

Student’s questions

The questions that the disgruntled student asks in the beginning of the play are just the sort every student of an art, whether classical music or classical dance, is bound to ask himself at some point in his life. Will his art put food on the table? Can he completely ignore material considerations? Should he continue practising his art at all? And what happens if there is no audience appreciation?

Delightful: Lakshman’s Dream being visualised.

Cordis Paldano’s Tamil diction was perfect. None would ever guess that he can’t speak Tamil. Aswini Kasi and Gowri’s singing of the songs “Vandaal Dhaanyamalini” and “Mannar mannar vanangum” was peppy. Vasanth as the angry student and Kumar as Indrajith played their roles with aplomb. Munuswamy as Yama danced delightfully.

Catch ‘Lakshman’s Dream…’ at Kalakshetra, September 27, 10.30 a.m.

The ghungroo spoke Birju Maharaj

SRI KRISHNA GANA SABHA

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The ghungroo spoke

RUPA SRIKANTH

MAESTRO Birju Maharaj demonstrated how every nuance in creation can be captured in rhythm.

Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

Electrifying presence : Birju Maharaj.

The aged and rather diminutive man, dressed in a white and gold churidar-kurta with a broad red belt, appeared silently on stage. His bright, twinkling eyes were the only give away as he struck a pose of Krishna with the flute. Yes, it was the legen dary dancer, Pandit Birju Maharaj, whose very presence seemed to electrify the atmosphere.

‘Krishna Vandana’ done, Birju greeted the audience and introduced the concept of rhythm. “The first rhythm that God made was in the heart... in man, bird, deer… In every rhythm, there is bhava. And everything has a beat — a bird flying, lighting a fire, sleeping...” He demonstrated examples of how every nuance in creation can be captured in rhythm. The improvisations in teen taal (16 beats) were translated into different expressions of ‘sparkling stars in the sky’ followed by rhythmic sequences visualised as a romantic jugalbandi between a man and a woman with the tabla representing the male and the ghungroos or ankle bells representing the female.

Spellbound rasikas

Pandit Birju brought a novel way of looking at a slow vilambit and a fast drut taal through a conversation between two friends, one lazy and the other active. He already had his rasikas in raptures, and when he enacted a tihai as the dialling of a number on the telephone with the ‘hello’ on the sam, he simply brought the roof down. And there was more to come.

Being a representative or rather an inheritor of the Lucknow Gharana’s abhinaya expertise, the legendary dancer took one line of a tumri, ‘Ja main tho se nahi bolungi,’ in which a gopi tells Krishna that she will not speak to him and gave it many-hued interpretations of annoyance, anger and flirtation. A gat bhav of Krishna’s butter stealing or Makhan Chori enacted to rhythm was also sensitively portrayed, it was a treat to see a mature 71-year-old turn into a mischievous child with one flick of the wrist that held the flute.

Saswati Sen, senior most disciple of Pandit Birju, held court for the next segment. Her exposition of the Ashta Mangal taal (11 beats) shone with virtuosity as she performed the tihais and paramelu sequences with chakkar or pirouette and precise footwork.

The Ahalya Udhar from the Ramayana was extra special because of Guru Birju’s participation as vocalist. The Guru played out the final beats of the two-hour programme in a drut laya tatkar (footwork) in teen taal.

The wonderful musical support was provided by Utpal Ghoshal (tabla), Ramen Deka (harmonium, vocal) and Chandrachud Bhattacharjee (sitar). The evening was dedicated to the memory of Yagnaraman, secretary, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha.

Shades of truth

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Shades of truth

Koodiyattom On Margi Madhu’s interpretation of Ravana’s love. Soudhamini

Photo: K.K. Mustafah

Margi Madhu.

Between August 16 and September 2, 2008, in the small sleepy village of Moozhikulam in Kerala, an epic unfolded. Margi Madhu performed ‘Ashokavanikankam’ for students of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In accepting this commission, he and his small band of performers at Nepathya, including wife and co-performer, G. Indu, have been able to realise their dream of building a traditional Koothambalam full of light and air.

For the six students, two teachers – of Sanskrit and Malayalam – and for David Shulman, Head of the Department of Indology, this was a chance to experience the language they know intimately from books, as a living tongue capable of endless elaboration and interpretation.

As for me, I have been working with Madhu on a film based on the Ekalavya myth for the Prince Claus Fund in the Netherlands, and it was a thrilling experience to witness the range of this quiet, unassuming artiste.

Final overture

As I could only attend for a day, it was suggested I watch the performance on August 31, the 14th day and first evening of the ‘Udhayanapravesam,’ Ravana’s entry into the Ashoka grove to make his final overture to Sita. Every day until then, the performance had begun with the ‘Kesadipadam’ – the head to foot description of Sita. Today was the culmination. Set to Dhruva tala, Ravana, for the first time, pulling rank with all his royal accoutrements, enters the stage and glides forward over the next half hour or so with a barely perceptible movement, describing and savouring each exquisite feature of Sita’s.

Madhu, speaking of it the next morning, said that from about the third day onwards Ravana’s entire relation to Sita had changed in his mind. She was not just a pretty woman he was looking at erotically. She was now an integral part of Ravana. He felt it was because Ravana’s character was capable of such unconditional passion.

Has he portrayed any other hero in love, I asked. Yes, Arjuna in ‘Subhadra Dhananjayam.’ In the light of Ravana’s love, that is very superficial, quite male chauvinist. Even Rama never really expresses or explores the various dimensions of love the way Ravana does. The fact that Sita is never on stage, only represented by a flame, further heightens the abstraction.

A repeated refrain over the 15-day performance, as I saw from the Attaprakaram – the performance manual – was Ravana’s boast about his valour and his perplexity regarding Sita’s power over him. As his relationship with Sita changes, explained Madhu, it is not the fact that she is another man’s wife; it is not even her innate chastity, that binds Ravana.

It is because he has begun to acknowledge her individuality that he cannot reach out and touch her as a mere object of his desire. Through an inner conflict, which is honestly faced, Ravana overcomes his lust to reach true love – and it is this that stays his hand. Madhu’s own conflict lay in admitting that both the dictates of Koodiyattam grammar, regarding how a character is to be portrayed, and many of the original verses themselves, seriously limit this interpretation. Yet as a contemporary traditional artist this is his insight and he must express it.

Many thoughts pass through my mind. How it would be interesting to explore Sita’s state of mind during this same period? How our perception of others – men, women, rakshasas heroes – are all conditioned and politically implicated, even politically manipulated. And how as a thinking artiste Madhu was able to gently unhinge my set notions even about chauvinism and love.

Meanwhile life’s lessons seem very precious and need to be cherished and reflected upon, even as the actor looks deep into the undying flame and shares with us the eternal truths he sees reflected in it.

(The writer is a documentary filmmaker)