Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora (Studies in International Performance)

Studies in International Performance Published in association with the International Federation of Theatre Research General Editors: Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton Culture and performance cross borders constantly, and not just the borders that define nations. In this new series, scholars of performance produce interactions between and among nations and cultures as well as genres, identities and imaginations. Inter-national in the largest sense, the books collected in the Studies in International Performance series display a range of historical, theoretical and critical approaches to the panoply of performances that make up the global surround. The series embraces ‘Culture’ which is institutional as well as improvised, underground or alternate, and treats ‘Performance’ as either intercultural or transnational as well as intracultural within nations. Titles include: Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon (editors) VIOLENCE PERFORMED Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict Elaine Aston and Sue-Ellen Case STAGING INTERNATIONAL FEMINISMS Christopher Balme PACIFIC PERFORMANCES Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas Matthew Isaac Cohen PERFORMING OTHERNESS Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952 Susan Leigh Foster WORLDING DANCE Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo PERFORMANCE AND COSMOPOLITICS Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia Helena Grehan PERFORMANCE, ETHICS AND SPECTATORSHIP IN A GLOBAL AGE Judith Hamera DANCING COMMUNITIES Performance, Difference, and Connection in the Global City James Harding and Cindy Rosenthal (editors) THE RISE OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES Rethinking Richard Schechner’s Broad Spectrum Silvija Jestrovic and Yana Meerzon (editors) PERFORMANCE, EXILE AND ‘AMERICA’ Ola Johansson COMMUNITY THEATRE AND AIDS

Ketu H. Katrak CONTEMPORARY INDIAN DANCE New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora Sonja Arsham Kuftinec THEATRE, FACILITATION, AND NATION FORMATION IN THE BALKANS AND MIDDLE EAST Daphne P. Lei ALTERNATIVE CHINESE OPERA IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Performing Zero Carol Martin (editor) THE DRAMATURGY OF THE REAL ON THE WORLD STAGE Alan Read THEATRE, INTIMACY & ENGAGEMENT The Last Human Venue Shannon Steen RACIAL GEOMETRIES OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC, ASIAN PACIFIC AND AMERICAN THEATRE Joanne Tompkins UNSETTLING SPACE Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre S. E. Wilmer NATIONAL THEATRES IN A CHANGING EUROPE Evan Darwin Winet INDONESIAN POSTCOLONIAL THEATRE Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces Forthcoming titles: Adrian Kear THEATRE AND EVENT

Studies in International Performance Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–4456–6 (hardback) 978–1–4039–4457–3 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Contemporary Indian Dance

Natasha Bakht, White Space (Photographer: David Hou)

Contemporary Indian Dance New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora Ketu H. Katrak

© Ketu H. Katrak 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–27855–4 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Katrak, Ketu H. Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora/Ketu Katrak. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978–0–230–27855–4 (hardback) 1. Dance—India. I. Title. GV1693.K33 2011 792.80954—dc23 2011016929 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

In Memory of Medha Yodh (1927–2007) My bharatanatyam guru who inspired this book and whose creativity continues to stir my spirit.

Medha Yodh (Photograph courtesy of Gaurang Yodh)

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Contents Frontispiece

iv

List of Illustrations

xi

Series Editors’ Preface

xiii

Glossary

xiv

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

xviii

Acknowledgments

xxvii

Introduction

1

1

Theoretical frames: ways of looking at Contemporary Indian Dance “The force of heteroglossia”: reference points of Contemporary Indian Dance Rasa: a moving methodology Writing dancing

13 17 21

Contested Histories: “Revivals” of Classical Indian Dance and Early Pioneers of Contemporary Indian Dance

26

Sadir into bharatanatyam The significant legacies of early pioneers of modernizing Indian dance: Uday Shankar, Chandralekha, and other pioneers 2

3

1

27

37

Abstract Dance with Rasa: Pioneers Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh

56

Astad Deboo: an “Indian contemporary” dance style Other journeys in abstract dance: Shobana Jeyasingh

59 75

Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Choreography by Masters of Traditional Indian Dance and Emerging Innovators

84

PART I CREATIVE CHOREOGRAPHY Innovations based on kathak Madhu Nataraj Aditi Mangaldas Daksha Sheth

85 85 85 88 92

ix

x

Contents

Innovations based on bharatanatyam Navtej Singh Johar Mallika Sarabhai Lata Pada PART II EMERGING CHOREOGRAPHERS A journey of discovery: personal language/s in Contemporary Indian Dance Padmini Chettur: contemporary dancer, not Contemporary Indian Dancer 4

5

6

Hybrid Artists and Transnational Collaborations: Chennai, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur

98 98 100 106 108 108 118 123

Anita Ratnam: “a contemporary classicist” Challenging stereotypes through hybridity: Hari Krishnan’s signature style Ramli Ibrahim’s Contemporary Indian Dance

125 140 150

Dancing in the Diaspora Part I: North America

154

Innovations in form The Post Natyam Collective Parijat Desai Sheetal Gandhi Extensions of tradition in the diaspora Canada Workshops and dance festivals

158 160 181 185 187 193 195

Dancing in the Diaspora Part II: Britain

200

The dance scene in the m/other country Indian/South Asian/British-South Asian The multidisciplinary and polyvocal new choreography of Akram Khan

200 200 207

Conclusion: Ways of Looking Ahead

220

Notes

223

A Selected Bibliography

240

Index

246

List of Illustrations 1

Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “Draupadi” (Photographer: Hans Gerritsen)

11

2

Anita Ratnam (Photographer: Briana Blasko)

15

3

Anita Ratnam, Seven Graces (Photographer: Chella)

16

4

Astad Deboo, Circle of Feelings (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia)

20

5

Padmini Chettur in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson)

49

Padmini Chettur and Shaji in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson)

50

ContraPosition, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Monica Gurde)

66

Breaking Boundaries, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Haran Kumar)

68

Breaking Boundaries (rehearsal), Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Ketu H. Katrak)

69

Rhythm Divine, Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia)

73

Flicker, Shobana Jeyasingh’s choreography, dancers: Saju and Niku (Photographer: Chris Nash)

77

12

Just Add Water? Jeyasingh’s choreography (Photographer: J. C. Masclet)

81

13

Vajra, Madhu Nataraj’s choreography (Photographer: Ramya Reddy)

86

Aditi Mangaldas in Timeless (Photographer: Vipul Sangoi, Raindesign)

91

15

Aditi Mangaldas, Now Is (Photographer: Dinesh Khanna)

92

16

Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

94

Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

96

Dancer Isha Sharvani in BhuKham, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

97

6 7 8 9 10 11

14

17 18

xi

xii List of Illustrations

19

Devi, Mallika Sarabhai’s choreography (Photographer: Yadavan Chandran)

102

20

Rural Health Project, Darpana with Mallika Sarabhai (Photographer: Jignesh Patel)

104

B2 with Shruti Javali and Ballet Jorgen, Lata Pada choreographer (Photographer: Masna)

108

21 22

Padmini Chettur, 3 Solos (Photographer: Laurent Pillippe)

120

23

Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Briana Blasko)

133

24

Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Avinash Pasricha)

139

25

Bollywood Hopscotch, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire)

144

26

Owning Shadows, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire)

149

Meet the Goddess, Post Natyam Collective (Photographer: Lillian Wu)

162

28

Cyber Chat, Post Natyam Collective (Skype telephone call photograph. Courtesy: Post Natyam Collective)

163

29

Sunoh! Tell me Sister!, Post Natyam Collective (Photograph courtesy of Post Natyam Collective)

166

Balance of Being, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: David Flores)

173

Carrie’s Web, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: Jen Cleary)

177

32

The Wall, Parijat Desai (Photographer: Rose Eichenbaum)

184

33

Sheetal Gandhi, bahu-biwi-beti (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife) (Photographer: Cedar Bough T. Saeji)

186

Mythili Prakash, Stree Katha (Photographer: Rupesh Kotecha)

191

Sacred Monsters, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem (Photographer: Mikki Kunttu)

214

Vertical Road, Khan’s choreography (Photographer: Laurent Ziegler)

218

27

30 31

34 35 36

Series Editors’ Preface The “Studies in International Performance” series was initiated in 2004 on behalf of the International Federation for Theatre Research, by Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, successive Presidents of the Federation. Their aim was, and still is, to call on performance scholars to expand their disciplinary horizons to include the comparative study of performances across national, cultural, social, and political borders. This is necessary not only in order to avoid the homogenizing tendency of national paradigms in performance scholarship, but also in order to engage in creating new performance scholarship that takes account of and embraces the complexities of transnational cultural production, the new media, and the economic and social consequences of increasingly international forms of artistic expression. Comparative studies (especially when conceived across more than two terms) can value both the specifically local and the broadly conceived global forms of performance practices, histories, and social formations. Comparative aesthetics can challenge the limitations of national orthodoxies of art criticism and current artistic knowledges. In formalizing the work of the Federation’s members through rigorous and innovative scholarship this Series aims to make a significant contribution to an ever-changing project of knowledge creation. Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton International Federation for Theatre Research Fédération Internationale pour la Recherche Théâtrale

xiii

Glossary abhinaya: gesture language conveyed via hand-gestures and facial expression to convey emotions and stories. aharya: decoration including costume, jewelry, make-up. akaram: syllables used in Carnatic vocal music that are rendered without words. alapadma: a hand-gesture where all five fingers are stretched out in a semicircle. alarippu: an invocatory dance item that usually begins a bharatanatyam recital. araimandi: plié position, basic stance in classical Indian dance. arangetram: solo debut performance. auchitya: appropriate. bais/baiji/tawaif: all indicate a courtesan in the North Indian dance tradition. bhakti: devotion. bhava: mood or feeling (accompanying rasa). bols/bol cholum: dance syllables also used as percussion syllables. chakar: circular movements made by the body, commonly in kathak dance. chakras: energy points in the human body. chhau: martial arts of Orissa and West Bengal (Eastern India). devadasi: literal translation: “female servant of god”; dedicated to the temple deity. dhit dhit teis: dance syllables (3-beat rhythmic cycle). gharana: a particular school or lineage with its own distinctive kathak technique. gurukul: literally, guru’s house. Also indicates a form of teaching where the student stays with the guru, learns the arts, and shares daily life.

xiv

Glossary xv

hamsasya: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the index finger touches the thumb and the other fingers are extended out. jati: rhythmic footwork arranged in various patterns set to different timecycles. kalaripayattu (also known as kalari): martial arts of Kerala (South India). kathakali: classical dance style from Kerala. kriti: song in Carnatic musical tradition. kuchipudi: classical Indian dance style from the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. lasya: gentle, flowing, graceful movement emphasizing the feminine. laya: tempo in Indian classical music. mallakham: gymnastic tradition using ropes (origins in Maharashtra, West India). mandala: universe. manipuri: classical Indian dance style from the state of Manipur (Eastern India). manodharma: improvised music that is created on the spot but that remains within the rubric of the raga (musical scale) and tala (rhythmic cycle) of the song. margam: the complete repertoire of a bharatanatyam performance. mayura: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the index finger touches the thumb and the other fingers are extended out. mohiniattam: a female classical Indian dance style from Kerala. mridangam: a drum played on the sides, used in South Indian Carnatic classical music. mudras: hand-gestures used both in abstract movement without any literal meaning, and for symbolic meaning in telling stories and conveying emotions. mukula: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the fingers come together in a loose fist. nataraj: the icon of the dancing Lord Shiva with one leg raised up and pointing diagonally.

xvi Glossary

nattuvanar: one who keeps the rhythmic beat (talam) in an Indian dance musical ensemble. nautch: dance. navarasas: nine primary emotions (love, fear, laughter, valor, disgust, sorrow, anger, wonder, peace). nrtta: rhythmic footwork in traditional Indian dance. odissi: classical Indian dance style from the state of Orissa (Eastern India). padam: bharatanatyam item set to a lyric poem, exploring emotions. patakam: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the palm is held tautly with all fingers close together. pranayama: breathing techniques in yoga. rangoli (North India), and kolam (South India): patterns drawn and colored on the ground near the entrance to one’s home as an auspicious sign. rasa: emotion, taste. sabdam: a bharatanatyam item that uses nrtta and abhinaya. sabha: auditorium. sawal-jawab: question/answer. shakti: female strength. shikharam: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the hand makes a fist and the thumb is held upright. shirsasana: head-stand position in yoga. shunya: zero (in mathematics). Also indicates the void, nothingness, emptiness. sloka: Sanskrit verse. solkettus: syllables recited in traditional dance practice. sringara: love expressed in various manifestations – romantic, erotic, motherly, divine. ta ka dhi mi: dance syllables (4-beat rhythmic cycle). tabla: a set of two drums used in North Indian Hindustani classical music. talam: rhythmic time-cycle set to 7 or 8 beats among other variations. thang-ta: martial arts of Manipur.

Glossary xvii

thumri: lyrical poem that can have erotic connotations, set to dance in kathak. tillana: the final item, mainly rhythmic, in a bharatanatyam recital. Rhythmic piece depicting the joy of dancing. tirmanams: a dance movement unfolding in three rhythmic time-cycles from slow to fast pace. varnum: the central and most elaborate item in bharatanatyam using nrtta and abhinaya.

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance Our contemporary dance in India has to evolve and be Indian Contemporary Astad Deboo1 Contemporary Indian Dance explores a dynamic, evolving and global dance language with multiple idioms since the 1980s (with earlier pioneers). I explore this innovative moving form with striking kinesthetic movement vocabularies unfolding at the intersection of Indian classical dance, martial arts (kalaripayattu of Kerala, thang-ta of Manipur, chhau of Orissa and West Bengal), yoga, as well as theatre tools (voice, song, script), pan-Asian (tai-chi, wu-shu) and Western movement forms (modern, post-modern dance, jazz), multi-media and new media (internet used for creating choreography). Contemporary Indian Dance, though different from Contemporary Dance in the West that has its own history emerging from modern dance, shares common resonances in being vigorously multi-disciplinary in its inclusion of visual art, eclectic global sound and multimedia tools available in contemporary times. In the explosion of creative choreography by Contemporary Indian Dancers in India and the diaspora, artists engage with and transform Indian traditional dance in multiple avenues. The evolution of this form involves what the remarkable pioneer Chandralekha (usually called Chandra) describes as a personal “inward journey, a journey constantly relating, refining the reality of the in-between area; to enable tradition to flow free in our contemporary life.” Such a personal search is not divorced from the artist’s particular society, its values and gender norms whether in India or the global North, as well as her/his location within national, regional and transnational boundaries. For Chandra, the “in-between” space lay between tradition and modernity; for contemporary artists this potent space of the in-between involves crossing different movement vocabularies, and other boundaries set up by nationality, ethnicity, religion and so on. I work historically from the premise that two characteristics mark the multiple idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance: first, continuity with aspects of Indian classical dance forms (that have their own histories of decline and revival during nineteenth-century British colonialism in India and into post-Independence times), and second, change in the variety of its creative directions that include the reinvention of traditional modes of representation, the evocation of the modern, and the critique of cultural, national and xviii

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xix

gender stereotypes in India and the diaspora. This history provides a significant context to understand the present and future of Indian dance. In the twenty-first century, intercultural collaborations and artistic exchanges among performing artists in India and the diaspora constitute a significant aspect of Contemporary Indian Dance. However, even in the early twentieth century, global exchanges intermingled Orientalist and European modernist dance idioms with Indian classical dance. Hence, historical contextualization matters to our understanding of Contemporary Indian Dance. I am guided in my discussion of Contemporary Indian Dance by the notion of change. Traditional Indian dance is the thread that underlies the trajectory of changes; while some artists stay close to traditional idioms changing the externals such as costumes and music, others transform the traditional vocabulary from the inside, along with creatively bringing in other movement styles to make new hybrid work. This entails not simply changing an arm movement, or adding video, or wearing black (as Hari Krishnan once commented to me). Hybrid work involves a reworking from within the traditional dance forms – most commonly bharatanatyam (origins in South India), and kathak (North India) with their shared vocabularies of nrtta and abhinaya – and other movement vocabularies that a dancer has mastered. Multiple movements may flow or be referenced with sharp disjunctures in innovative choreography. Playing with tradition is effective for someone who has mastered the form and can innovate, re-conceptualize and choreograph new dance items. As T. Balasaraswati, one of the greatest exponents of bharatanatyam notes, the tradition itself has so much depth and complexity that it allows a dancer’s “wings [to] soar to the very skies of freedom … It is freedom through discipline, not freedom from discipline.”2 A notable paradox is that the very richness of the traditional form allows a certain freedom and “play” from within its parameters. This is parallel to the late Indian-American poet Agha Shahid Ali’s comment that he found the strict discipline of poetic forms such as the sonnet, or the ghazal, using strict rhyme schemes and line lengths as more liberating than the supposed freedom of free verse.3 I select established artists working in, and emerging artists dancing towards, this multi-layered form, artists whose work has impact on the dance scene in India and worldwide. This study is not a survey of artists who claim to use this form. Artists make change via choreographic choices to disrupt, demystify, even subvert the symmetry of nrtta in contemporary choreography conveyed visually via bodies that deliberately break bodylines, or move from one movement vocabulary to another in quick succession taking the viewer’s attention from a recognizable jati (rhythmic foot-patterns in the bharatanatyam of kathak), or mudras (hand-gestures) to a modern dance styled flow. Artists may also parody and reinvent their representations of abhinaya not to tell stories, but to create non-narrative affect.

xx Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

One significant mark of change in Contemporary Indian Dance is seen in a distinctive slowing down of the movement into a minimalist goal (seen clearly in artists like Deboo, whose nearly four-decade journey moves from rapid, even frenetic movements in earlier work to a slow, meditative pace in recent work). This is a change in the kinesthetic of movement patterns in contemporary times and, in fact, fascinatingly goes counter to fast-paced contemporary lives. I am interested in dealing conceptually with this different way of moving that makes the viewer engage critically, and participate meditatively, with the artist moving at a pace that is radically different from the global reality around us, figured, for instance, in fast-moving information across the internet, or the rapid movement of capital via computers. Contemporary Indian Dance’s pace indeed offers a critique of our speeddriven lives. Whereas Contemporary Indian Dance shows a slowing down, it is distinctively different from the increasing speed valorized in contemporary bharatanatyam, influenced partly by fast-paced Bollywood style dance. I distinguish Contemporary Indian Dance based in classical Indian dance training (or other classical forms) from Bollywood-style free dance that has an entertainment goal. This is not to deny that Contemporary Indian Dance can entertain, or that Bollywood dancers are not serious. However, Contemporary Indian Dance demands thoughtful engagement (and minimalism is one movement avenue along with others to inspire thought) on the audience’s part and does not pitch the celluloid escape of Bollywood films. Although both styles work with different movement vocabularies in all their permeability, Contemporary Indian Dancers and choreographers labor two to three decades to develop signature styles from a broad range of ostensibly incompatible genres like bharatanatyam, ballet, kathak, kalari, or modern dance. Change is also visible in cutting-edge contemporary content such as sexuality and gender, ethnicity and belonging, especially for second-generation artists with hyphenated or multiple identities in the diaspora who challenge stereotypes of nation, gender and culture in their creative choreography. The innovations in form enable, I contend, the inclusion of such new content since I regard form and context as related dialectically. For instance, choreographing the body to represent female sexuality with attention to female desire and pleasure is enabled by the multiple movements, inventive soundscape, costumes and use of space in Contemporary Indian Dance. I interpret the success of the changes made in this evolving form and in its content (from traditional Indian dance’s reliance on the Indian epic stories and myths) in the evocation of rasa. Although I use the concept of rasa (broadly translated as emotion, or taste) originating from the ancient treatise of drama and dance, The Natyasastra (anywhere from the second to the fifth century), I give it a contemporary interpretation. Whereas in ancient times, rasa remains within a psychological-physical realm of emotion and taste, and within an aesthetic-spiritual realm of transcendence (when an

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxi

aesthetic experience reaches its highest level in transporting the performer into an extra-human realm and taking the audience with him/her), in contemporary times, rasa, evoked by the self-reflexivity of contemporary artists includes both emotion and thought; the gaps in-between emotion and thought are filled by raising social awareness in certain choreographies about gender inequality, or challenging stereotypes of sexuality or nation. The artist, via rasa, leads the audience into socially located engagements that no longer only have the goal of transcendence; rather, the affect now translates into accompanying an artist’s portrayal of social ills such as domestic violence or the denial of female sexuality. In this study, I share a revelatory scholarly journey that I have been on for several years (informed in part by my prior bodily experience of learning bharatanatyam for nearly 20 years with my teacher the late Medha Yodh), learning about Contemporary Indian Dance from scholars and practitioners, traveling across the United States and India, Toronto and London to view performances, and interview dancers with varying signature styles in this genre. My travels on this road, aimed at sharing the rich and wide-ranging representations of Contemporary Indian Dance, are not linear since many by-roads beckon, fascinating and significant, taking me on diagonal routes to different geographical locations in India, and in the global diaspora of Indians, South Asians, and artists of mixed ethnicities in North America and Britain in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Individual artistic journeys in Contemporary Indian Dancers contour this landscape, including personal histories, dance training, and geographical location and relocation (that may be prompted by choice or necessity) within the global North or South. Change in geographical location may provide a dancer with access to different movement techniques, to new technologies of light, sound and multimedia facilities, to funding avenues and infrastructure support with the presence or absence of rasikas and sahrdayas (art appreciators with a sympathetic heart whether in Chennai or Los Angeles). (Re)location plays an influential role in the direction that Contemporary Indian Dancers take to explore contemporary themes like ethnicity, gender and sexuality, the environment, the use of dance as movement therapy for victims of violence, for the representation of social issues such as women’s status and oppression, for the portrayal of political realities in India like communal-based violence, or for dealing with deeply personal matters of sexuality. My study is attentive to geography and location given the reality of Indians dispersed globally. Indeed, in line with geographer, Edward Soja, I regard geography to be as significant as history for an understanding of past and present events.4 Critical theorists Esha De and Sonita Sarkar extend Soja’s work using an evocative phrase “placetime,” “about the radical potential of geography in that it defines the production of new histories from these geographies” and further enable my analysis of geographical location

xxii Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

along with historical context for different contemporary dancers.5 The interplay between space and place, and mobility across national boundaries indicate new ways, as De and Sarkar note, of “marking time and territories.” Mobility is reinterpreted to include not only transcending national borders but moving, say, from rural to urban areas, as well as “relational and contextual … links inside and across geographical spaces.”

Personal journey to this project Bharatanatyam is a magnificent tool to center human beings, to give them an inner sense of being and to teach them focus, poise, discipline and the integration of different arts. (Medha Yodh6) Tei ya tei as intoned by my teacher, Medha Yodh, a disciple of the legendary bharatanatyam dancer, T. Balasaraswati began my own study of bharatanatyam at age 23 in Los Angeles. The rhythms and sounds of Carnatic music seemed to surface from my childhood memories growing up in Bombay, listening to M. S. Subbulakshmi on All India Radio. In 1975, I came to the United States for a doctorate in English literature. Soon after, I met Medha and began my bharatanatyam training, continuing for the next 20 years. The beauty of bharatanatyam’s movements, its lyrical poetry and Carnatic music all struck a resonant chord in my body and mind. In India, as part of a middle-class, somewhat Westernized Zoroastrian (a minority group) community, I had studied piano and ballet. Now, in a return to roots experience, I discovered bharatanatyam in the United States. It continues to be a life-long passion, though professionally, I remain a scholar-academic in literature and drama and increasingly, with my location in Southern California (since 1996), at the University of California, Irvine, with South Asian American writers and dancers. The roots of this project were sown as I observed changes (as is appropriate for any living art) in bharatanatyam performances in Southern California, and in the many post-show discussions with my teacher as we attended dance programs across the freeway map of Los Angeles. I bring my literary, feminist, and comparative expertise into this study of Contemporary Indian Dance – my book Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers (from Africa, India, and the Caribbean) participates in the theoretical discourse of postcolonial feminist theory. My publications in South Asian American literature and culture, exploring notions of home, belonging, the role of expressive arts for immigrant communities, all laid a constructive groundwork for this project.7 I am an insider-outsider to the Contemporary Indian Dance scene. As a deshi (native of India) who grew up in Bombay, I am familiar with cultural codes about interacting with people from India and, in particular, with

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxiii

performing artists. My lived bodily experience of studying bharatanatyam enriches my scholarly analysis. My cross-cultural methodology relies on Indian aesthetic theory (particularly the notion of rasa discussed in the Introduction) and dance scholars and ethnographers, Indian and Western, such as Kapila Vatsyayan, Deidre Sklar, Sunil Kothari, Susan Leigh Foster, Uttara Asha Coorlawala, Randy Martin, Ananya Chatterjea, Mohan Khokar, Sally Ann Ness, Priya Srinivasan, Avanti Medhuri, Mark Franko, and Andre Lepecki, among others. Cultural anthropologists George Marcus and James Clifford provide useful insights on integrating “field notes” and “partial truths” garnered from my research. I convey the creative variety of idioms used by performing artists across the globe via “thick description,” Clifford Geertz’s evocative phrase, relying on observation at rehearsals and performances, interviewing major practitioners, and scholarly research. On the Contemporary Indian Dance scene there is no single figure of the stature of a Martha Graham (whose career spanned a long 60-year period with varying emphases responding to personal, social and historical forces at different times in American history such as the 1930s, very different from the 1960s and so on), or Merce Cunningham. However, there are pioneering artists such as the late Chandralekha or Astad Deboo, whose works have become paradigmatic in the field and whose movement tropes, uses of the body, of space, of original music are imitated and refashioned by younger artists. Certain mudras (hand-gestures) from bharatanatyam recur in contemporary work, as do certain iconic movements pioneered by Chandralekha and that we see in the work of contemporary choreographers. There is a line of connection via such “ancestry of gesture.”8

Naming A 2009 documentary, Beyond Tradition, showcases the work of four women choreographers in India who work from bharatanatyam (Anita Ratnam, Mallika Sarabhai) and kathak (Dakhsa Sheth, Aditi Mangaldas) to create a new Contemporary Indian Dance vocabulary.9 Ratnam remarks: “Contemporary Indian Dance is a reflection of India as it is today, living in many centuries together. New movements, colors, sounds” are part of multiple tapestries woven by Contemporary Indian Dances. Mangaldas remarks that she “works with kathak to evolve a contemporary vocabulary, using the strength and dynamism of kathak, its historical and geographical contexts as a base, not a burden.” Sarabhai notes, “We are fortunate in India to have an extremely sophisticated alphabet that has been handed down to us. For me as a twenty-first-century feminist woman to take that alphabet like the roots of a tree and to let its branches go where they want and to let the leaves fall where they will is the contemporary for me …We look into our traditions to create contemporary work that cannot be anything but Indian.” Sheth’s is a somewhat different perspective where she aims to have

xxiv Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

her work “transcend geographical boundaries … a personal language that can become universal.” Not everyone accepts the term “contemporary.” Chandra remained fiercely within the rubric of Indian philosophical and aesthetic parameters, rejecting the words “modern” or “contemporary” to describe her choreography. She did not feel the need to give a new name to her style, or to claim that she was inventing a new dance language. Chandra eschewed “Western” influences even as she recognized India’s colonial past that often prevented Indians from recognizing their own heritage of movement and martial arts. Chandra’s work, in a class by itself, nonetheless has profoundly influenced Contemporary Indian Dancers in India and elsewhere, despite her own objections. Whereas Chandra’s innovations focused on the body and movement thus transforming the language of Indian dance, another significant dancerchoreographer, Mrinalini Sarabhai was a pioneer in including social themes in bharatanatyam-based works such as her 1949 creative choreography in Manushya, and a critique of dowry deaths in Memory Is A Ragged Fragment of Eternity (1963). In an essay entitled “Choreography,” Sarabhai discusses many factors such as new interpretations, new rhythms in dance: “The time factor has given all art a new dimension … Let dance speak in the language of old, but let dancers speak in a contemporary language, but with complete artistic integrity.”10 Sarabhai is co-director of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad, India, with her artist-activist daughter Mallika Sarabhai who carries forward her mother’s initiative of using dance as a tool for social awareness about gender oppression, health, the environment, and other injustices with the goal of bringing about social change. Other Contemporary Indian Dancers create their own names for the genre. Anita Ratnam names her style, “Neo-Bharatam,” in order to evoke something “new” yet rooted in her own base of bharatanatyam. Padmini Chettur would rather belong to the rubric of “Contemporary Dance” and have nothing to identify the work as “Indian” given its limiting stereotypes. Deboo is committed to contemporary explorations that are distinctively “Indian contemporary” and that evoke rasa. Jayachandran Palazhy, Artistic Director of Bangalore’s Attakalari Center, remarks that a “remarkable transformation is taking place” within contemporary dance in India in factors such as “the opening up of the Indian economy, increasing access to the internet and digital technology, enhanced mobility and the increased purchasing power of the populace as well as the changing attitude towards career are all contributing to the new face of contemporary arts practices in India.”11 Audiences are increasing, too, and proving more respectful to experimentation and new styles. Only a few years back, he writes, dance typically was categorized under “classical, folk, or cinematic forms. Today it conjures up a myriad of styles and forms performed in a variety of contexts.”

Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxv

Contemporary Indian Dancers at times become iconoclasts whose work faces rejection. They break the boundaries of traditional styles, and at times parody or forthrightly challenge them, which is not always well received. This makes it difficult to maintain support for their work and they often struggle from project to project. Yet as true artists they retain the integrity of their work, no matter what kinds of sponsorships they agree to work with. In this spirit, they may put up with uncomfortable spaces that display loud banners of corporate sponsors, not as backdrops, but squarely in the audience’s visual field, as in Chennai sabhas. Along with distinctive contemporary choreography by Contemporary Indian Dancers, I discuss pioneers of a different kind – first-generation teachers of bharatanatyam and kathak in the diaspora who work with what are called “extensions of tradition,” creating dance dramas and new thematic work using only the classical Indian dance vocabulary. Since the 1980s, these teachers have a critical mass of second-generation IndianAmerican students in metropolitan areas of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago among others. These are the children of firstgeneration South Asian immigrants many of whom entered the United States after the landmark 1965 legislation that allowed vast numbers of South and Southeast Asians to enter the United States.12 Bharatanatyam dancer-choreographers in Southern California include Viji Prakash and her daughter Mythili Prakash, kathak dancer Anjani Ambegaonkar and her daughter Amrapali, bharatanatyam teachers Ramaa Bharadvaj and Ramya Harishankar, Chicago-based Hema Rajagopalan and her daughter Kritika, and Houston-based Ratna Kumar among others. To date, there are nearly 300 bharatanatyam teachers across the United States including in states such as Alabama and Kansas. Bharatanatyam today is among the most popular of Indian classical dance styles taught all over the global South and North, in Southeast Asia, North America, Britain, Australia, and Europe. As Anita Ratnam remarks, bharatanatyam has become a cultural product, an “India 101” course that introduces students within India and abroad as much to its movement techniques as to Indian heritage and culture. Students today, in India and the diaspora, learn bharatanatyam as an extra-curricular activity along with other interests such as piano or soccer. Twenty-first-century fast-paced lives do not lend themselves to the kind of immersion in the study of bharatanatyam as in a previous era.13 Indian-American parents in the United States are in a hurry to inculcate as much Indian culture via bharatanatyam in their impressionable youngsters via weekly bharatanatyam class with the goal to have an arangetram before their daughters leave for college.14 Bharatanatyam today (as in an earlier era discussed in Chapter 1) is an overdetermined entity that carries cultural and political meanings beyond the technical parameters of a dance style. At times bharatanatyam in India and the diaspora is viewed exclusively as “the dance of India” as though

xxvi Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

other styles do not exist, or elided troublingly with Hindu fundamentalism as if other religions are not part of the Indian subcontinent. Among my goals in analyzing selected Contemporary Indian Dancers from across the globe is to give scholarly recognition to this dance language, to strengthen ties among performing artists within India, say, between Chennai and New Delhi, and to create transnational links between Los Angeles and Bangalore or Mumbai. My cross-cultural methodology (using Indian aesthetic theory and scholarship and Western dance scholarship) aims to highlight artists’ uses of common choreographic strategies and affects. As in my previous comparative work, I remain attentive to regional differences of culture, gender roles and histories. Finally, I hope to present a terrain of the most prominent and selected emerging artists that will inspire, I hope, further studies on individual artists, on the many parameters of the “contemporary” in our fast-paced world, and on the relevance of Contemporary Indian Dance in different societies where it is practiced and performed today.15

Acknowledgments This book has journeyed with me in body and mind, in waking and dream states for many years and in many locations from my base in Irvine, California, to Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi in India and to New York, Toronto, and London. My heartfelt gratitude goes first to the dancers who shared their time generously, responding to questions about their individual dance journeys, their understanding of the “contemporary,” of “choreography,” of the parameters of “Indian,” and “South Asian,” among other intriguing discussions of lack of funding, and infrastructure support for artists in India, to the strings-attached types of funding by Arts Councils in Britain and Canada. I am also grateful for observing rehearsals and interviewing dancers Astad Deboo, Anita Ratnam, Hari Krishnan, Shobana Jeyasingh, Akram Khan, Padmini Chettur, Anusha Lall, Mayuri Udadhya, Viji and Mythili Prakash. I thank the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute for a fellowship (2002) supporting my initial research on this book, and Carrie Noland, who headed the “Gesture as Inscription” Research group of which I was a part. A Fulbright Research Award to India (2005–6) facilitated my research when I spent many hours at Chennai’s Kalakshetra Dance Academy, talking to students and teachers, and reflecting on my discoveries under the shady banyan tree. My thanks to Kalakshetra’s Director, Leela Samson, who made it possible for me to observe classes, use the library, and also have my then 8-year-old daughter Roshni learn bharatanatyam in the part-time beginning classes for children. In this unique atmosphere away from the city bustle, instruction unfolds as the teacher sings and beats the talam (rhythm) with the traditional stick on a block of wood urging the students firmly and gently to deepen their basic araimandi (plié) position, to be expressive as their eyes follow the mudras (hand-gestures) and as they coordinate their body movements with mindfulness, intensity, and reverence. I thank dance ethnography scholar par excellence, and my friend Deidre Sklar most especially, with whom I had many illuminating discussions about movement, the body, and rasa. I gained immensely from Deidre’s incisive intellectual understanding of the somatic and cultural parameters of dance. I also thank my friend and colleague at UCLA, Esha De, for her key insights in strengthening the theoretical aspects of this study. I appreciate the invaluable editorial assistance from Danielle McLellan who has the facility to turn my long-winded prose into concise and graceful sentences. I thank Carmen Hernandez for computer expertise, and Natalie Marquez for assistance with the bibliography. Beheroze Shroff’s friendship has sustained me over the years in writing this book. xxvii

xxviii Acknowledgments

I thank Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, editors of this Palgrave Macmillan series, “Studies in International Performance” for recognizing the timeliness of this project and accepting it for publication. I thank editorial assistant Ben Doyle at Palgrave and the production team. This book, inspired by my bharatanatyam guru and friend, the late Medha Yodh, is dedicated to her. As a true guru, Medha taught me much more than dancing (she always liked the transitive form of the word, tuning into its movement and rhythm); she taught me many life-lessons as I grew from a naïve 23-year-old when I began bharatanatyam under her caring and incisive gaze, until her recent death in 2007. I miss Medha’s presence, her infectious laughter and her uncanny ability to get to the heart of an issue whether in dance choreography or in cooking. Discussions about dance unfolded in the midst of Medha creating aromatic curries, or green beans with fenugreek and anise. “When are you going to finish this book?” is how she greeted me over the past few years and I hope that she is smiling as this book is published, honoring her spirit that lives on in my heart.

Introduction

Theoretical frames: ways of looking at Contemporary Indian Dance1 For some years now I have been concerned with the Indian notions of movement. My studies began with the practice of Indian dance, but soon I realized that Indian dance was not a mere matter of articulating the different limbs of the human body. … [It] was the most chiseled expression of a larger and more complex background of an Indian world-view and its distinctive speculative thought … I have thus come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that “dance,” especially in the Indian context, cannot be viewed in isolation from the most significant framework of the philosophic thought and psychical concerns of the Indian people. … This in turn has demanded an enquiry into many disciplines, some obviously related, and others, which may appear ‘distant’ but are not really so. Kapila Vatsyayan, The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts2 All meaning-making is grounded in preconceptual orderings of bodily experience … The “bodily” works its way up into the conceptual via imagination … Acknowledging a baseline in bodily ways of knowing, we can move on, or back, to the interpenetration of embodiment and abstract symbols. Deidre Sklar, “Can Bodylore Be Brought to its Senses?”3 The above epigraphs evoke key concepts that are formative for this book. Kapila Vatsyayan, rooted in the Indian context, draws attention to the significance of the Indian context, both philosophical and psychic in analyzing Indian dance. She investigates further “the concept of movement in space and time … an enquiry into the part played by the body and the sense 1

2

Introduction

in Indian speculative thought and how this gives rise to a cohesive and integrated vision of artistic creation.”4 Deidre Sklar, a Western dance scholar complements Vatstyayan in describing the discipline of dance ethnography as looking “beyond dance toward all aspects of life and perceiv(ing) dance in the contextual web of social relationships, environment, religion, aesthetics, politics, economics, and history.”5 Together, these observations resonate with my personal journey that has led, through my own bodily learning of bharatanatyam, and my later attempts to conceptualize and theorize that bodily knowledge to this book on Contemporary Indian Dance. Even as I propose theoretical frames for this study of selected Contemporary Indian Dancers, I give primary attention to their creative work, engaging with their choreographic processes, and analyzing the overall product. Rather than analyzing the creative work via one or other theory, I expand the boundaries of what is strictly accepted as “theory” by deriving theoretical insights from the creative works and from other cultural productions such as dance company brochures, publicity materials, interviews, newspaper reviews and websites. I situate these analytically so as to foster dialogue among artists and between artists and scholars on movement and affect. Such a tapestry of sources is as multifarious as the creative work itself. I aim to use language lucid enough to inspire dancers and scholars to gain from this analysis and for artists to forge creative alliances among themselves and with networks of support across geographies promoting Contemporary Indian Dance. My primary argument, derived from reading multiple movement practices of dancers based in India and the diaspora, is that Contemporary Indian Dance is a new dance language with prominent artists (many with three to four decades of work) who have forged distinctive signature styles with tropes increasingly visible in the explosion of creative work globally. I argue that icons of movement and gesture that reverberate across bodies and geographies – such as a distinctive slowing down of the pace of moving (as opposed to increasing speed in classical styles influenced partly by Bollywood and entertainment demands), minimalism, new music, theatre tools (voice, song), costumes, visual and lighting design, multidisciplinary emphases (use of visual art or sculpture, or film) all contribute to creating this innovative language that is significant and influential on the world stage of Contemporary Indian performing artists. Contemporary Indian Dance includes a vast and varied canvas of movement idioms and multidisciplinary tools used increasingly by artists in our shrinking world. Techniques: the in-between, the interdisciplinary and the theatrical The potent space of the in-between – between movement vocabularies, between multiple ethnicities, nationalities and geographies is a key feature of Contemporary Indian Dance. Homi Bhabha’s naming this in-betweenness as “the third space” is useful as the location “where the cutting-edge of

Introduction 3

translation and negotiation occurs.”6 I relate this concept of in-betweenness to the Indian aesthetic theory of rasa that translates as emotion felt by the dancer, then communicated to the audience (reception), and that returns to energize the performer. Contemporary Indian Dance aims to make the audience think (not divorced from emotional response) about social injustice and inspire action leading to change. Transformative artistic practices and aesthetics can, I believe, bring new insights to the audience for progressive action in the social world beyond the performance arena. This goal that links high-quality artistry with a political agenda of social change is undertaken successfully by artists like Mallika Sarabhai and Shyamala Moorty, among others discussed in this book. Literal and metaphoric in-betweenness is recognized in a move from a classical Indian dance mudra (hand gesture such as alapadma where all five fingers fan out to indicate a flower, or the heart, or a beautiful face) to a tautly held palm as in modern dance that can occur in the blink of an eye in the hands of a dancer like Astad Deboo (India-based) or Natasha Bakht (Ottawa-based). Within that subtle gap, the two movements create very different affects for the viewer. This in-betweenness also has been indexed in the hyphen of dual ethnicities, of being Indian and American, or British and South Asian, or the space between political allegiances or intellectual traditions. Such straddling across ethnic, national, political, even movement allegiances is familiar to colonized peoples who have histories of recuperating what Michel Foucault calls “submerged knowledges,” cultures, and languages from dominant colonizing powers. I perceive this gap as a vibrant space. At times, the two sides may remain discrete and at other times the movement itself in contemporary choreography bridges the gap. The notion of the in-between has roots in Frederick Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra.7 Nietzsche presents the scenario of the tightrope walker where one individual crosses from one end of the rope to the other, when another individual, apparently a jester, accosts him, they struggle and the first person loses his balance and falls to his death in the middle. In his book, Autoaesthetics: Strategies of the Self After Nietzsche, theorist Stephen Barker explains: “The parable of the tightrope walker is a masterpiece of metaphoric compactness … Man is neither beast nor Overman but between them, stretched not over the supporting ground, that safe plane of the earth, but over the vertiginous abyss, the Abgrund into which he will plummet and vanish should he relinquish either of these dialectical poles” (original emphasis).8 Nietzsche’s tightrope walker mirrors a contemporary dancer constructively (not destructively as in Nietzsche) negotiating this in-betweenness and innovating within a new dialectic of form and content. Contemporary Indian Dancers are interdisciplinary artists working between and across disciplines and genres – dance, theatre, martial arts, and visual cultures. The specific challenge in dance is to embody the theoretical and intellectual engagements with different disciplines. I espouse Randy

4

Introduction

Martin’s succinctly articulated goal, namely “the theoretical embodied as practice” for interdisciplinary dance scholars: Considerations of diversity in dance would force an opening up of the evaluative criteria by which we know what dance is and what it reaches. Studying dance not only became an interdisciplinary subject [since the 1980s], but also a knowledge-generating object and therefore a kind of ontology. Dance studies were thus … an instance of the theoretical being embodied as a kind of practice. Technical and methodological diversity assume a mutually constitutive legibility. (Emphasis added)9 Dance studies have also been transformed by scholarship in visual studies, literary studies, and “the extension” as Jane Desmond notes, “of cultural studies work on embodiment … and performativity.”10 “The last decade’s emphasis on ‘the body’ across many disciplines,” continues Desmond, “has provided … a climate in which dance studies can now flourish as a part of … cross-disciplinary agendas for debate in the humanities” (Meaning in Motion, 4). I bring my own engagement with postcolonial feminist theorizing as well as my research and publications in the fields of South Asian American expressive arts, gender and generation, and Diaspora cultures in Southern California (my professional location at the University of California, Irvine) into my writing on dance.11 Choreography for Contemporary Indian Dance cum theatre entertains as well as educates, sometimes in the Brechtian tradition of engaging the audience to think about social problems. Dance narratives move along nonlinear trajectories, often punctuated by postmodern breaks. Such techniques keep the audience alert and not lulled into the familiar. Myriad movement vocabularies challenge the body that is not always held erect as in traditional Indian dance. Artists undertake vertical, horizontal, diagonal moves, or floor work as in modern and postmodern dance that are pushed further in both gravity defying leaps and falls (as I discuss in the choreography of Akram Khan and Mavin Khoo in Chapter 6). Or, gentle stretches as in yoga are seen, weight bearing and touching as in contact improvisation (The Post Natyam Collective, Chapter 5). Choreography includes theatrical elements – innovative soundscapes (comprised of eclectic music, voice, spoken script), props, and dynamic use of space often guided by a director, lighting and visual design, innovative costumes, and overall staging. Dance and theatre techniques coming together in contemporary choreography is different from what is understood as dance theatre in the West that uses dance (without words) to tell a story. In Contemporary Indian Dance, there is a flow or disjuncture between movement and words, and theatricality is mediated at times by movement from modern dance or other vocabularies including the nrtta and abhinaya of

Introduction 5

traditional Indian dance. I analyze selected representations of dance interwoven with theatre in Daughters of the Ocean choreographed by Anita Ratnam (Chapter 4) where she uses voice to narrate stories of three prominent Indian goddesses, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga, connecting them to her own mother and grandmother along with drawing contemporary resonances of these goddesses in modern, urban feminist women in India. Dance and theatre feature in hard-hitting choreography with feminist messages by Mallika Sarabhai as well as her activist uses of art for rural work and social change (Chapter 3). Shyamala Moorty’s (Los Angeles based, Chapter 5) choreography in two dance cum theatre pieces are inspired by political issues: in Rise, based on the 2002 Hindu-Muslim massacre in Gujarat (India), where Moorty transforms into a toilet-plunger wielding goddess who uses the overflowing toilet as a metaphor for the waste and carnage of violence; and in Carrie’s Web that portrays domestic violence in a South Asian American family, generally invisible in the community, via a light touch conveyed by a parallel scenario of Carrie, a spider who bemoans human violence (often out of fear) towards spiders. Sheetal Gandhi, also Los Angeles based, combines dance with vocalization, story-telling in her tour de force choreographic work, bahu-biwi-beti (daughter-in-law, wife, daughter), critiquing the limited roles for women in traditional Indian society (Chapter 5). Innovative uses of stage space in Contemporary Indian Dance are very different from the often circumscribed, forward and backward movement on center stage in traditional Indian dance originating in the devadasi’s dance facing the temple deity. This gives way to Contemporary Indian Dancers moving on a diagonal, or with their backs to the audience, or marking the directions, traversing stage space freely, at times using different levels to create depth and height. Site-specific work is especially popular in Britain – for instance, the Arts Council’s “Big Dance” event in summer that aims to bring “great dance to all.” Some of Deboo’s choreography is done in multileveled museum spaces, or at the Great Wall of China (Chapter 2), and Natasha Bakht’s 2010 piece was performed at the Royal Ontario Museum’s Gem Gallery (Chapter 5). Along with creative movement and space use, the soundscape of Contemporary Indian Dance plays a key role in creating a contemporary affect rather than the familiar sounds of classical Carnatic or Hindustani music that evoke, even subconsciously, traditional Indian dance for an audience. Contemporary Indian Dancers’ eclectic musical choices, rich and varied, draw from global music including commissioning original compositions. At times, their deliberate use of silence is very effective. The human voice comes into play in oral story-telling that may parody, or reinterpret well-known Indian myths, and other forms of vocalization via song mixed with movement. At times, dancers interrupt their abstract movements with audible sounds of sobbing, sighs, and gasps. Ratnam’s 7 Graces, for example, presents a unique musical arrangement that combines a markedly

6

Introduction

youthful, even innocent-sounding female Carnatic vocalist (only singing the akaram – the human voice performing varied sounds without words), delicately played piano, Tibetan gongs, wind-chimes, drumming, Buddhist chanting, bharatanatyam solkettus (rhythmic syllables) and Pavarotti’s sonorous tenor in Ave Maria. Creative soundscapes can inspire, lead, and enhance the choreography. I believe that this is one of Anita Ratnam’s distinctive talents – in creating unique musical maps for her works. Lighting techniques and visual design are significant in actually creating choreography; for instance, dismembering the body by the play of light and shadow, focusing on different parts of the body, such as the hands and feet, and not always the face as is mostly the focus in traditional Indian dance. Contemporary choreographers use creatively designed costumes, different from silk saris and dance-specific jewelry (necklaces, hair and ear ornaments) worn in traditional Indian dance. They may wear dhoti-style (loose) pants in an array of fabrics such as raw silk, tailored blouses of organza or shot silk falling diagonally across the waist, or more iconoclastic costumes such as those designed by the talented Rex for Hari Krishnan’s Bollywood Hopscotch (Chapter 4), where playful gender-bending has female dancers wearing leather shorts and the males dressed in long gauzy skirts. Weaving a tapestry of all these elements – movement, sound, theatrical tools of lighting and visual design, multimedia, space use, costumes, and staging – constitutes choreography, the craft of dance-making that is very different from the rather loose bandying about of self-styled “choreographers” (as some classical dancers in India do, feeling the pressure to be “contemporary”) who might simply change a jati without intervening in other aspects of the performance. Contemporary Indian Dancers reject the word “fusion” – a mere collaging of different movements without evolving a distinctive style – to describe their creative work. Rather, they work internally with movement vocabularies to transform them and come up with their own movement phrases and idioms. The successes and even failures of Contemporary Indian Dancers follow from creative risk-taking; often, traditional gurus of classical Indian dance dismiss this work as “fusion equals confusion.” I would argue that a certain amount of productive confusion is a necessary part of the intellectual and movement ferment, indeed accompanying the birth pangs of a new form without the comfort zones of the codified movement and music of classical Indian dance. Contemporary Indian Dancers are innovators and, at times, iconoclasts who break boundaries of traditional styles, at times parodying or even outright challenging them. What’s in a name? Definitions and debates What does the name “Contemporary Indian Dance” signify? The term is fraught, as both signifiers carry contested meanings. “Indianness” is not a narrow or monolithic category; rather it is multifaceted, mediated by the

Introduction 7

many ethnicities, religions, social customs, and languages of the Indian sub-continent and the replication, sometimes more regressively of these factors (especially religion) in the diaspora. Contemporary Indian Dancers today are not only of Indian origin; some are part Indian, some belong to diverse South Asian (Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan) ethnicities in the global Indian diaspora. For instance, Ramli Ibrahim’s Malaysia-based Sutra Dance Company includes dancers of Chinese and Malay origin trained in odissi; Hari Krishnan’s Toronto-based InDance Company includes Indian-Canadian, Japanese-Canadian, American, and other ethnic dancers. Indianness may be expressed in thought, manner of speech and walking, clothing, food, and jewelry among other factors. However, belonging to Contemporary INDIAN dance indicates a desire to retain and communicate an aura and flavor of “Indianness” via movement as in use of mudras, costumes, music, and the overall affect of an Indian aesthetic world. The term “contemporary” is freighted with ambiguous meaning as well. It is important to distinguish Contemporary Indian Dance with its own development in India from Contemporary Dance in the West, or Bollywood dance in India. “In popular imagination,” Bollywood dance “is conflated with ‘contemporary’ Indian dance. This is frustrating for choreographers like me,” remarks dancer-choreographer and scholar Ananya Chatterjea since “in the absence of a fully theorized contemporary genre,” contemporary work “sometimes gets lumped together with Hindi film dance which is most often politically extremely problematic, if not directly antifeminist.”12 The relationship between Bollywood dance and other “contemporary” forms is merely chronological. Contemporary Indian Dance performers come to their craft through years of formal training in classical Indian dance (or another classical style) and incorporate that knowledge into their innovations. Bollywood-style dance does not require training in any classical vocabulary. To be sure, Hindi films of the 1950s and 1960s did portray classically trained dancers. Today’s Bollywood dance, however, emphasizes fast-paced movement that borrows freely from a contemporaneous sensibility that evolves spontaneously from You Tube, Michael Jackson, and “free” dancing that belongs to no particular tradition. Bollywood dance offers dancers more immediate access, requiring little more than youth and fit bodies that can execute the speedy, simultaneous shaking of limbs, hips, neck, and head in ever-skimpier costumes. The film medium of contemporary Bollywood encourages this, as it moves toward quick edits, fast-paced cuts, and glamorous sets as studios compete to entertain and titillate their commercial audiences. Dance scholar Urmimala Sarkar Munsi draws attention to the historical facts that words like “modern” and “contemporary” carry particular resonances within a Western historical imaginary and are not specific “to the particular styles of the different practitioners of dance in India.”13 Historically, this led to complications in unexpected ways. Sarkar Munsi

8

Introduction

points out that creative artists who did not fit into the strict binary of classical or folk found themselves outcast from the nationalist-inspired recuperation of “ancient” dance traditions that dominated the arts in postindependence India. At the same time, the word “contemporary,” as Sarkar Munsi notes and I agree, remains appropriate for use in an Indian context despite its English-language origin and Western connotations. After all, one must recognize the legacy of nearly 200 years of British colonial history embedded within Indian culture. Further, the word “contemporary” has the advantage of suggesting to a dancer that s/he is free to experiment with traditional dance, whose grammar and idiom are part of their Indian heritage, or incorporate multiple styles outside the Indian dance world. Today, with full cognition of our colonial past and of postcolonial and global challenges, Contemporary Indian Dancers explore different movement techniques across national boundaries. They further dismantle nationalist gendered figures from Indian myth seen as “mothers of the nation” along with other problematic generalizations. They deterritorialize artistic forms, lending them a kind of universal expressivity and accessibility that can be appreciated by receptive spectators in any part of the world. It is important to contextualize the word “contemporary” to delineate a style and to use it with specificity, in Deboo’s phrase, “Indian Contemporary” rather than imitating Western Contemporary Dance. Modern dance in the West has its own history that rejected the rigid classicism of ballet and reconfigured movement into a certain “freedom” without toe shoes. Modern dance became an inclusive term that included many genres of free and innovative dance practices, even though many artists had studied ballet. Later, even modern dance evolved within the historical context of the West moving into forms such as postmodern, and contemporary, each with its own lineage of prominent creative practitioners who have left an imprint with their signature styles.14 In 1984, at a landmark gathering, “East–West Encounter” in Bombay organized by George Lechner (Director of Max Mueller Bhavan), two key elements of innovative work in Indian dance at the time were discussed with several key artists present:15 (1) The secular framework of modern dance, which differs markedly from the religious roots of traditional Indian dance, and (2) the impact of Western stagecraft, lighting, and other technologies (the 1980s were pre-personal computer years) on Indian dance. In the Western tradition, efforts to free the body from ballet’s conventions led to explorations of “personalized and individualized experience gained through the whole gamut of body language” among artists like Isadora Duncan, Nijinsky, Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Pina Bausch, and others.16 Although it is important to recognize individual differences of style among these artists, their work is not rooted in religious belief-systems or iconography, as is true for Indian classical dance.

Introduction 9

Among the artists at this East–West Encounter, pioneering artist Chandralekha asked: why have Indian dancers “become insular and unresponsive to the dramatic social, historical, scientific, human changes that have occurred in the world during the past thirty years? What makes them resistant to contemporary progressive values?” She wondered, “Where do we go from here? Our art is mummified, fossilized.” Kumudini Lakhia, a significant innovator from the classical kathak tradition remarked, “Indian dancers do not really understand what choreography is. We become imitators because we are not trained or exposed to what, in the West, is understood as choreography. Most Indian dancers go in for the narrative element … so the dance gets lost” (“Dance Encounter,” 12). Lakhia spoke of feeling oppressed by the “tradition of religion. I came to a stage where I wanted a divorce from Krishna. I had to breathe free air and when I looked out of the window, I saw women whose plight I wanted to depict. The result was Duvidha which was severely criticized. I wanted the face to help my body to express (the reverse of what happens in abhinaya)” (34). Later, Lakhia had several successful innovations based in kathak.17 Dancer-choreographer and scholar Uttara Asha Coorlawala (born in Hyderabad and moved to New York City in 1970) was actively innovating from her base in bharatanatyam during the 1970s and 1980s.18 She noted that her “whole training has been ‘an encounter’: beginning with a scholarship to the Graham School of Dance and ending with training in Bharata Natyam during my tenure as a Homi Bhabha Fellow. Martha Graham’s advice to me was: ‘You will never be like a New York dancer, you will never be an American dancer … because you are different, you have your own culture and your own quality and you must learn to be you’” (“Dance Encounter,” 15). Another London-based bharatanatyam dancer, Chitra Sundaram spoke of facing limiting labels like performing “ethnic dance.” Such terminology continues today in Britain and North America. There is, however, “a way out.” Chandra points to “a radical way, the way of a dialogue between dancers, visualizers, performers et al. Arrogance and insularity are archaic; reactionary concepts must be shed before new forms can evolve” (“Dance Encounter,” 13). She proposes a focus on the body and its movement in space and time situated firmly in the Indian world-view: We do not have to have sentiment, narrative, plot, etc. as a crutch … Let us look at the body levels in classical dance, at Time, at tala [rhythmic time-cycles of 8, 5, 7, or other numbers of beats] and Space as concepts that do not bind us but instead liberate us. (“Dance Encounter,” 12–13) Photographer and visual designer Dashrath Patel who worked with Chandralekha commented that “tradition is great, but you have to question … We cannot go on using tradition as a convenient rubber stamp.

10

Introduction

Rather, we should identify our cultural threshold” (27). Dance commentator Sunil Kothari noted a different trajectory – one that envisions “innovations within tradition” or “extensions of tradition” that continue today, perhaps with more boldness in costume and music with a global sound. By the 1970s and 1980s, any creative dance that brought together Indian classical dance with modern dance was called Modern Indian Dance. Coorlawala recounts her experience of growing up in urban Bombay in the 1950s and 1960s when Indians “were being educated into our selfobjectification.”19 Coorlawala’s own significant work and participation in Modern Indian Dance of the 1970s and 1980s while based in New York City are a noteworthy part of this history. How to be Indian, and yet move beyond being narrowly “Eastern” was the challenge given Western-style English-language education of the urban middle classes. By the 1980s and early 1990s, Coorlawala notes: “in our cities we had become the Indianness we had been seeking. This had happened while I was studying and performing between New York and India, acquiring another kind of speaking selfhood.” British colonial heritage has given us the advantage and challenge of writing in English about difference, and about being othered. “My crisis” notes Coorlawala, “is my location in difference.” She reflects on the multiple othernesses that Indian female performers encounter, “objectified in performance, erased in symbolic discourse, marginalized by her location, marked by gender, nationality, and global powers.” Sunil Kothari dates the beginnings of modern Indian dance in two eras: in the 1920s with Uday Shankar (discussed in Chapter 1) whose creative dance borrowed freely from Indian classical and folk forms, and in 1984 with the path-breaking East–West Dance Encounter in Bombay where dancers and scholars came together to discuss “new directions” of Indian dance, their forms and content, their use of mythological stories and their relevance, how to free the form from rigid grammar, the place of religion, the role of tradition and the methods for using and changing it. Lechner distinguished between two types of innovators present at this 1984 meeting. In one group, he included dancers like Mrinalini Sarabhai, Padma Subramanyam, and Chandralekha who “redeemed from oblivion earlier, forgotten and distorted dance elements.” The second group “ventured forth into the realm of dialogue between eastern and western dance forms,” including Kumudini Lakhia, Ritha Devi, Uttara Asha Coorlawala, and Astad Deboo” (“Dance Encounter,” 7). Since the 1984 conference, other important meetings have explored new trends in Indian dance: in 1986 at Rabindra Bharati University in Calcutta; in 1993 in Toronto; another meeting that same year in New Delhi, which included many of the participants from the path-breaking 1984 meeting; a 2001 meeting on Innovations in Bharatanatyam at Columbia College in Chicago, and the 2008 Contemporary Choreography conference held in Toronto, Canada. Such scholarly gatherings have “created a climate for

Introduction 11

Figure 1 Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “Draupadi” (Photographer: Hans Gerritsen)

innovation,” notes Kothari. The crux lies in creativity, regardless of whether it is expressed “within the traditional forms” or “with new directions.” Both “co-exist. The focus is on creativity which extends horizons, thematic content, and kinetic language” (“Dance Encounter,” 16, 17). I take Kothari’s formative work in delineating “new directions in Indian Dance” further by making distinctions among dancers who extend the traditional dance forms by adding new themes, others who retain a base in traditional form and innovate adding new music and costume, and finally, dancers who create a hybrid form with traditional Indian dance and other movement vocabularies as well as presenting cutting-edge themes of gender and sexuality. In the last group, Indian traditional vocabulary may echo even as it is being deliberately played with, distorted and presented in unfamiliar ways, often disrupted from its symmetry. Of course, even in extending traditional forms like bharatanatyam, an artist puts in a lot of thought. However, what is different in the contemporary hybrid style is that the results make different demands on the audience’s imagination and intellect.

12

Introduction

The debate between the classical and contemporary in Indian dance continues today and audiences remained resistant until the 1990s to engage with what they could not understand, though they accepted unfamiliarity in other art forms such as painting or sculpture. Audiences resented being confused and left out of innovative work. They were inexperienced at thinking and participating in ways different than their usual reception of familiar classical idioms. Today’s globalization interacting with the national From the parameters of what was called Modern Indian Dance in the 1970s and 1980s into the post-1990s, the forces of globalization and Indian economic liberalization policies (significantly opening India up to business and other collaborations with the West), along with access to technology (personal computers increasing) had a path-breaking impact on artists, cultural production, and reception both in India and the diaspora. However, studies of globalization, even when they include culture, seldom discuss dance in their projects. Dance has to be extrapolated from larger discussions of culture. It remains challenging to find theoretical work that brings together discussions of diasporic community formations (and their cultural forms) with analysis of kinetic movement in dance, acknowledging the particular cultural resonances of diverse communities in multi-ethnic societies in North America and Britain.20 In the global circulation of culture, cultural practices such as Contemporary India Dance can offer imaginative ways of challenging regressive notions of nation and gender formations in the diaspora. Dance, as other arts, can inspire progressive politics as rendered evocatively in one of Amitav Ghosh’s lesser-known texts, entitled Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma, where dance sustains the human spirit in times of terror. Ghosh recreates the very power of dance resurrected by a community as a way of reconnecting with life and beauty as it prevailed before the horror of mass killings in Cambodia. In his provocative text, The Politics of Cultural Practice, Rustom Bharucha takes on the parameters of culture in our contemporary world: “Within the spectrum of national and global forces that determine the politics of cultural practice, the word ‘cultural’ becomes a highly conflictual term linked to the increasingly contested field of ‘culturalism.’ Theorized by Arjun Appadurai as ‘the conscious mobilization of cultural differences in the service of a larger national or transnational politics,’ culturalism is invariably ‘hitched’ to certain ‘prefixes’: interculturalism, intraculturalism, multiculturalism” (original emphasis). However, I believe that it remains a challenge to translate these concepts from a theoretical to a performative arena where hegemonic racial and gender hierarchies prevail whether in funding or in supporting “ethnic dance.” Along with the gains of globalization such as the democratizing of information sharing via the internet (though the digital divide persists in areas of

Introduction 13

the global South), the specter of the nation remains problematic. Bharucha is skeptical and critical of Richard Schechner’s “rather cavalier distinction between ‘nations’ (which are ‘official’) and ‘cultures’ (which are ‘free’).” I agree with Bharucha who has “no such illusion that intercultural interactions can be entirely free from the mediations of the nation-state … There should be no false euphoria about the celebration of autonomy in interculturalism” (The Politics of Cultural Practice, 5). Bharucha’s holding onto the national in discussions of culture is appropriate not in a narrow sense of cultural nationalism, but, rather, even more necessary in a world of “uneven globalization,” to use Samir Amin’s phrase. In other words, the concept of the “nation” with all its positive and negative baggage needs to be dealt with, and not elided into notions of international, transnational, global, or cosmopolitan. The problems in the concept of “nation,” economic or cultural, need to be faced squarely, and critiques both of the national and global are important in analyses of cultural production and dissemination. I agree with Bharucha’s warning against how “the ‘global’ is in a position to hijack the assumedly democratic interactions within the ‘autonomous’ agendas of interculturalism.” He argues convincingly for “a critique (or at least a cognizance) of global capital … for the democratization of intercultural practice and discourse” (7), because, as he points out, even debates over patent rights of natural resources and the battles of environmentalists and local small farmers pitted against multinational pharmaceutical companies are “in actuality, transforming the cultural discourse around rights, ownership, and belonging.”21 Bharucha’s discussion of these categories, whether environmental or pharmaceutical, holds also for the rights and ownership of dance forms, namely which forms are considered “classical,” who is entitled to perform, to innovate, and which dancers receive Indian government funds to travel abroad.22 The government of India’s state policies disturbingly deploy the ancient text The Natyasastra to give legitimacy, even “classical” status to dance styles clamoring for such status. The Natyasastra is a detailed source book of the many facets of dance, drama, music, and the architecture of theatre buildings; however, its evocation as an originary text in according classical status to dance styles is troubling. The underlying reasons for such status are clearly economic, and in terms of Indian government-funded opportunities for artists to travel abroad, usually they belong to one of the recognized classical traditions.

“The force of heteroglossia”: reference points of Contemporary Indian Dance23 Even as transnationalism and globalization open up avenues for artists to learn multiple movement vocabularies and the use of new technologies, the challenge of theorizing multiplicity along with recognizable and repeated

14

Introduction

reference points of Contemporary Indian Dance remains. For such conceptualizing of the varied vocabularies used in Contemporary Indian Dance – very different from evaluating the set grammar and idiom of classical Indian dance – I find certain concepts proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin to be extremely enabling ; “heteroglossia,” that asserts multiplicity over unitary meanings, and “the dialogic,” that argues convincingly for open-endedness and “the impossibility of closure.” Heteroglossia also includes “multiple social discourses” that include varying ideological and class positions. Although Bakhtin’s focus is on the linguistic, and specifically on the novel that he considers a superior genre even to the epic, I find his analysis evocative in interpreting Contemporary Indian Dancers who work with varied movements, generating open-ended and multiple meanings (parodying cultural stereotypes, for instance) and affects (formal and structural). Bakhtin’s notion of language as inherently hybrid enables layers of meanings generated in the interaction between text and reader, or speaker and listener, and I would add, of performer and audience. The new language of Contemporary Indian Dance also evokes the Bakhtinian notion of multivocality wherein different registers of the language of this form (as in the pace of movement, or interactions between body and space) embody differing ideologies (the troubling national connotations, for instance, of bharatanatyam as the nationalist “dance of India” excluding other forms) and contexts. In “The Problem of Speech Genres” Bakhtin asserts that genres do not exist only in language, but “rather in communication.”24 Along with classifications of literary genres (novel, poem, etc.), there are extra-literary genres. I propose Contemporary Indian Dance as a new genre, a new dance language that is to be read and interpreted. Further, Bakhtin’s attention to how a (linguistic/literary) style develops, with variations of expression and tone is translatable into the development of this dance form – from those who stay close to the traditional vocabulary to others who reinvent or subvert tradition in new hybrid work. Movement vocabularies work interstitially, similar to the intertextual parameters of interpreting texts. In Contemporary Indian Dance multiple reference points echo and crisscross among pioneers and later artists – the use of the body as in Chandralekha’s choreography, her inculcation of slow, minimalist movement, seeking a deliberate affect via stillness in motion, even a meditative tone that reverberates in other Contemporary Indian Dancers. Other repeated tropes include unusual sounds of gongs, of rippling water, and the action of washing hands or feet, or theatrical silence, using the “contemporary abstractions of bharatanatyam” as Hari Krishnan puts it (or kathak) along with other movement vocabularies. There is a noticeable moving away from explicit statements to referencing and implicit evocations, for instance, the goddess Tara in Anita Ratnam’s 7 Graces, or Deboo’s referencing the drums via beating the floor, or using the drum-syllables in

Introduction 15

Figure 2 Anita Ratnam (Photographer: Briana Blasko)

Rhythm Divine without showing the manipuri Pung-Cholam (drum dancers) drums until the very end. Prominent Contemporary Indian Dancers with significant reference points for my study, each with distinctive signature styles include Mumbai-based Deboo (abstract dance with rasa); Trivandrum-based Daksha Sheth (using traditional, even gymnastic movements and martial arts); Ahmedabad-based Malika Sarabhai (art and activism in socially relevant feminist work); Chennaibased Anita Ratnam (redefining the sacred and exploring parallel mythologies, Indian, Chinese, Tibetan with different goddess figures); Britain-based Shobana Jeyasingh (innovative movement blending different vocabularies) and Akram Khan (physical rigor and innovative high-profile collaborations with visual artists and musicians); Ottawa-based Natasha Bakht (contemporary movement with bharatanatyam mudras and yoga); Toronto-based Hari Krishnan’s InDance Company that “creates inventive, stimulating works that challenge dominant discourses about culture and sexuality.” Above all, these artists aim to create work of a high professional standard whose overall affect conveys, overtly or subtly, an Indian/South Asian aesthetic.

16

Figure 3 Anita Ratnam, Seven Graces (Photographer: Chella)

Introduction 17

Among the younger generation (Chapter 3), Bangalore-based Mayuri Upadhya and Delhi-based Anousha Lall, among others, are on a journey towards delineating their own language of Contemporary Indian Dance. Madhu Nataraj’s STEM Dance Company’s body of work includes teaching creative dance to street-children, and other differently abled in society. There is an explosion of creative dance activity among second-generation Indian Americans (Chapter 5). Prominent festivals such as Erasing Borders, Engendered Rituals (New York City), Artwallah (Los Angeles), The Other Festival (Chennai) play an important role in showcasing new, experimental work in Indian and South Asian dance as well as visual and verbal expression. The multiplicity and heterogeneity of creative idioms by artists in India and the diaspora presents an exciting landscape wherein innovation in movement, music, costume, multi-media, contemporary themes are thriving. Part of the challenge of this book is to select and bring attention to selected significant work in contemporary choreography even as I have to leave out others. I am guided in my selection and method of analysis by principles of Indian aesthetics, specifically, rasa theory.

Rasa: a moving methodology The multivocality of Contemporary Indian Dance reflecting Bakhtinian heteroglossia (multiple discourses/movements) is given life in performance via rasa, a cornerstone of Indian aesthetics and a significant reference point, in my view in Contemporary Indian Dance. Rasa functions on different levels – as in emotion, aesthetic pleasure, or a taste in the mouth (sweet or salty) and, by implication, good taste in art. Rasa is a philosophical and psychological concept that illuminates the performer–audience dynamic. For rasa to occur at all, the audience’s presence is vital. I add a contemporary resonance of rasa, one that is evoked by artists’ selfreflexivity that aims to make the audience both feel and think. This is different from the notion of rasa as defined in ancient times as an aesthetic, even transcendent experience (discussed below). Rather, I discover that in the creative choreography of Contemporary Indian dancers, rasa is harnessed in order to catch the audience’s attention and raise their social awareness about the many inequities and injustices around us. Kapila Vatsyayan notes in Bharata, The Natyasastra that the core theory of rasa involves “aesthetic experience from the point of view of the artist, the aesthetic/artistic object, and the evocation of a similar, if not identical experience in the aesthete/receptor or audience.”25 In order to express and experience rasa it is necessary, remarks Vatsyayan, to undertake both “impersonation and abstraction” (138). Life experience is shown through “abstract emotive categories” that are differentiated, namely into the navarasas. The notion of rasa was articulated first by the sage Bharata in The Natyasastra a significant text in world theatre aesthetics.26 “The rasa theory,”

18

Introduction

remarks Priyadarshin Patnaik, “one of the oldest theories in the Indian tradition … deals with the various kinds of emotions, and how they are depicted, inferred, and transmitted through a work of art … The problem that confronts a critic is to find out how, in a work, emotion is depicted, suggested, and how it is finally communicated to the reader or audience.”27 Bharata’s Natyasastra delineates the navarasas – love, fear, valor, humor, anger, disgust, sorrow, compassion, and peace – that are commonly represented in a dramatic work. Bharata also notes the vibhavas (secondary emotions), such as waiting, anticipation, jealousy that may accompany the primary emotion of love, and anubhavas (consequences) that are all essential in evoking rasa. “Rasa is produced,” notes H. H. Ingalls, “by the combining of the determinants (vibhavas), the consequences (anubhavas) and the temporary or transient states of mind (vyabhicharibhavas).”28 A particular rasa or emotion is enabled by determining factors such as the waiting or the presence of the beloved in lyric poetry. Ingalls also notes “stimulative factors” such as springtime or the bridal chamber that are likely to evoke the emotion of love. In this elaborate psychological unveiling of the emotion of love, Bharata, in the true ancient Sanskrit theoretician’s tendency to categorize and assign numbers to states of mind, delineates 33 transitory or temporary emotions, and eight involuntary states (such as perspiration, trembling).29 Bhatta Lollata, the oldest commentator on the Natyasastra, took rasa to be “an intensified form of an abiding emotion which it assumed after being strengthened by the determinants and similar factors “ (Ingalls, 17). Lollata took the “vibhavas [determinants] as the direct cause (karana) of rasa which is therefore an effect … The rasa found in characters like Rama is attributed to the actor who imitates the character in form, dress and action … but it is not clear how it is apparently transferred to the actor and how the spectator is charmed by a feeling which does not exist in him” (History of Sanskrit Poetics, 194).30 Effectively, the audience is left out of Lollata’s discussion of rasa. Sankuka takes this up. He “contends that the Rasa is not produced as an effect but that it is inferred … to exist in the actor … and the mood thus inferred, being sensed by the spectator … develops into a relishable condition called Rasa” (History of Sanskrit Poetics, 197). On what basis can one judge that a poem or dance achieves and communicates rasa? Although, ultimately this comes down to individual taste, Anandavardhana offers certain pointers to both the composer (poet) and the audience, as Ingalls points out. “The literary piece [and I would add dance] must exhibit appropriateness (auchitya)” (Ingalls, 20). Plot must be appropriate to the emotions, to the character of the hero and so on – the ancient Sanskrit playwright Kalidasa is cited as an ideal example of achieving auchitya. Anadavardhana also associates rasa with auchitya, so, for instance, the appropriate “ornaments” to the emotion of love are sweetness, “whereas strength ornaments the rasa of fury” (Ingalls, 21). Again, personal

Introduction 19

taste enters the debate since some viewers, more prudish than others may find for instance, Chandralekha’s bold representations of sexuality on stage as lacking auchitya, whereas others may not. Hence auchitya is a fluctuating, unreliable criterion in discussing rasa. Abhinavagupta, author of monumental contributions to Indian aesthetics, offers a slightly different interpretation of rasa from earlier commentators discussed above, as De puts it, “that which is manifested is not the rasa itself, but its relish; not the mood itself, but its reflection in the form of a subjective condition of aesthetic enjoyment in the reader … [Rasa] has the power of stirring the reader’s soul into Rasa. The resulting Rasa cannot be identified with its constituent vibhavas, for the latter are not experienced separately, but the whole appear as Rasa, which is thus simple and indivisible; and at the time of relish nothing else but Rasa is raised to our consciousness. The writers on poetics are fond of explaining this phenomenon under the analogy of a beverage, which though made up of black pepper, candied sugar, camphor, and other ingredients, gives us a different taste from that of its constituents” (History of Sanskrit Poetics, 203). Abhinava describes the experience of rasa as synonymous with camatkar, an epiphany. It is a kind of relish in which nothing but rasa itself exists. It is free from anything else, “like the state of mind lost in the philosophic contemplation of Brahma. It is not capable of proof or designation … The only proof of the existence of Rasa is its relish itself by the sahrdaya [the sensitivehearted spectator] … another name is ‘wonder’” (History of Sanskrit Poetics, 211–12). A highly evolved performing artist (musician, writer, or dancer) can elevate the audience to a realm beyond the material world.31 Rasa is felt – bodily, mentally and emotionally – but it is not visual, as Deidre Sklar pointed out to me, and this marks a departure from focusing mainly on what is seen in analyzing dance.32 Sklar also noted in the same conversation that the symbiotic relationship between what the performer feels (rasa) and what the audience receives (also rasa) involves a psychologically sophisticated response. Emotion and thought are evoked in creatively represented use of abhinaya as in Ratnam’s 7 Graces where rather than one primary emotion as depicted in a padam, a collage of overlapping emotions from love to sorrow, to fear, to social fawning, to disgust are depicted in quick succession in the Contemporary work. Similarly, Deboo’s choreography for the deaf dancers of the Clarke School in Chennai, Contra Position represents the navarasas performed with deliberately blurred lines moving from love, to fear, to jealousy, to sorrow and disgust. Both Ratnam and Deboo, in tune with our contemporary world filled with grotesque forms of violence, give full force to one of the navarasas, namely disgust. Their depiction of this emotion is different from the contained nature of representing disgust in classical dance where it is re-inscribed into a mythic frame where good triumphs and evildoers are punished. Ratnam and Deboo boldly embody the emotion of disgust on its own, without the comfort of recognizable mythic

20

Introduction

Figure 4 Astad Deboo, Circle of Feelings (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia)

and/or religious connotations that could muffle the impact of the grotesque. Similarly, Shyamala Moorty’s dance cum theatre pieces, Rise and Carrie’s Web, evoke the seamy side of human nature in religion-fuelled communal violence, and the private ugliness of domestic violence. Although these works bring together aesthetics and politics in effective artistic representations, they are distinctly different from the beauty that is de riguer in classical Indian dance. Indeed, audiences of classical dance are deeply uncomfortable when faced with contemporary work that represents violence via the rasas of disgust, or deeply personal, even intimate psychological realities of victims of domestic violence. The rasa impact, effect, and affect are interwoven in the musical choices of Contemporary Indian Dancers. Emotional impact – psychological and rational – relies prominently on the aural. Often, what is heard – a palimpsest of sounds with unusual combinations of Indian and other musical traditions – inspires and guides the movement choices. An experience of musical-movement transpires. Classical Indian music traditions with a rich inventory of bols, solketttus, tirmanams, varnum, and padam lyrics are used

Introduction 21

along with creative musical arrangements that may include classical piano, jazz saxophone, opera, folk songs, and so on. I link another foundational principle in Indian aesthetics, namely the integral connection between mind and body to what I see as rasa’s integrated emotional-cum-thoughtful response in Contemporary Indian Dance. The emotional response generated by rasa is not separate from an intellectual one that requires the audience to have thought in their response to artists’ intellectual engagements as presented in their contemporary work. Here, Deidre Sklar’s distinction between “thought” and “reasoning” usefully follows that of philosopher Mark Johnson (1987) which enables a “refram(ing of) thinking as meaning-making, recognizing that thought depends on humans, rather than on a universal objective reality accessible through reasoning … Johnson recognizes imagination, prior to reason, as the basic meaning-making operation.”33 Sklar argues effectively that movement and bodily ways of knowing are also “ways of thinking,” the link between “the somatic and the conceptual” enables a bridging of the mindbody division in Western epistemology. In the Indian aesthetic worldview, although mind and body are conjoined, the theorizing of this linkage is enabled by Sklar’s insightful comment that “we may discover appropriate ways of talking about what we know when we know it in movement. And we might then come to appreciate how movement is thought (where ‘thought’ is both noun and verb) in different cultural contexts.” Johnson’s notion of “embodied schema” opens up the possibility of attending to what Sklar calls, “somatic ways of organizing knowledge.” This brings me to the next step from mind-body, movement-thought, to writing the body.

Writing dancing As Sklar theorizes somatic ways of knowing, another path-breaking dance studies scholar Susan Leigh Foster explores the tussle in our modern world among the hierarchizing of “the verbal, logical, and discursive” as opposed to the “spontaneous, graceful, erotic,” and above all, “the fervent use of the body [that] offers dance a clear place and function in society” (Reading Dancing, Preface, xiv, xv).34 She asks, “how any dance means what it does” (xvii) and responds with a significant scholarly intervention, namely a process that she describes as “Reading Dancing” which is “an active and interactive interpretation of dance as a system of meaning.” The ability to see beyond, to “let the dance speak for itself” is particularly important in my analysis of Contemporary Indian Dancers, who may draw upon classical Indian dance with its religious and socio-cultural worldview, its rich repository of lyric poetry, rhythmic composition, and culturally specific knowledge of Indian epics and myths (with reinterpretations of mythic and divine figures in contemporary work). Elaborate cultural translations of abhinaya, explaining in words the non-verbal language of gestures, are provided prior to performances.

22

Introduction

Foster discusses struggles over meaning-making – whether the emphasis should remain on the body itself without any other overlay, whether one can delineate “an organic choreographic process” that may integrate the everyday, even “chance” gestures into a work. Clifford Geertz posits human beings as “meaning seeking animals” who participate in “symbolizing [and] conceptualizing” their life experiences.35 His further assertion that “religion is never merely metaphysics,” but is integrated into daily life, rings true for many Indian communities in India and the diaspora who nurture dance practice as an activity that builds self-discipline, devotion, and a sense of commitment. “Meanings can be stored in symbols” remarks Geertz, and “sacred symbols relate an ontology and a cosmology to an aesthetics and a morality” (422). At times, meanings are picked up intuitively such as the traditional lighting of an oil lamp at the beginning of a traditional Indian dance recital or for any major event (as even the inauguration of conferences as I noticed at the World Dance Alliance Conference in New Delhi in 2009) to evoke an auspicious opening and to create positive energy. “Several symbol complexes” notes Geertz can reveal “one or another aspect of the integration of ethos and worldview” (427), also a “fusion between a mystical-phenomenological worldview and an etiquette-centered ethos” (432). Randy Martin explores the particular challenge of writing about dance, about capturing non-verbal movement in words, about representing in words the visual landscape on stage. One “interpretation” of a dance representation, he notes, “leaves out” others.36 Further, “dance presents special problems of how to move between representation and object” (108). Martin discusses the aid of videography, though it too falls short since it recreates an event rather than recapturing something of the social processes, namely the very participation of performers and audience, that made that event possible. Dance highlights this participation precisely because of its resistance to representation … The graphy, or writing, in choreography is an inscription of moving bodies in space and not on paper or video screen where movement activity is a precondition for inscription rather than the other way around … Video may readily conceal the asynchrony and heterogeneity of audience activity. (109) Movement by itself, without words, notes Martin, does not indicate “a relation of signifier to signified” (109). Indeed, there are no “demonstrable codes of interpretation,” remarks Martin, for dance nor “a grammar of dance criticism,” hence there is “a resistance of the dance object to representation” that blocks “a theoretical language of its own or a sustained dialogue with theory from other sources” (109). The interconnection between performing and writing, indeed what Foster calls “a new genre of writing about performance called performative

Introduction 23

writing”37 is analogous, as Foster indicated, to the connection between speech and action. The two can complement one another, or one (speech) may exceed the other (action), or vice versa. Foster’s rich notions of “writing the body” and “writing about the body” enable an engagement with the body itself as a text focusing on its kinesthetic qualities and its corporeality. In the same talk, Foster indicated that physicality (though expressed differently) is involved in both writing and dancing; how the body is involved for instance in a bending motion of the head during the writing process, or the movement of the fingers on the keyboard, or in using a pen that moves across a page. Writing and dancing come together in the body. Indeed, the body is the link between the gaps in activities such as writing and thinking, or between dancing and thinking. The body is the bridge that enables a crossing from one side to the other. Foster also remarked on “extensive regimens of training whether for writing or for dancing.” Similar to Foster’s theoretical linking of writing and movement, of discourse and dance, James Clifford and George Marcus in Writing Culture propose the use of “literary consciousness” in analyzing culture.38 This resonates with my training in reading literary texts and critical theory, using hermeneutic tools of interpretation and discovery that also informs my analysis of Contemporary Indian Dance. Clifford usefully articulates that in doing fieldwork and writing up one’s findings, one discovers only “partial truths.” He moves away from a visual to a “discursive paradigm,” away from the “observing eye and toward expressive speech” (and gesture). He further identifies a crucial problem for a discursive ethnography, namely, how “‘to achieve by written means what speech creates, and to do it without simply imitating speech’” (quoting Tyler, 12). There is much written about the ethnographer’s “gaze” and not enough about the “ethnographic ear.” Clifford cites Walter Ong’s argument that “the truth of vision in Western literate cultures has predominated over the evidences of sound and interlocutions, of touch, smell, and taste. (Mary Pratt has observed that references to odor, very prominent in travel writing, are virtually absent from ethnographies” (11). I return finally to Deidre Sklar’s identification of “two new trajectories in ethnographic dance studies” – one socio-cultural, drawing upon cultural studies, and the second kinesthetic, where “we seek deeper understanding of movement itself as a way of knowing, a medium that carries meaning in an immediately felt, somatic mode.” Sklar theorizes the body corporeal within the body social and political, set within particular cultural frames; “interpretation grounded in bodily ways of knowing.” This connects with Martin’s notion of “the theoretical being embodied” in dance studies. Sklar’s “intention is not to isolate corporeality from abstraction but to bring consciousness back into relation with somatic experience.”39 Sklar’s creatively articulated position is significant; she “refuses to split off thinking minds from passive bodies or corporeal from mental knowledge … [Rather, she posits] the interpenetration of embodiment and abstract symbols. Movement embodies

24

Introduction

socially constructed cultural knowledge in which corporeality, emotion, and abstraction are intertwined” (“Can Bodylore …”) Sklar’s theoretical acumen in linking the corporeal to the mental and emotional echoes in my discussion of rasa (emotion and thought) in Contemporary Indian Dance and the integral linking of body and mind in the Indian philosophic tradition. In conclusion, as an interdisciplinary and feminist scholar, my analysis of Contemporary Indian Dance employs a moving methodology constituted of an interwoven fabric of dance history and theory, Indian aesthetics and philosophy, cultural anthropology, interviews, performance and rehearsal observations and notes. As I move forward on this journey, analyzing the creative choreography of many Contemporary Indian Dancers, mindful of the somatic and cultural accumulations in the body, I am guided by an interwoven texture of rasa theory as it occurs, or not, in new movement augmented or interrupted by multimedia tools, by innovative soundscape, and use of space by performing artists across the globe. My book provides a wealth of material of contemporary choreographers located in different geographical bases in India, Britain, and North America, with some of them interacting transnationally. Summary of the book Chapter 1 grounds my study in the history of Indian traditional dance from the nineteenth century in colonial India. Social reformist movements colluded with British Victorian colonizers to eradicate traditional dance, judged to be “disreputable,” along with the anti-nautch (dance) campaign of the 1920s and 1930s, and simultaneous, albeit paradoxical attempts to “revive” traditional dance by upper-caste Brahmins and Indian nationalists into “purified” classical forms (sadir to bharatanatyam, nautch to kathak). I discuss early pioneers – Uday Shankar’s “Creative Dance” in Europe (1930s), and Chandralekha’s creative choreography from the 1980s until her recent death in 2006. Colonial roots lead to diasporic routes from India into Southeast Asia, Africa and the Caribbean in the early twentieth century, and later, larger numbers relocating to North America and Britain. Local and global connections made by an Uday Shankar in the early twentieth century are more nuanced in the intercultural reality of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries with Deboo and London-based Shobana Jeyasingh, significant pioneers of Contemporary Indian Dance, discussed in Chapter 2. Deboo’s nearly four-decades-long career is marked by his struggles in the 1960s and 1970s for recognition of his contemporary work (dismissed often by Indian gurus as “too Western” and by Western audiences as “not Indian enough”) – a very different experience from that provided by the more hospitable climate for the contemporary work of the British-South Asian Akram Khan and his meteoric rise to success over the past ten years. Chapter 3 traverses India and the diaspora to discuss masters of classical Indian dance working in a contemporary idiom from a base in kathak and

Introduction 25

bharatanatyam. I also discuss emerging artists working innovatively towards Contemporary Indian Dance. In Chapter 4, I analyze how contemporary choreography (in movement, as well as visually and in costume design) is influenced by transnational collaborations between artists such as Anita Ratnam (Chennai-based) and Hari Krishnan (Toronto-based). Multiethnic dance companies produce exciting contemporary work, such as Krishnan’s InDance Company, and Malaysiabased Ramli Ibrahim’s Sutra Dance Company. Technological advances enable the global circuitry of artists with collaborations between the global North and South. “Dancing in the Diaspora” is divided into Chapter 5, exploring the United States and Canada; and Chapter 6, focusing on Britain. In the United States, the Indian diasporic community became more visible after the landmark post-1965 US legislation that allowed vast numbers from South and Southeast Asia to enter the country. Today, second-generation youth with hyphenated identities make significant contributions to Contemporary Indian Dance. Along with hybrid work, I also discuss “extensions of tradition” by first-generation bharatanatyam teachers in the United States who create new dance-dramas based on Indian epics and other texts, and who perform an incredible service to the immigrant community desirous of connecting to the homeland via dance. A conclusion gestures to fostering future developments of this dynamic and evolving form of Contemporary Indian Dance, developing transnational networks and encouraging collaborative work among dancers, musicians, and visual artists. A very hopeful sign for the future (from my observations) is the ability and skill of the current generation of performers, now in their thirties, both in India as well as in the United States to work collaboratively, to share resources and strategies to succeed as artists in a world where it remains an uphill battle to assert the profound significance of the arts for humanity, and further to assert the role that art can play in issues of social change.

1 Contested Histories: “Revivals” of Classical Indian Dance and Early Pioneers of Contemporary Indian Dance Cultures (may be said to) have overall tendencies to idealize and think in terms of either the context-free or the context-sensitive kind of rules … Every story is encased in a meta-story. And within the text, one tale is the context for another within it; not only does the outer frame-story motivate the inner sub-story; the inner story illuminates the outer as well. A. K. Ramanujan, “Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?” The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan1 The history of the revival of Indian dance from the late nineteenth into the twentieth century aptly illustrates Ramanujan’s stories within stories, and underscores the need for the kind of “context-sensitive” analysis that he recommends. The presence of British colonizers and Indian nationalists provide a similar set of contexts within which the place and position of Indian classical dance should be viewed. Doing so highlights a key paradox: social reformers and revivalists engaged simultaneously in both the prohibition and rescue of the very same art form. Moralistic reformers wished to eradicate, even through legislation, the institution of devadasis, dedicated to temples in Southern India. In reality, devadasis belonged to hereditary communities of artists who excelled in dance and music. Their life-style (discussed below) was judged to be disreputable. However, the same revivalists wanted to salvage the dance in a redefined form “respectable” to them. Nationalists renamed sadir, or dasiattam (the devadasi dance) into bharanatyam that translates as dance of India in troubling exclusivity, as though other dance forms do not exist. Ignoring the specific history and location of sadir, they invented and ascribed notions of “purity,” “classicism,” and “ancientness” to the “new” dance form. Similarly, in Northern India, the tradition of tawaifs and bais (courtesans) as connoisseurs of the arts of music and dance, that had fallen into disrepute (for its own complex historical reasons discussed below) was “revived” in today’s kathak dance.2 It is significant to revisit the contested histories of 26

Contested Histories 27

reviving bharatanatyam and kathak since they are the most favored classical forms inspiring contemporary idioms at the intersection of classical and modern, old and new. At the outset, I acknowledge a complex scenario of multiple voices, points of view, and agendas in recuperating the history of traditional Indian dance. Indeed, I underline the very agency of revivalists/reformers via Susan Leigh Foster’s excellent Introduction in Choreographing History: “A historian of bodies,” she remarks, “approaches these fragmented traces sternum leading, a sign … that his or her own body is seeking, longing to find, the vanished body whose motions produced them … The historian’s body wants to inhabit these vanished bodies … To that end historians’ bodies amble down the corridors of documentation … staring alternately at the archival evidence and the fantasies it generates … The historian’s own bodily experience and conceptions of body continue to intervene.”3 Further, Foster delineates how the body’s very evanescence in movement, its ephemerality is captured in words, in “varieties of corporeal writing,” namely the historian’s body undertaking the labor of writing, and giving “bodily endeavors the status of articulation and representation” (Choreographing History, 9). However, since words fall short of capturing corporeal movement and since “verbal discourse cannot speak for bodily discourse,” Foster suggests an insightful direction to take, namely that the historian “must enter into ‘dialogue’ with that bodily discourse … Writing the historical text, rather than an act of verbal explanation, must become a process of interpretation, translation, and rewriting of bodily texts” (9). These are highly useful, even cautionary words as I venture onto the fraught terrain of the recuperation of Indian traditional dance from multiple dialogues and interpretations from the late nineteenth century into independent India.

Sadir into bharatanatyam In recuperating traditional dance, revivalist zeal was fuelled by the prevalent British colonial climate of the late nineteenth century that judged most aspects of Indian culture and religion as backward, driven by superstition and blind faith. This partly influenced social reformers to counter colonizers’ ignorance by demonstrating a new form of Indian modernity rooted in ancient, even timeless Indian culture distinct from Western modernity. This endeavor to invent, even “culturally engineer” an Indian past within which classical Indian dance belonged was part of a complex process undertaken mostly by upper-caste Brahmins and other educated elites; effectively, they marginalized sadir’s actual community of practitioners.4 “The genealogy of the classical in modernity and its location in the spiritualized inner realm of the indigenous,” remark Indira Viswanathan Petereson and Davesh Soneji in an excellent revisionary history, “suggest why upper-caste elites and

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middle-class nationalists became the chief engineers of the classicization of indigenous dance and music in both northern and southern India.”5 It proved to be something of a tightrope walk for these groups seeking to promote the “indigeneity of the classical” in the face of colonial prejudice against the so-called backwardness of local cultures. One solution sought to create a dichotomy between “high” classical and “low” folk traditions. Traditional performers who did not accede to such divisions increasingly found themselves silenced as the Indian elite and, later, the independent Indian state took over the role of hierarchically defining high and low art, under binary divisions like classical and folk. They even redefined the space in which these dancers normally performed. Whereas traditional practitioners once practiced their art in temples and courts, and had mobility between these spaces, the practitioners of the new “high” art now performed on the proscenium stage. This new, modern form of traditional dance had to project itself as “simultaneously traditional and modern, an ideal that the system, repertoire and practices of hereditary and other traditional performers, including Brahmins, simply could not fit” (Performing Pasts, 7). An Indian elite wanted to impose a form of “ancientness” on Indian society, note Peterson and Soneji, in the form of “suitably reformed, modernized textual, and theoretical canons” for which they sought “scientific” knowledge based on Sanskrit treatises or shastra rather than on practice. The richness of how traditional communities actually practiced their arts was judged “unscientific, non-canonical, hybrid, vernacular, and non-modern” (Performing Pasts, 8). However, the effort to Sanskritize a living practice of music and dance with many functions appealed only to a small number of elites. Ultimately, hereditary performers and their communities were disinherited by the enforcement of “classical tradition.” The loss that followed from decontextualizing art forms from their original artists was recovered minimally in reconstructions of classical dance. Although the devadasi system was practiced in different regions of the Indian subcontinent, including eastern and western states such as Orissa and Maharashtra, much of the history of renaming the devadasi’s sadir dance as bharatanatyam unfolded in today’s Tamil Nadu. Dancer-choreographer Jayachandran Palazhy observes that, “as royal patronage dwindled, the fortunes of the temples depleted. As a result, some of the Devadasis were forced into prostitution for survival. European missionaries, Indian social reformists, doctors, and even journalists argued for the banning of the practice of the Devadasi system as well as the North Indian tradition of Nautch, a dancing tradition of the Mughal royal courts, on moral grounds.”6 In the late eighteenth century, the Maratha courts of Thanjavur (in Tamil Nadu) fostered the development of music and dance with varying regional and external influences.7 For example, “the European violin was adapted for Karnatak music in Thanjavur in the eighteenth century and has since become the principal accompanying instrument in Karnatak concerts”

Contested Histories 29

(Performing Pasts, 9). Much of the future destiny of the “classical” traditions like bharatanatyam and Carnatic music were forged in the city of Madras (now called Chennai), the capital of the British Madras Presidency.8 It is significant to underline that multiple contestations by those with different social, cultural, and political agendas such as the colonialistOrientalists, the nationalists, the Brahmins played a part in reinventing and “classicizing” Indian arts. Dance scholar Avanthi Meduri’s provocative question, “what about the dance?”, gets the usual conventional historical narrative about how individuals like art impresario cum lawyer E. Krishna Iyer (whose zeal made him impersonate a female in a sari and dance) and the Madras Music Academy “rescued the [sadir] dance from extinction. Their reformist agenda desired to transfer the practice of traditional dance to respectable families who could then lend their prestige to the form.”9 A discussion of Indian dance, however, notes Meduri, demands that one enter into “a philosophical discourse on ethics, aesthetics, and social reality, all at once. In contrast, Indian dance today functions in a secular reality – in the gap between philosophic vision and everyday reality” (Meduri, “Bharata Natyam,” 4). This is a very different reality than the one that the hereditary devadasi community inhabited, a place where they could transition easily between temple and court while “balanc(ing) patronage with personal independence,” notes Meduri. When the art was taken over by “respectable women,” the devadasi herself was “rudely dismissed, while the dance itself, like the mythical phoenix, rose from the ashes” (6). Meduri asserts that this move from sadir to bharatanatyam “transformed the devadasi almost completely into an object, valued only as the repository of the ancient tradition she had mastered – as its symbol.” Meduri continues: We see the first signs of the split that society initiated and then seemed to sanction, the division between inner and outer, self and culture, which is also the special schizophrenia of the contemporary dancer … Dance in the early twentieth century, both in the temple and outside it, was being defined, it seems to me, in the shabby clothes of “respectability,” but not in its autonomy, and definitely not for its own sake. (“Bharata Natyam,” 7) In another disservice to the hereditary performers, for whom dance “was a living tradition that fused belief with practice,” notes Meduri, reformers attempted to “elevate” dance’s status relying on the tenthcentury Sanskrit philosopher Abhinavagupta’s commentary on Bharata’s Natyasastra. Abhinavagupta discusses the psychological experience of art, and further equates the highest aesthetic experience to a religious one (see Introduction). One of the key players in the bharatanatyam revival was Rukmini Devi Arundale, who institutionalized bharatanatyam with her establishment of

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Kalakshetra Dance Academy in 1936. This fact needs to be contextualized within her biography.10 Born into the Brahmin caste, she broke tradition at the young age of 16 to marry George Arundale, a key player in The Theosophical Society in Madras. This marriage enabled Devi to travel extensively and she was exposed to a variety of artistic traditions. Anna Pavlova inspired her to study ballet, but was instrumental in persuading Devi to explore the dance traditions of her own native India. Because of this, Devi, who saw devadasis like Mylapore Gowri Amma dance in 1932 and met two disciples of the guru Meenakshisundaram Pillai, was inspired to study sadir with Gowri Amma and to involve herself actively in its “revival.” However, many prominent scholars like Dr V. K. Narayana Menon believe that “no one could claim that she or he revived Bharata Natyam because it was quite alive and didn’t die.” Devi gave a public debut recital in March 1936 reported in The Hindu: A large and cultured audience assembled at Adyar yesterday to witness the exhibition of Bharata Natyam by Srimati Rukmini Devi. The occasion was notable as marking the public debut of an educated and cultural artiste from outside the ranks of the professional dancers.11 Devi played a key role in “purifying” sadir-cum-bharatanatyam and replacing sensuality with religious emphasis in the dance’s overall affect, as taught in Kalakshetra. However, problematic this interpretation of bharatanatyam is, we recognize Devi’s important role in establishing bharatanatyam from the late 1930s onwards, with several Kalakshetra trained teachers now thriving in India and the diaspora. Devi’s creative chorography includes innovations of traditional forms of kuruvanjis (dance-dramas) such as Kannapar Kuruvanji (1962) and Bhagwata Mela dance productions like Rukmini Kalyanam (1964). She also created the Valmiki Ramayana in six parts, between 1954 and 1970. Among over 20 dance-drama productions, Devi created innovative thematic dance-dramas such as Rabindranath Tagore’s Shyama (1961), Buddha Avataram (1979), and in 1984, only two years before her death, she produced Meera of Mewar. Gowri Ramnarayan characterizes Devi’s choreography as “Restoration and Creativity,” saying: “Through her intuitive vision, Rukmini Devi succeeded in making innovations buttressed by the framework of what was essential in tradition.”12 Quoting Sandra Hoffmann, Ramnarayan adds that “Rukmini Devi’s dance-dramas are not traditional in the literal sense. They are traditional in that they carry the traditional spirit. We must give credit to her originality. Tradition therefore must be continuously reviewed, adapted and contemporized, retaining its essential core, as otherwise it is apt to get petrified and lose its relevance to life.” The “purifying” of sadir by Rukmini Devi raised objections, mainly with regard to the representation of sringara (love in various manifestations – as

Contested Histories 31

mother, lover, devotee) from one of the legendary dancers, T. Balasaraswati (often called Bala) who belonged to a devadasi family. She stated: “the sringara we experience in bharata natyam is never carnal – never, never. For those who have yielded themselves to this discipline with total dedication, dance, like music, is the practice of presence, it cannot merely be the body’s rapture.”13 Bala also asserted forthrightly that “there is nothing in Bharata Natyam which can be purified afresh; it is divine and is innately so” (Meduri, “Bharata Natyam,” 11). Janet O’Shea explains that Bala “argued for an untainted erotic-aesthetic-sacred continuum as the heritage of the devadasi dance, and one not to be confused with a vulgar eroticism” (quoted in Performing Pasts, 18). Yet, Rukmini Devi and others disagreed. Meduri asks significant questions: who was defining what was vulgar and what was sublime? What were the criteria used? Bala in her turn described this “Brahminized” dance as “vulgar.” These divergent views are part of bharatanatyam’s history and evolution.14 Amrit Srinivasan reconstructs the events that led to the 1947 ban on the dedication of young girls to Hindu temples, setting the legislative landmarks within the context of British colonial rule as well as “native political activity.”15 He analyzes the process by which the anti-nautch (dance) campaign “became inextricably linked with the communal politics of the Dravidian (an ethnic and political affiliation) movement, whilst the ‘revival’ movement was sustained and generated by the Brahmin-dominated Theosophical movement and the Congress.” Revivalists sought to save the devadasi’s dance from extinction by representing the dancer as a “nun in order to incarnate her afresh.” Both reformers and revivalists wrote the script that they desired on the devadasi’s body. One needs to demystify the many moral objections that hide deeper psychological, economic, and political agendas. For instance, devadasis enjoyed a level of freedom not allowed to most women in society. While forbidden to form a household as ordinary wives do, no one expected her to be celibate. Elder women within the devadasi community carefully monitored the sexual relationships between younger devadasi and their wealthy, and mostly married, patrons, merchants, and landowners. These extra-marital relations were allowed because they ensured the temple’s economic wellbeing. “The religious sanction given to female celibacy institutionalized sexual intimacy between devadasis and patrons” (Srinivasan, 1870). In such a community, women held more power than did men who, according to Srinivasan, felt threatened by the devadasi’s access to authority. Devadasis enjoyed high social honor as nitya sumangali, that is, as women who were always auspicious because they were married to a deity, and could therefore never suffer widowhood as other women might. Devadasi families tightly controlled their power over their temples and, in pre-colonial India, even over land benefits that accrued to them. Female children were more valued than males who eventually had to make their own way outside of

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the devadasi household (as musicians, dance teachers, or other professions). Many of them became respected dance gurus. Society allowed the devadasi to learn to read, write, and have a vocation, unlike other women in India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The hereditary communities held knowledge about their dance practice “in custody in special ways,” note Peterson and Soneji, and “disseminated [it] through complex alliances among individuals both within and outside the hereditary communities” (Introduction, Performing Pasts, 11). For example, the Thanjavur Quartet – which consisted of the brothers Ponnaiya, Chinnaiya, Shivanandam, and Vadivel, all nattuvanar teachers at the Thanjavur court – “codified and systematized the performance of sadir dance, forging the core of the later twentieth century repertoire of Bharatanatyam” (Performing Pasts, 11). They were prolific composers of music and dance, especially padams, and they interacted with devadasis such as Minnakshi of Mannargudi and Sarasammal of Thanjavur. During this period, “devadasis who moved easily between court and temple, between music and dance, and between nattuvanars and Brahmins, were the major links and mediators of repertoire among these diverse constituencies of the culture of dance” (Performing Pasts, 12). By the late nineteenth century the anti-nautch movement gained momentum, and smeared both the profession and bodily autonomy of devadasis. What was most abhorrent to reformers was “the institutionalization both of celibacy with sexuality in the devadasi’s person. The devadasi stood at the root of a rather unique and specialized temple artisan caste” wherein females possessed professional skills. This campaign nearly wiped out sadir long before the 1947 legislation that forbade girls’ dedication to temple deities. Srinivasan points out that the politicization of the devadasi’s dance grew evident by the 1920s when anti-nautch agitation became elided with “Dravidian communal politics” (Srinivasan, 1873). As Peterson and Soneji remark, “The demise of sadir dance, and the repudiation of its aesthetic were inextricably linked with the public condemnation of the sexual morality of the devadasi and their dance … Puritan colonial-nationalist ideologies of female sexuality played a central role in the criminalization of the devadasis and their dance” (Introduction, Performing Pasts, 18). The reform movement forced devadasis “to relinquish all rights to temple service and its privileges,” including land rights (Srinivasan, 1874). Furthermore, the pressures of the nationalist, Brahmin-dominated Congress pushed to make the devadasi’s dance more “acceptable” to society. It suited the British colonizers to advance scientific and medical “facts” and arguments such as the health risks of having sex at a very young age, as in the case of devadasis. Nationalist fervor influenced the Theosophical Society’s role in reviving the dance with “almost religious idealization” that was itself, writes Srinivasan, “an effect of westernization.” “The re-classification of regional,

Contested Histories 33

artistic traditions within a unique territorially-defined framework of unity was now proposed in terms of the spiritual and civilizational advantages of Indian and eastern philosophies and techniques” (Srinivasan, 1875). Apart from Rukmini Devi and E. Krishna Iyer another important revivalist was Sanskrit scholar V. Raghavan. A tongue-in-cheek article by an anonymous author entitled, “The Renaming of an Old Dance: A Whodunit Tale of Mystery” in Sruti Magazine notes: The reason for giving a new name to the classical dance art – of which its devadasi practitioners were the hereditary custodians – was the felt need to “deodorize” the dance … Sadir – and the more explicit Dasiattam – had acquired a bad odour because prostitution had come to be associated closely in the public’s mind with the devadasi system. If the art had to be saved from “extinction” and given a fresh lease of life, several influential persons felt, it ought to be given a new name or identity.16 The same anonymous writer traces the etymology of bharatanatyam, arguing that it was not taken from the name of Bharata, the author of the Natyasastra, as sometimes asserted. Instead, “the term ‘bharatam’ was already in vogue to denote dance among brahmin natyacharyas [dance masters] … The term has its roots in dramaturgy which in its ancient form was called bharatam … In ancient times, the word Bharata meant a drama actor. There were several Bharatas (like there have been several Buddhas).” Another explanation often proposed to explain the choice of the name bharatanatyam states that “Bha” stands for bhava (mood), Ra for raga (musical scale), and Ta for tala (rhythm); few accept this argument. Some believe that Dr Raghavan coined the term bharatanatyam to make the style respectable by even going as far back as tracing bharatanatyam’s “historical continuity which went up to Mohenjadaro and Rigveda.”17 Such evocations of the dance’s ancientness, tracing its lineage all the way back to the ancient civilization of Mohenjadaro, were historical inventions asserted to give the form respectability. Even Mohenjadaro excavations, such as the image of a dancing girl, provide no proof that she danced bharatanatyam – indeed, the same dance form that had received its name only in the 1930s! E. Krishna Iyer, the most avid of the revivalists, is credited also with renaming the style bharatanatyam in a resolution that he put forth “in the annual Conference of the [Madras Music] Academy in 1932.” Raghavan was too young at that time to have participated in the deliberations of the academy “when the term ‘Bharata Natya’ was unanimously approved by the members,” notes the Sruti article’s anonymous author. Devi’s Kalakshetra eventually gave rise to what Srinivasan appropriately calls “a new elite class of amateur performers” ((Srinivasan, 1897). Influenced heavily by Theosophists’ Christian religious biases, revivalists recast bharatanatyam as a “pure and holy ancient temple dance,” cutting

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off “the ‘living’ devadasi” as the one who preserved the art. As Srinivasan summarizes, Devi legitimized the form by teaching bharatanatyam as a form of “individual spiritual exercise” rooted in ancient Sanskrit texts rather than the hereditary artists, especially excising any bawdy songs or erotic displays in the dance (1875). Sringara at the physical level was abstracted into “an inward essence.” Such “changes” were undertaken to “improve” the art and “regenerate its lost classicism.” Finally, reformers combined teaching and performing so that a dancer also functioned as “the interpreter” (1875). Kalakshetra established a canon of bharatanatyam by standardizing a set repertoire. Meduri “resituates the work of Rukmini Devi” – she was more than a revivalist in her use of modern stagecraft “allegorizing the three iconic signs of Nataraja, the Natyashastra, and the Guru.” Meduri asserts that “the semiotic-theatrical-performative nature of Devi’s project” was different both from the devadasi dancers as well as historiographers of the dance. Rather, “by theatricalizing the dance,” Devi “became the first urban south Indian ‘dancer-historian’ in the modern era” (quoted in Performing Pasts, 26). The story within the story about retracing Indian history, to return to Ramanujan’s epigraph at the beginning of this chapter, is resonant also in the revival of kathak, a classical dance style from North India that brings together folk and formal court dances from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, influenced by the Bhakti (Hindu) and Sufi (Muslim) movements. Kathak dancer and dance scholar Pallabi Chakravorty revises the revival stories of kathak by delineating “histories from below,” recognizing the contributions of many nameless and invisible artists who preserved the North Indian arts of classical Hindustani music and nautch. Chakravorty remarks: “I historicize Kathak by rearticulating it as the practice of courtesans (tawaifs, baijis, and the nautch). This is a significant departure from the standard top-down approach in Kathak scholarship which has tended to focus on famous men and their lineages.”18 Similar to nationalist consciousness and revivalists who transformed sadir into bharatanatyam, the change from nautch to Kathak is attributed, notes Chakravorty, to “reformer/pioneer Madame Menaka” from Calcutta. The anti-nautch movement was led by Hindu social reformers, Indian nationalists, and British missionaries all fuelling anti-nautch prejudices. Here, it is significant that Chakravorty draws attention to the contribution of American dancer Ruth St. Denis “in generating interest in the nautch and its revival by Hindu elite women of Calcutta such as Madame Menaka” (Bells of Change, 20). Kathak originates in a unique and harmonious commingling of the story-telling tradition of North and East Indian kathavachaks (story-tellers), along with the Muslim court arts patronized by the Mughals and by Hindu maharajas. Cities like Lucknow and Jaipur fostered the gharana (distinctive kathak styles) tradition. However, kathak’s origins in nautch is hardly part of the official history – these dancers, regarded as sexually promiscuous are

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marginalized. The history, as with bharatanatyam, is controlled by uppercaste Brahmins and by the male-lineage of gharanas. Chakravorty traces this history in events such as the Sepoy Mutiny, suppressed by the British in 1857 that led to the downfall of many princely states and “the wealthy, art-loving gentry.” The Cantonment Act of 1864 arbitrarily relocated the dancers to bazaars outside the cities for the entertainment of the soldiers … One of the greatest patrons of Kathak, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, surrendered his crown to the British in 1856 and arrived in Calcutta with his entourage of court dancers and musicians” (Bells of Change, 28–9). Now, the art was patronized by “new patrons” among the “Bengali elite and the British” and it became lavish and “extravagant.” Like the devadasis, the “tawaifs of the royal courts (later known as nautch dancers) were women of high social status in the pre-colonial period by the fact that they owned and inherited land and property through the female line, a right not enjoyed by women in general” (33). Their status as “dancing girls” or “prostitutes” tarnished their reputation as artists and they were marginalized over the male musicians who did not suffer similar prejudice. In fact, it was “customary,” as Veena Oldenburg points out in her path-breaking research, for the nobility to send their sons to the courtesans’ salons for “instruction in etiquette, the art of conversation and polite manners, and the appreciation of Urdu literature” (quoted in Chakravorty, Bells of Change, 30). The nautch women also influenced upper-caste women who “imitated” them, “from hair fashions and clothes to jewellery” (35). The anti-nautch campaign of the 1890s targeted both the north Indian nautch artists and the South Indian devadasis deploying similar arguments asserting the dance styles’ ancientness and spiritual roots. The role of Bengali poet, playwright, and influential thinker Rabindranath Tagore was crucial in “idealizing” Indian arts. “The Orientalists and nationalists resurrected a pan-Indian classical dance from the ‘debased’ nautch tradition by basing the revival on a Sanskritized Vedic culture. The new impetus in this regard came from the discovery of the Natyashastra in 1886 by Edward Hall” (Bells of Change, 47), popularizing the exclusively Hindu origins of dance. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ruth St. Denis played an important role in making kathak respectable. Coorlawala notes that St. Denis’s initial inquiries were met by “silence” and “embarrassment” since nautch was already considered debased. Nonetheless, she met Bachwa Jan who was a famous nautch dancer at the time. The rest is history, as St. Denis and Ted Shawn created many dances with the Denishawn Company such as Nautch Dancer, and Radha (1905).19 In typical neo-colonial mentality, St. Denis’s Denishawn Company receiving rave reviews of nautch attracted Tagore’s attention in his search for “a new language for the traditional dances of India” (Bells of Change, 49). He invited St. Denis to teach at Shantiniketan (Kothari, Kathak, 1989). Madame Menaka (original name Leila Sokhey), inspired by St. Denis (much like Rukmini Devi had followed Pavlova’s advice to study Indian dance

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traditions), was responsible for transforming nautch into “a modern aesthetic expression” in kathak. As Devi purged the erotic aspects of sadir, emphasizing the spiritual, Menaka did away with the thumri, replacing it with narratives from Sanskrit dramas, miniature paintings, and adding instruments like the sarod, shehnai, and tabla. Like Devi, Menaka also introduced modern stagecraft into her productions and created new dance-dramas relying on Hindu myths. Her “selective appropriation” of nautch, and “her distancing of it from the tawaif culture and the secular court traditions imbued Kathak with ‘spirituality’ and ‘an essential’ Indian identity” (Bells of Change, 53). However, Madame Menaka’s name is not always cited for her key role in Kathak revival (like Devi is), partly because she passed away quite young and her institution, Nrityalayam, fell apart. “Kathak was firmly established at the centre” in India’s capital, Delhi, remarks Chakravorty “as a patrilineal and patriarchal practice of gharanedar gurus who never acknowledged women practitioners of the past as gurus, teachers, co-creators, or pioneers” (54). After independence from the British in 1947, Indian governmentsponsored bodies with a mandate to promote the arts, paid attention initially only to “classical” art forms. These institutions included the Sangeet (music) Natak (drama) Akademi, set up in 1953 to foster and promote the arts of music and drama (the word “dance” is subsumed under the word drama). Literary arts came under the purview of the Sahitya Natak Akademi (1954). Previous forms of patronage from princely states and wealthy patrons were replaced largely by these governmental organizations that incorporated the arts into national development plans. These Akademis have generated their share of controversies over questions such as what should be valued as Indian art, and who should receive funds to travel abroad to represent India in cultural festivals. Governmental cultural policies that set “priorities in distribution, regulation, and allocation of resources, honor, and opportunities,” notes scholar Joan Erdman, often went counter to the wishes of the actual artists.20 Erdman follows news reports in the Indian press during 1977 when dancers challenged the “arbitrary” decisions made by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which acted as “utterly blind to the needs of the dancers of Delhi.” Prominent dancers like Sonal Mansingh and Yamini Krishnamurthy demanded more transparency from the Akademi on their criteria for grant selections, their choices of dancers selected to go abroad, and the support they provided for new and experimental work. They demanded an inquiry into the use of public funds. This press conference “was a unique event in the modern history of Indian dance,” notes Erdman (“Cultural Policy,” 250). While there is a National School of Drama that enjoys autonomy from the government, a similar National School of Dance never materialized. Review committees established in 1964 and 1970 produced different recommendations. The Bhabha and Khalsa Committee Reports state that the committee “surveyed the ancient and recent history of cultural patronage in India, and discussed

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the meaning of the term ‘culture’ … [and] the cultural policies of some foreign states, including France, Japan, Great Britain, the US, the USSR and Czekoslovakia” (258). The committees also visited regional sites and explored how national institutions could improve communication. A questionnaire was circulated to some 1500 people. Some objected to the Akademi’s regular preference for older artists, and selection processes that were all too often out of sync with state and regional constraints. In general, by putting the arts in service of national identity and integration, regionalism was discounted and thus local arts suffered from lack of recognition. Policy changes since 1977 did lead to greater recognition of regional and folk arts. This differs from “re-creating traditional performances and rewriting ancient stories so that they present contemporary events and issues,” notes Erdman. Sangeet Natak Akademi needs to walk a fine line between government officials and cultural professionals and establish “patterns of interdependence that enable both groups to hear, deny, affirm, and implement their respective opinions and policies” (Erdman, “Cultural Policy,” 266). Dancers’ financial survival was difficult in the postIndependence era just as they were at an earlier times when hereditary practitioners were marginalized. Even a great talent like Balasaraswati, although she performed and taught in the Madras during the 1940s and 1950s, was soon to devote her energies to teaching outside India, mainly in the United States.21

The significant legacies of early pioneers of modernizing Indian dance: Uday Shankar, Chandralekha, and other pioneers Uday Shankar Uday Shankar is often described as among the first to bring Indian classical dance, at times combined with ballet choreography, to the West. His dance combined elements of Indian classical dance along with new ways of movement and story-telling,22 most famously for choreographies such as Labour and Machinery. Critics have dismissed Shankar as Orientalist, even modernist, and criticized him for borrowing and appropriating movements from various Indian dance styles to create his own language. While critics dismissed this as “confused,” Shankar, like Tagore, was searching for a dance language that would communicate effectively while showcasing Indianness. In a useful essay, Urmimala Sarkar Munsi challenges such characterizations, and recuperates Shankar and Tagore, while challenging Indian dance historians to offer valid space to such individuals as creative forces.23 In the 1920s, just as modern dance in the West was breaking away from the strict form and classicism of ballet into a more free body expression, and looking to the East for ideas and inspiration, artists like Uday Shankar and Ram Gopal were looking to the West for “new ideas about the techniques of

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stagecraft, lighting, and the study of choreography. It was precisely his skill with dance techniques familiar to Western audiences – in organization, form, lighting, and staging – that brought Uday Shankar his greatest successes.24 Anna Pavlova gave the same advice to Uday Shankar that she had given to Rukmini Devi, namely to explore Indian dance forms. Initially, in 1923, Pavlova asked Shankar to choreograph two new pieces, Hindu Wedding and Radha-Krishna, and Shankar toured with her company for nine months before starting an independent dance company of his own (Munsi, 86). It is noteworthy that most of the reviews of the time completely ignored Shankar’s role in these dance compositions. Erdman notes that neither St. Denis nor Pavlova “was trying to perform Indian dance. Though each tried to see dance in India, with limited success, they were creating dances related to their own movement styles, with Radha as a theme” (“Uday Shankar,” 83). Even though Pavlova appropriated much from Indian dance – costumes, jewelry, and other items sure to appeal to a Westerner’s exotic sense of India – she did not want to use Shankar “as an extra” in her ballet troupe. He accompanied Pavlova and her troupe on a US tour in 1923 and 1924, and although he learned much about organization and teamwork, Erdman notes that “he became bored.” Pavlova suggested to Shankar that he return to India, challenging him to “bring something to show us. There are such wonders in your country and you want to try our things. Never, never, never” (Khokar, 1984, 36). This, according to Khokar, explains why Shankar thereafter refused to borrow anything from Western dance styles. Shankar returned to India in 1930, touring and educating himself about the many movement vocabularies that were alive within folk traditions. This placed him in good company with other intellectuals and artists of the early twentieth century, who left their colonized homes to travel to the West, only to return home to discover their own culture. Shankar took his own company to Paris in 1931. This launched his career “as arguably the first Indian choreographer and performer with a vision and who, at the height of his glory, was even called India’s Cultural Ambassador” (Munsi, 87). His programs in the 1930s were regarded, as Erdman notes, “as genuinely India … His productions, constructed as western dance-theatre, were translations from the existing genres of Indian classical dance traditions – princely court and Hindu temple performances” (“Uday Shankar,” 65). Shankar’s presentation “in a western format” partially explains his success. He understood that Western audiences were impatient and unable to tolerate traditional Indian performances that could unfold for several hours delighting Indian audiences with repetition and open-ended stories. Western spectators preferred a definite time length for presentations, with professional production values, and costumes and set-designs accurately planned. They also recognized the status of one venue over another.25 Ironically, as Indian traditional dances were being “re-born” in the 1930s, revivalists criticized Shankar for his apparent lack of training in any particular

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style and his borrowing freely from Indian high (classical) and low (folk) traditions. All this was done, his critics charged, simply in order to sell an “oriental” image of India to the West. In his defense, Sarkar Munsi compares Shankar in the 1930s with dancers in India and the diaspora during the 1980s and afterwards (87) who were also, like Shankar trying “eclectic and creative translation designed to convey ‘Indianness’ without being unintelligible” (Erdman, “Uday Shankar,” 84). This post-1980s climate has led to a reassessment of Uday Shankar’s contribution to modernizing Indian dance. “Recognized as India’s first modern dancer” remarks Erdman “Shankar’s translations for the West become both a success in their own time and a significant reference for contemporary attempts in modern and ethnic dance production” (84). Uday Shankar established his Culture Center in 1938 in Almora, where he consolidated his technique and instituted a rigorous program where students were trained in Indian classical dance styles as well as in music, art, and improvisation. His legacy lay in his use of “rich variety” as Sarkar Munsi notes, rather than relying on a homogenous style or technique. He encouraged students to develop their own bodily movements rather than learning complete pieces in a particular style. Shankar, like some Contemporary Indian Dancers today, worked at times with a theme, and rendered it in abstract movement, selecting music that best suited the ideas being communicated. “The dance was no longer in a position to interpret or improvise according to the poetic line or the recurrent musical melody,” remarks Kapila Vatsyayan (quoted in Munsi, 2008, 88). “Another significant step was taken,” Vatsyayan continues, “the dance was no longer based on a distinctive kinetic hypothesis; there was no basic pose, which had to be repeated. Movements were chosen on their expressive quality rather than for the abstract pattern which they could evolve in a given geometric motif.” Shankar created his signature style by using available dance styles, as well as drawing from “sculptures, from mythological tales, as well as from the beauty and reality of his surroundings” (Munsi, 89). Sarkar Munsi points out that criticisms of Shankar focused on the “formlessness” of his work, and his appropriation from different Indian classical styles. Rather, Sarkar Munsi urges us to look beyond the dance form to Shankar’s philosophy, namely his attempt to free dance from the shackles of set practice, to encourage the free exploration of the body, and to explore any theme or movement vocabulary – all of which challenged the dominant hold of “South Indian orthodox brahmans on the dance scene of India,” and their strict, limited, and limiting ways of representing the body in movement in Indian dance. Ram Gopal Whereas Uday Shankar “became a Modern Dance explorer,” writes dance journalist Leela Venkataraman, “Ram Gopal stuck to the classical forms – both of them stunning performers carrying the message of Indian dance to the

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West.”26 Deliberately flamboyant in costume and jewelry, adorned with fanciful headdresses Gopal’s dance did not seek to recreate any particular form of classical dance. Instead, he used these forms, as Venkataraman notes, to communicate “an essential Indianness” to his Western audiences. He sought to do this by interspersing classical forms with his own inventions, or by integrating folk music “with an explanation” preceding each item.27 Both the interspersing of classical and modern forms as well as providing explanations are found among Contemporary Indian Dancers who also communicate Indianness via mudras (hand-gestures), or distinctive Indian fabric, or jewelry. In the 1930s, this placed Gopal’s “Hindu dance” in the formative genre of “world dance.” “Ironically,” notes Khan, “his impact was lessened by his status as a pioneer. His stature called for more active recognition than mere entries in dance history books, but neither the times nor his own character encouraged it.”28 He did not leave any students; rather, as Ashish Mohan Khokar, notes, his “art is a gift of the gods which begins and ends with” him. Khokar describes Gopal as “India’s first truly international-level classical dancer.”29 The American dancer La Meri “discovered” Gopal and in 1936 took him on tour as her dancing partner. Polish critic Tadeus Zelinski described him as the “Nijinsky of India,” while others like Cecil B. De Mille introduced him to Sol Hurk. Gopal’s commitment to classical forms appears somewhat ironic, because he made his home mostly in the West. Opportunities to run dance schools in the 1930s were rare in India.30 Feted and fawned upon, he was like an Indian god come alive,” notes Khokar. French filmmaker Lamorisse made two films – Aum Shiva and Ram – on Gopal’s life and work. Gopal presented Indian dance in prestigious venues such as Jacob’s Pillow in the United States and the Aldwych Theatre, London, as well as in Poland, France, Scotland, and Sweden. Although he was little appreciated in India, he was named a fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1990. However, most of Gopal’s accolades came from the West, most notably the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1999. Narendra Sharma One of Uday Shankar’s disciples, the late Narendra Sharma worked with Shankar in Creative Contemporary Indian Dance at the Almora Center from 1940 to 1943. He went on to build his own prestigious career, in 1972 establishing his Bhoomika Creative Arts Center in New Delhi. Sharma’s fivedecade career includes choreographing 40, both short and long, works in Contemporary Indian Dance that explore different themes, “ranging from superstition, humour, satire, and death; [to the] poetry of Tagore and Prasad; and [to] movement designs. As a teacher he has evolved his own style of training, develops his dancers as choreographers and projects their works.”31 Sharma has made significant contributions to Contemporary Indian Dance, including efforts “to make dance an integral part of education.” He received awards from Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Kala Parishad, and the Soviet Land Nehru Award.

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Meeting Narendra Sharma (February 2006) was one of the high points of my research. I was captivated by the grace and charm of an older generation, by his deeply honed artistry, and his long historical view. Sharma told me that he ran away from home at age 13 and met Uday Shankar, who recognized his enthusiasm and accepted him as the youngest among his first group of students. Sharma remarks: “Dada was not averse to tradition. We had classes in kathakali, manipuri, and bharatanatyam. But unlike others, he did not teach any complete dance to his students but made them capable of creating dances on their own. His approach, which was different from the known methods of teaching that lacked the spirit of inquiry, gave birth to the movement of modern Indian ballet.” Sharma adhered closely to his guru Uday Shankar’s teachings, most importantly that “the human body is a miracle. Explore it, and there is no end.” As Tandon remarks: “Even at 78, Narendra Sharma talks and thinks movement. When a dancer begins to discover his body, and finds that it is impossible to register its unlimited movements. Each zone has a range. The exploration of this range allows the dancer to strengthen movement which is his language for self-expression.” Under Narendra Sharma, Bhoomika has produced a number of works in its free expressive movement idiom that borrows from the classical dance, from theatre, puppetry, and mime as well as life experiences. Sharma remarks (interview with Katrak) that “in pre-Independence days, creative dance was contributing to the freedom movement. But it was not patronized later. No one understands that a dancer needs a vision from which he must think beyond tradition.” He bemoans the fact that Indian dance has “an exclusive audience” in India. On the other hand, he wants to relate dance to education, to make it “more socially relevant.” Sharma questions the over-emphasis on mythology in Indian dance, and asks why “our dancers do not reflect our social scenario.” Here, too, his inspiration is Uday Shankar who wanted to use dance as “a medium of education for the common man and for children.” To that end, Bhoomika’s School of Choreography organized a “Young Choreographers’ Festival in 1990 and 1993, and initiated a Dance Theatre for Children” (Bhoomika Brochure). Over five decades, Sharma’s choreography with Bhoomika “has evolved a distinct style that liberates the body from the rigidity of the traditional forms and gives the dancer an opportunity to explore his or her creative abilities.”32 For example, Antim Adhyay (translates as Life’s Last Chapter) depicts “a string of visual images and episodes depicting situations based on the crucial moment when man meets his end – at times he may be a victim of death. At times, he anticipates death with courage and finally comes to acceptance.” He remarks that the idea came to him “by a chance visit to a graveyard.” Sharma combines dance and theatre in his choreography of Conference, a socially relevant work that satirically depicts an academic gathering “dedicated to the girl child.”33 Pompous professors with thick glasses walk around

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loaded with files. They remain consumed with empty rituals of garlanding, cutting ribbons, and formal inauguration, ignoring the pressing questions about the plight of girls carried on placards. The press flits in and out. Sharma himself sits slumped in a chair when a figure in white enters like a ghost, face masked in white muslin, with white gloves. The figure struggles with Sharma as in a nightmare, the two break into a fight using kalari moves. At the end the cleaning person, wearing a white skullcap (perhaps playing a Muslim), discards all the conference papers and posters. Sharma discussed his combination of dance and theatre techniques: Unlike the written play, dance theatre has to create its own choreographic language and script … A play written in any part of the world can be adapted, interpreted, and performed anywhere else. The dance theatres cannot do so, since mime, music, and movement create their own distinct body language.34 Uday Shankar’s vision, noted his disciple, encouraged a unique openness to different movements combined with awareness of life around us. Creativity, he noted, is individual, although individual artists must talk together or they will be lost in their own worlds. In Shankar’s Almora centre, students learned the classical styles from the masters, but these were only a means to an end that encouraged individual students’ own unique styles of movement. Sharma bemoaned the current emphasis on speed and an over-reliance on technology. Nonetheless, he was confident that Indian traditions and cultures would survive, even amidst the global onslaught. Sangeeta Sharma, assistant choreographer to Narendra Sharma and his senior disciple continues his training tradition and choreographic practices. Chandralekha: pioneering foremother to Contemporary Indian Dancers I see dance as a visual, tactile and sensual language, structured with a specific vocabulary and idiom, with space-time, with organic bind, principles and, most importantly, related to the dynamics of energy and flow with a capacity to recharge human beings. The internal relation between the dance and the dancer and the external relation between dance and society are questions that cannot be taken lightly.35 The late Chandralekha (commonly called Chandra) transformed the vocabulary of Indian dance from within, contesting the limiting religiosity and external “dollification” of performers, asserting the connection between dance and life, relying on Indian martial arts traditions, aesthetics, and philosophy to build her body of work. Chandra’s sensibility was keenly attuned to what scholar Rustom Bharucha calls the “Indian psychophysical tradition” that serves as her “primary point of reference.” This “provided

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the ground for Chandra’s larger ecological affinities to the elements and the creative energies of the universe … where the body is the mandala of the cosmos itself.”36 A memorial booklet compiled after her death in 2007 pays tribute to her legacy.37 In its pages, the eminent Indian historian Romila Thapar remarks: Chandra … urged the audience to look at forms that whispered thoughts, ideas and perceptions very differently from what we had known before. [This] whisper … grew into the stunning realization that we were witnessing the creation of a new idiom. This not only illuminated the potential of what could be done within the conventional forms but also made us aware of hitherto unexplored innovation. In the same booklet, Kapila Vatsyayan recognizes Chandra’s “sense of movement, her sense of technique and her sense of abstraction in geometrical forms both in floor choreography as well as space choreography.” New York based dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones described Chandra as “a very very [sic] modern artist with a firm understanding of tradition in terms of yoga practice, in terms of the communal nature of this art … [and] a great service for those of us who were looking for a way to connect the various strands of our traditions.” At another homage to Chandralekha in Toronto (2008), Sadanand Menon, Chandra’s long-time companion and artistic interlocutor through all her work, remembered Chandra as an artist who used movement to concretize abstract concepts such as time or to evoke the beauty of a flower or sunrise. Chandra was open to collaboration with dancer-choreographers, musicians, visual artists, and poets. This was not as common in the 1970s as it is today for Contemporary Indian Dancers. Although trained in bharatanatyam, Chandra’s choreographies are distinctive in their use of the physical body, the central role played by the spine, and the interplay of male and female energies. Moreover, in her vision the human body “became primary,” notes Bharucha, “to her understanding of politics” (Chandralekha, 25). The body, though central, is placed in connection with life and society in a search to make whole the fragmented life of modern-day citizens. Bharucha’s obituary reflects on Chandra’s “particular route of confronting brutalization through an inner knowledge of the body” where dance is “just one possible strategy of resistance” that offers tools to social and political activists (“Remembering Chandra…”). The epiphany that gave birth to Chandra’s style of dance happened during her bharatanatyam arangetram in 1952, slated as a charity program to raise money for drought victims in Rayalseema (in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh). While dancing to the lyrics of “Mathura Nagarilo,” which portrays the abundant river Yamuna, Chandra was struck suddenly by the discrepancy between the words extolling plenitude of water and the harsh reality of a deadly drought happening elsewhere. As Guru Ellapa continued to sing

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about the river, newspaper images of cracked earth overcame the dancer. “Suddenly, I froze,” recalls Chandra. “Art and life seemed to be in conflict. The paradox was stunning. For that split second I was divided, fragmented into two people” (Chandra, “Reflections…”). This personal awakening led to a lifetime of exploration of the body in itself, and the body in society for this talented artist and she could never go back on this realization. Chandra reflected and built upon, critiqued, dismantled, and restructured from within the forms of bharatanatyam and kalari martial arts. She “historiciz(ed) the dance form itself in her first choreographed production of Devadasi (1961)” and this was as Bharucha remarks “way ahead of its time in terms of setting an example for dancers to reflect on the forms in which they dance, and not take them for granted.” She realized that she must not only reinvent bharatanatyam from the inside, but also the very “ideological base [of bharatanatyam] in terms of patriarchal and Brahmanical premises” (Bharucha, Chandralekha …). She rejected bharatanatyam’s mythological and narrative bases, with their reliance on nayikas pining for the nayakas, and moving away from the use of abhinaya. This opened her to the charge that her performances lacked rasa. However, Chandra stood firm, and “demonstrated that rasa need not be yoked to narrative alone, but it can be evoked at more abstract levels through the terror of Mahakal or the laughter of Lilavati or the austere spirituality of Prana” (Bharucha, Chandralekha …). Chandra’s deeply significant insight, namely that rasa could be evoked from non-narrative work is path-breaking; the body in movement without story-telling evokes rasa as seen in the choreography of contemporary artists like Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh (discussed in Chapter 2). Most remarkably, Chandra’s innovations all derive from within the Indian aesthetic world. She did so in spite of the fact that she recognized how India’s colonized experience puts its people unavoidably in a particular relationship with the West. She neither embraced the West nor rejected it outright. Chandra recognized market-forces, particularly the demand for exotic traditional dancers and the West’s role in “uncritically” valorizing this external beauty “from an ‘orientalist’ and patronizing perspective” (Chandra, “Reflections …”). Chandra recognized that the East in order to be contemporary would need to understand and express the East in its own terms; to explore to the full the linkages generated by valid interdisciplinary principles common to all arts and central to the creative concept of rasa; to extend the frontiers of the loaded cultural language of our soil … I had to contend with several contradictions inherent in working within “traditional” form in a contemporary context. (Chandra, “Reflections …”)

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Chandra’s goal of making tradition itself modern was a life-long process expressed in her many choreographic works, beginning with Angika (1985) and ending with Sharira (2001) – both titles translate as “body.” In fact, the titles of Chandra’s works, such as Lilavati, Prana, Yantra, Mahakal, Raga, and Sloka – all of which came from Sadanand Menon – evoke the Indian traditions of physical movement, Indian philosophy, and aesthetics. From these movement traditions, Chandra demonstrated “how Indian dance can be modern on its own terms without borrowing from the West” (Program Notes, Sharira, New Delhi, 2009). Many artists discussed in this book reflect that sentiment. Chandra theorizes via movement on the magnificent human bone structure, especially the spine. Her choreography works to release energy from the seven chakras (energy nodes) in different parts of the body, from the base of the spine to the heart and to the top of the head. As Bharucha puts it, “For Chandra, theoretical concepts became embodied practices centered in a knowledge of the spine” (quoted in Chatterjea, Butting Out, 263). “One paradigmatic example from her choreography,” Bharacha remarks, “is the famous ‘drag walk’ that opens the third section of Sri, where in a painfully slow and tortuous group movement, the dancers drag their feet, step by step, across the stage, their backs broken, their necks thrust forwards” (1995). Chatterjea notes that although this section lasts only six minutes, “in the unremitting cruelty and tension it builds up, it seems interminably long” (Butting Out, 263). The expression of fear is so uniquely portrayed that “the idiom [is] transformed through such usage in a feminist context.” The women give sharp stares over their shoulders rather than looks of cowering fear. Here, “the weight of the content and the politics,” remarks Chatterjea, “is linked with a paradigmatic shift in the form of expression … the dancing body…comes to be resignified through such choreography. In the course of different forms of brutalization and dehumanization, the women gradually retrieve their spines. This transition … remains one of the most palpable examples of empowerment in Indian feminist choreography.” For Chandra, movement is a deeply political expression. She encouraged her dancers to evolve movements from their inner life experiences and struggles rather than from external instruction. Chandra remarks: Within the body there are resources on which you can draw to get back your spine. It is like the earth, which has the secrets of reviving itself. When there is a crisis in life, and a crisis in the body – when the spine feels chill – you can become “normal,” accept “security,” submit to “norms” that are not your own. It is only through creativity that you can resist brutalization. You learn to confront. You don’t “cope.” A “fight” emerges within yourself not with the other. A fight with the other can only further brutalize you. (quoted in Bharucha, “Remembering Chandra…”)

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For Chandra, movement served the purpose of “evoking human energy and dignity in an increasingly brutal world.” As she worked with and departed from “the exclusive classicism of Bharata Natyam,” however, she faced many questions: how to explore, expand, universalize the form; how to comprehend its inherent energy content; how to see it in relation to other allied physical disciplines in India – like yoga, ancient martial arts, and allied life activity with investment in physical labour; how to interpret the purity of Bharata Natyam; its principles of balance and flexion; its body geometry of squares, circles, triangles, coils, curves; how to visualize this bodygeometry in terms of space-geometry – the inner/outer correspondence; how to slash across the dead weight of the “past” suffocating dance in the name of “tradition”; how to pare dance of its feudal and religious acculturations, sticking like unhealthy patinas to the form, as also from the increasing pressure on it of the demands of the commercial market … how to initiate and consolidate the conjunctions between our traditional forms and our contemporary concerns. (Chandra, “Reflections,” 57–8) The body itself is a “unity” exemplified in kalari, where the “interdependence of arts and sciences” unifies “dance, music, architecture, sculpture, yoga, martial arts, linguistics, [and] grammar,” according to Chandra. “This is the larger meaning of ‘tradition’ – to be integral, to be whole … It is binary categories which promote narrow beliefs and linearity, against the joys of a world-view and curvature, that we need to break” (58). Tradition, then, is “not a museum piece or fossil form” in Chandralekha’s world. Rather, it is “open and fluid in terms of our times, in interactive relation with the past, accepting as well as foregrounding the tensions and disjunctions. This is the only way to locate tradition here and now – as a prerequisite for renewal of our energies at the level of our everyday life” (Chandra, “Reflections,” 58). As Coorlawala comments: Chandralekha resists tradition exclusively from within tradition … (her) use of one historic construct of the body and of being to unseat another construct is undoubtedly subversive and effective. However, it is not uniquely a postmodern process, nor exclusively ‘Western’ nor ‘Eastern’ [but part of a] dialectical process of revisions and re-visions, in Indian cultural history … that goes on and on.38 Chandra’s efforts to promote the “upholding of indigenous knowledge systems” could make her sound like a “nativist” in one situation and an iconoclast in another. Nonetheless, she remained committed, remarks Bharucha, to “refining her own aesthetic, nurtured through the specific immediacies of

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Bharatanatyam, Kalaripayattu, and Yoga” and to “the larger holistic implications of Indian psychophysical tradition” that remained her “primary point of reference.” In Chandralekha’s Prologue to Sri, she “redefines the meaning of the concept of ‘dance’ as it is currently understood in the Indian context,” remarks Chatterjea, “to evoke an image of Shakambari, the primordial force of natural vegetation, traditionally conceptualized as the herb-nourishing goddess” (267). When the curtain opens, Chandra is on her back in a shoulder stand, her white hair flowing around her head. Chandra, as Chatterjea notes, evokes Shakambari as “a fertility figure” through research into “visual images from the prehistoric ruins of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa … The long and historical presence of the herb goddess in the indigenous popular consciousness makes for a contested history, denaturalizing the development of male superiority” (267). This icon of nature, fertility, and vegetation represents the kind of creativity that Chandra celebrates and is very different from the social reformers who evoked the ancient Mohenjadaro ruins as antecedents to the revival of bharatanatyam (discussed earlier in this chapter). Chandra herself is very clear about distinguishing such concepts of fertility from procreation: “I am against nature that must fulfill itself through propagation … If a man does not need children to fulfill himself, why should a woman? My goal is like the great prophets. I want self-realization for myself. I want to understand the meaning of being a woman.” Chatterjea elaborates that a figure like Shakambari “from early rural animist cults, outside the realm of scriptural reinforcement, remind(s) us of indigenous notions of empowerment that can serve as inspiration for contemporary women” (268). In this opening section of Sri, Chandra is by herself on stage, making her point about being fulfilled in and for herself as a woman with her creative forces within her. Chandra’s final work “Sharira was, in many ways,” remarks Bharucha, “a crystallization of her entire journey.” He notes that Chandra had traveled a long distance from the early Angika where “the juxtaposition of Bharatanatyam, Kalaripayattu, and Yoga had been kept distinct [from] the alchemy of languages [in Sharira] at once contemporary and traditional, ancient and modern, not unlike the dhrupad sung by the Gundecha brothers, accompanied the movement in startling synchrony” (Bharucha, Chandralekha). Chandra trained Tishani Doshi (a yoga practitioner, not a dancer) and Shaji John (kalari exponent), for Sharira. The piece opens with the female on stage by herself for 25 minutes. Primal female energy, known as prakriti (life-giving) or shakti (strength) is asserted as the most significant aspect of the life principle in the living world among humans, animals, and nature. “Body corporeal and body conceptual”39 Sharira “celebrates the living body in which sexuality, sensuality and spirituality co-exist” (Program Notes). The curtain opens to the woman lying flat on her belly, gradually lifting the upper body as in yoga’s cobra pose, then lifting her legs and weaving

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her arms around the legs as if hugging them. Then follows a gentle, sensual rocking back and forth as if the body is feeling desire. The woman’s gaze as in yoga focuses inward though her eyes are open. This looking within embodies desire that unfolds in the inner recesses, in areas unseen though evoked and pulsing. Her legs spread wide apart and come together. Gradually, one hand moves back to caress the foot and bring it close to the mouth – the foot evokes a lover moving towards the woman’s mouth. One dancer evokes two persons, as later after the male enters the stage and the movements radiate to encircle them in oneness, and as they merge and separate they appear as one body and then again as two. This action of the woman’s hand moving back to join the foot almost as in prayer position with two palms joined together is repeated, but not immediately as in the symmetrical right and left side in bharatanatyam jatis. Rather, the pauses in-between movements are as important, even more potent than the movements themselves. To arrest the movement and keep the spectator spellbound is no small achievement. One of Sharira’s distinctive achievements is slow-paced movement. Such minimalist and slowly unfolding movement, even a meditative quality, is iconic of Contemporary Indian Dance. Tishani noted during “Process Revealed” about Sharira that Chandra worked with her on the movements for over six months until one day she said, ”you have finally understood slowness”40 On stage, Tishani executed economy of movement accompanied by an intensity that never flagged for the full 64 minutes. The live music by the Gundecha brothers singing soulfully in the dhrupad style (North Indian) accompanying, counterpointing, splaying through, never overpowering the physical moves of the dancer/s is one of those brilliant choices of music that perhaps only a genius like Chandra could make. One can hardly imagine a better soundscape for this piece than the dhrupad style of low guttural sounds, long, languorous alaps (non-verbal musical play of syllables), and the high-pitches hit as in ecstatic Sufi-style sounds. Although Chandra rejected all institutionalized religions, her spirit recognized the depth and beauty of this music even if it speaks of God. In the piece, the music leads her exploration of the integrally linked feelings of the sensual, sexual, and spiritual. As the Program Notes explain, the body is “a path towards a return to the vast inner spaces of hidden resources. Areas of pulsating points and contained forces.” Even when the music builds to an intense, emotionally charged crescendo, the woman remains focused within, as if involved in her own energy, not responding in any noticeable way to the music that surrounds her and the viewers in the darkened auditorium. It is as if the timeless and spaceless realm of desire is involved profoundly with itself, seeking its ultimate fulfillment for the female, within and by herself. Until now, the music proceeds in the wordless sounds of the alap starting with the soulful bhairavi raga to the startling enunciation of two words: “jagat (world) janani (light/epiphany)”

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Figure 5 Padmini Chettur in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson)

as the woman comes into the high cobra pose that opened the piece. Then, as her arms move out, the shape of triangles with the raised legs evoke the inner sexual core and the sensual erogenous zones as the hands then take the shikharam mudra (usually depicting the male/lingam), and as the hands move towards the face, the index and third fingers of both hands frame the eyes, then move down as the face begins to look more and more distorted as in an orgasmic moment and the music intones the words “jwala (flame) mukhi (face).” A transcendent, yet humanly ecstatic moment is evoked as in religious union with a higher power or sexual union of male and female energies, fluids and textures. Indeed, a moment of intense rasa shared by performer and audience. Chandra’s vision encompasses this kind of union with the female alone on stage and her shakti inhabiting center stage for half the piece; it is as if the entire universe is within the yoni (womb) where life is created. At Sharira’s mid-point, the male enters dramatically with a strong kalari kick and a clap of the hands. He is deferential as if bowing to the female power. As he assumes a shirsasana pose (head-stand) and then drops his feet, his rounded hips and legs appear like a lingam (phallus, depicted in Shiva worship) now in front of the woman. The movements create a hypnotic effect as the intimacy mounts between two bodies in an evocative erogenous zone beyond time and space.

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Figure 6 Padmini Chettur and Shaji in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson)

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As the female climbs on top of the male and then moves into a rounded shape again, it appears as though there are two lingams on stage – as though Chandra asserts the female creative force to be as powerful, even more so than the male’s. As four legs and four thighs move and circle each other’s bodies without touching, the deep sensuality builds almost as if the male’s foot enters the woman. The two bodies move separately yet they appear as one. Both have equal power. The male holds his power externally (as in the lingam) and the female’s power is internal (yoni). There is stillness within the movement. Both rise as in yoga’s bridge pose, then both stand up together, two bodies becoming one and making intense eye contact. Although the gaze is external, it is directed inward within each performer. The music counterpoints the emotions of arousal and readiness as the initial pose of the woman in yoga’s cobra pose lets the male face come up in-between her legs. The woman is in front of the man for most of the time. Then, in a dramatic move, the male jumps over her body and lands in front of her. Our hearts are in our mouths as he lands perfectly in front, though almost touching her. Now the woman climbs on top of him and he carries her on his back. The gentle touching and caressing unfolds and the two almost kiss. Kissing on the lips per se is not the most sensuous depiction of lovemaking in Indian art, sculpture, and erotic iconography. It is more erotic to build the emotions via other erogenous areas of the human body, the hands and feet, breasts, even the torso. The two sway as if giving pleasure to each other, equal partners in this physicality and as if enabling each to come to orgasm together and/or separately. The two bodies seem to unite so closely as to appear as one. The final pose is a magnificent achievement – the male carries the female vertically with her face by his calves, as her hands grip his ankles and her legs caress him around his neck. The male and female have become one, each nourishing the other, balancing the energies within each body as if the male accesses his femaleness and the female touches her maleness while each remain the male and female bodies that they are. In the documentary, “Chandralekha’s Explorations in Dance” by Ein Lall, Chandra remarks that she responded to life and art “as a woman” who “felt as a woman, resisted as a woman” and was filled often with “indignation (not anger) against everything that one cannot accept.” She spoke of “internalizing the anger that must then be expressed in your spine, in your eyes. Life is impossible without indignation.” Her life-long attempt was to bring art and life together, to translate the beauty onto the stage via abstracting some essence of that beauty while also retaining its concreteness. Chandra’s artistic genius could bring the abstract and concrete together and indeed to diffuse, even reject the dichotomy between the material world and the creation of abstractions from it. Another of Chandra’s creative tour de force achievements lies in moving beyond physical bodies and gender notions into what Chatterjea describes

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as “their symbolic, often epic, and discursive dimensions, and to invoke larger fields of energy” (227). Chandra realized such philosophic concepts in her dance choreography that finds echoes in the work of contemporary artists such as Hari Krishnan in Owning Shadows (Chapter 4) and Akram Khan (Chapter 6). Khan, in my interview with him, spoke of striving to “move beyond form,” as seen in a dancer like Baryshnikov. Playing with energies, moving “beyond form” are brought to life in Chandra’s Yantra (1994) inspired by the ninth-century Sanskrit poem, Soundarya Lahari. Subtitled, “dance diagrams,” Yantra plays with the geometric shape of triangles signifying female energy, along with squares and circles that together celebrate the erotic energies of male and female. In discussing her creative process, Chandra notes: “images come to me from deep cultural memory.” She accesses the “abstract forms” from poses such as yoga’s shirsashana, even abstractions of the body. At times, she might begin with a narrative that would be erased gradually, even the idea would vanish and what remained were the dancers’ bodies. Akram Khan noted a similar trajectory in his choreographic process – he may begin with a story that then vanishes and is not visible literally in the dance. In this process, Chandra relied on visual art, as do other contemporary artists, including the synergy of a sculpture on stage with live bodies as in Khan’s zero degrees. As the abstractions of desire are concretized via male and female bodies in Sharira, Chandra concretizes the notion of time in “the icon of the moving body” in Mahakal. She introduces the work as being “about time, and about a confluence of all time. In our culture, time is seen as a primordial serpent: adi (beginning) shesha (end). The beginning and the end are seen together like a serpent with its tail in its mouth … Time is not just clocks, calendars, and the countdown to death, the fear of death. For us, time is continuity, color, balance, directions, feeling, musical time of octaves, dance time, body time, kala pramana, kala sarpa.”41 In Lilavati – inspired by Bhaskaracharya’s eleventh-century work posing algebraic and geometrical problems via poetic and natural images to his daughter Lilavati – Chandra renders mathematical abstractions via concrete images from nature. Chandra plays symbolically with the precision of mathematics “in relation to fantasy and imagination in the life and mind of a little girl,” she notes (in her introduction to the DVD). “Learning is transformed into creative and lively activity, [evoking an] interlink between poetics and hard numbers. No wonder, then, that Lilavati became India’s first female mathematician. The questions bring in flora, fauna, the price of gold, diamonds, emeralds, pearls of the time. The constant of pure numbers within a mutual perception of the cosmos at play.” The choreography reflects analogies between mathematical problems and the natural world – lotus, swans, and water birds. Bumblebees are represented in the dark with only the hands lit to represent the bees; the lit hands

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seem to move without bodies and as the hands move rapidly, the engaging effect of a huge swarm of bees is created. Chandra’s significant innovations have become iconic as they are echoed in the work of contemporary Indian dancers: abstract concepts rendered in dance by Aditi Mangaldas’s choreography in Timeless, Lata Pada’s shunya (zero/silence), Anita Ratnam’s 7 graces; nrtta with rasa in Astad Deboo’s ContraPosition, in Akram Khan’s zero degrees; inventive use of solkettu not for nrtta but for abhinaya in Hari Krishnan’s Owning Shadows; choreographic exploration of the human body in Natasha Bakht’s White Space. Chandra’s bold representations of the sexual, sensual, and spiritual co-existing resonate among the Post Natyam Collective (Chapter 5). Evoking the chakras in order to release human energy features prominently in Anita Ratnam’s contemporary dance (Chapter 4). Chandra’s many inventive uses of bharatanatyam’s nrtta in group choreography have been imitated by choreographers in India and the world over – one of her most widely imitated poses is that of a vertical row of dancers with their arms stretched out in a V at different heights to evoke the many-armed Indian goddesses. Sadananad Menon commented that Chandra was not bothered about creating something “contemporary.” Her work involved “a series of explorations (where) self-reflexivity and self-criticism” were important. Her deep involvement with Indian knowledge systems led her to go to the sources and work with them, “finding creative entry points.” Her work was bold because she was a risk-taker. Taking risks without worrying about the outcome was her method, noted Sadanand. This may be one of the true meanings of dancing on the edge. She had no prior dancers or mentors, but forged her own creative path. The most important quality, that of honesty, pervaded her work. One successful way of passing down Chandra’s legacy was tried in Toronto when two dancers trained by Chandra – Geetha Sridhar and Shaji John taught a segment entitled Shakti, of Chandra’s Sri to Indian-Canadian students of Menaka Thakkar’s Dance Company. They were trained for three months (a very short time in the context of how Chandra worked with her own dancers) and produced a work that was engaging, energetic, and vibrant, retaining the key components of Chandra’s work. Shakti opened with a group of nine, then eight women moving forward then backward with bent backs in a painfully slow dragging motion. Even if they move as if their backs are broken, Chandra had remarked, “there can be no faking about the extremities of the spine. If you want to say that your backs are broken, it is the vigor of the spine that has to convey the message.” Moving forward or back, the backs are bent evoking images of females stooped in labor. The intensity of the movement is accomplished by deep concentration and a kind of inward gaze even as the dancers move and look forward in a stare, with expressionless faces. Then the gaze, one dancer at a time, is turned sharply to the audience and one sees a strong unblinking stare – an

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iconic Chandra signature that is echoed in other artists (in Hari Krishnan’s Bollywood Hopscotch, Chapter 4). Suddenly, one woman breaks out of the group and shows deep fear, then turns and falls flat on the ground. Others stop their motion. Another woman moves into a forward fold as in yoga, and falls. Others follow – going up on their toes, then into a forward fold, into a drop to the floor. The faces are expressionless except for the very direct and intense gaze. They appear to be looking at each other, but also looking past each other. In an important moment, the primary dancer in this group, Geetha Sridhar, straightens up and finds her spine. Even as the knees are bent, the spine is erect. Others follow. Now a marching, stamping rhythm begins. As two women seem to remain motionless, others pat them on the back as if communicating energy and encouragement and they start moving. Future research on Chandra’s choreography, suggests Bharucha, could usefully “complicate the interstices of ‘femininity,’ ‘sensuality,’ ‘sexuality,’ ‘the female principle,’ ‘fantasy,’ the ‘erotic,’ and the ‘spiritual’ rather than succumb to the fluidity of their continuum. There are more contradictions at work in this plethora of terms than meets the eye … Perhaps, in the final analysis of this incomplete inventory, Chandra has left us with enigmas located at infinitesimal levels – in the inner energies and recesses of the body; in the slow process of movement rather than its quick, bravura renditions … and ultimately, in the mandala of the body that holds the cosmos … In all these seemingly ‘small’ interventions, Chandra has broken enormous ground” (Bharucha, “Remembering Chandra”) Like another great artist, T. Balasaraswati, Chandralekha was never interested in institutionalizing her dance style. Hence, with “no dance company, no systematized pedagogy, [and] no computerized archive” Chandra’s legacy is significantly and palpably present in the creative choreography of Contemporary Indian dancers. Bharucha seeks the “elusive and intangible ways by which Chandra’s vision has been registered … [such] internalizations continue to catalyze other creative and political processes in the here and now” (“Remembering Chandra…”). Coda I met Chandralekha at her Chennai home once, about a year before she passed away. She fretted that her body “was not obeying” her. She had fractured her wrist and was in pain. Still, she remained firm in her conviction that she “should feel her pain rather than kill it with medicines.” She spoke with strength, in spite of her frailty. She mentioned quite matter of factly that her collected work – from her earliest Angika to her final one, Sharira – had not changed over time so much as it had evolved and deepened. She reiterated that the three aspects within the body – sexuality, sensuality, and spirituality – all deserved acknowledgement. Modern-day dancers, she said, are “afraid” of concepts of the “body” and “sexuality.” She preferred to speak

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of body and movement to describe her work and not use the word “dance.” She was intrigued by my first name, Ketu, since it is the name of one of the nine planets, Navagrahas, and noted that she would locate a kriti (song) by Dikshitar about “Ketu.”42 Alas, that was not to be. Still I am grateful for the opportunity to have met someone whose contributions are monumental for Contemporary Indian Dancers, and whose unique genius gave new bodily meanings to abstract concepts of time and space, sensuality, sexuality, and spirituality.

2 Abstract Dance with Rasa: Pioneers Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh

What was impressive was to see how movement [in Astad Deboo’s choreography] went beyond the mechanistic level, investing it with mood and emotion. Leela Venkataraman1 The body also has a psychology of movement that is equivalent in some sense to emotion. That is a kind of rasa; the rasa of movement. The way one does a movement has psychology, emotion, and life that need to come out. It is more than just opening your hand (in a particular movement). How one communicates involves rasa. In Freudian-based psychology, emotion is visible since it is a kind of psychology on the outside. In dance, it is invisible. [However], there is no non-emotional body even if the work is abstract. Shobana Jeyasingh2 Similar to Chandralekha’s creative choreography that uses the body and abstract movement along with rasa, both Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh are pioneers in following this style in their nearly four-decade long careers. Today, Deboo’s name is synonymous with Contemporary Indian Dance, “a dance theatre style of his own which successfully assimilates Indian and Western techniques.”3 However, for a long time after the start of his career in 1960, Astad worked without recognition, except for the hostility of Indian gurus who thought his work looked “Western” and Westerners who found his work “not Indian enough.” Indeed, his persistent faith in his art through these years stands as a testament to his personal courage. It was not until 1995 that his fortunes turned, when the Sangeet Natak Akademi bestowed their Award for Creative Dance upon him and thereby recognized him as “a pioneer of modern dance in India.” In 2007, the government of India honored him with the country’s prestigious Padma Shri (a high honor for artists) that acknowledged him as a pioneer of Contemporary Indian 56

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Dance. This award marked “a milestone,” Astad remarks with characteristic humility, not because of the prestige so much as the number of artists that now gravitate toward him. Whatever the reason, the public now receives his dance with enthusiasm. His range of solo, group, and collaborative work is described as “phenomenal – from deeply introspective solo expression to large scale choreographed pieces” (narthaki.com, 2001). One trait unifies this diverse range of expression into a single body: above all, says Astad, “my work requires you to feel” (narthaki.com, 2001). In other words, Astad’s work evokes rasa, a deep emotional engagement between himself as artist and his audience in India and across the world, This, in my view, is the characteristic that underlies all different expressions of his unique style – whether he works in abstract or narrative form, with martial artists or with puppeteers. During the long years before he received the recognition of awards, Astad took comfort in Rabindranath Tagore’s words from Ekla Chalo Re, namely “If they answer not to the call, walk alone … Open thy mind and speak out alone.”4 To this, the choreographer adds, “walk tall.” Astad never had a mentor, he recalls, but nonetheless persevered alone, all the while sharing his work with a network of artists, Indians and others, with whom he has cultivated relationships through many years of individual initiative. Awards do not always recognize, he notes, “the work that goes on behind the scenes and there is no sense that one has simply arrived at one’s pinnacle.” Astad’s journey has taken his dance to “60 countries, including the Great Wall of China,” remarks Patel, including performances “for the royal families of Japan and Thailand and being commissioned by Pierre Cardin to choreograph a work on the prima ballerina Maia Plisetskaia of the Bolshoi Ballet.” Astad describes his dance language as “a confluence of cultures, though still very primarily rooted within our Indian classical dance techniques, primarily Kathak and Kathakali.” He studied dance in the United States, also spent time time observing Kabuki in Japan, Javanese and Balinese in Indonesia. From all these, he “evolved a body … a vocabulary of movement. Looking back at the three decades, the work was always so energized; frenetic movements have now become much more minimal, calm, internalized, but still at the same time very challenging. I still continue to learn … this is the tenth year I have been working with the Manipuri thang-ta martial arts dancers … So with each collaboration, with each performing artist whom I have worked with, I continue to grow” (Interview with Katrak, August 2008). Astad started out in the 1960s, traveling extensively around the world on his own initiative, before artists traveled as commonly as they do today. He began “comb(ing) through world cultures for material and mated them with indigenous traditions,” notes Alan Kriesworth of The Washington Post, looking “to create a unique impact on the senses.” In the 1960s, Indians embraced all kinds of innovations in theatre, visual arts, music, and literature – all art forms except classical dance, mainly because of its connection to the sacred. Timing also affected the early lukewarm reception of

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Astad’s work in the 1970s and 1980s versus the success springing from the hospitable climate of the 1990s for British-South Asian Akram Khan, born in Britain to Bangladeshi parents. In tracing a trajectory of dancers over time, Astad stands out as the elder statesman in innovation, followed by Jeyasingh who created her dance company in 1988, which then paved the way for the younger Khan’s meteoric rise to international fame. Like Astad, Khan rooted his signature style in kathak, and then incorporated a wide range of contemporary dance and other disciplinary vocabularies in sculpture, film, and acting. Innovations in movement and other genres that Astad attempted over 40 years ago are now regularly hailed internationally in Akram Khan’s work. A “lot of doors were slammed in my face when I was starting out,” he recalls poignantly. “People like Akram, they were there at the right time” (Interview with Katrak, 2008). This may be an accident of fate, timing, and luck; and yet it makes Astad’s early creative pursuits and struggles without a mentor that much more significant and worthy of recognition today. Given his long career, Astad has witnessed many changes in attitudes among artists and audiences, from the 1970s, when imitating the West and embracing modern dance were all the rage, to the 1990s and beyond when artists found more secure footing in doing contemporary innovations that drew upon traditional dances. “In the past,” remarks Astad, “we were always looking to the West when we were trying to create and step out of our own traditional vocabulary. But now we have realized the richness in our own traditions. One of the reasons for my being invited [to Indonesia] was to show them how I have taken from my own classical traditions, and imbibed them into my vocabulary … to help create an awareness of how they could use their traditional techniques and create a new vocabulary.”5 Across the globe in London, Shobana Jeyasingh’s abstract dance has made pioneering contributions to innovative choreography in Contemporary Indian Dance. Trained initially in bharatanatyam, Jeyasingh created a signature style that she describes as “mak(ing) movement out of lots of disparate elements … That’s what I have been doing with dance vocabulary.”6 She cites the example of her recent work Faultline, which brings together “a strange, hybrid language – gangsta rap, texting, Hindi” (SJDC site). In post-1980s Britain, dance choreographers belong increasingly to the designation of “South Asian” rather than “Indian.” Although this is rooted in the history of colonialism and migration from the South Asian subcontinent (that includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh), such inclusiveness suits British multicultural funding policies. However, the broad designation problematically erases significant differences of regional, linguistic, and artistic heritages in South Asia. Avanthi Meduri usefully analyzes the history of the “name question,” saying: This re-labelling [as South Asian rather than Indian] occurred in the 1980s emergent stage of globalization. Arts managers, academics, venue

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managers, and funding agencies, including the British Arts Council, were all implicated in the momentous renaming … The 1980s re-labelling was consequential because Indian dance forms were known thereafter by two official names, one local (Indian) and the other (global) South Asian.7 However, this policy did not erase the “Indian” designation. In fact, both terms operate as a “double prefix … used interchangeably,” to quote Meduri. The original use of “South Asian” indicated a geopolitical designation; in Britain, it was also “functional as a funding label to provide new direction and research in the performing arts of South Asia” (Meduri, “Labels,” 224). Observers labeled dancers differently, placing Deboo within the Indian rubric and Jeyasingh in the larger South Asian one. These diverse identity affiliations also impact these artists’ collaborators – musicians, puppeteers, visual designers, as well as dancers – evoking complex issues of interculturality that work across boundaries of nation, language, religion, and gender. Meduri cites Jeyasingh’s embrace of cosmopolitan identity as an example. Born in India, raised in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, then resettled in Britain in the late 1970s, she declares her “heritage is a mix of David Bowie, Purcell, Shelley, and Anna Pavlova,” something mixed as “subtly as a samosa has mixed itself into the English cuisine in the last ten years or so: impossible to separate … And in dance terms, Rukmini Devi and Merce Cunnigham are also part of my heritage.”8 In addition to the intercultural, contemporary performing artists collaborate with multidisciplinary artists in visual art, theatre, sculpture, and poetry. Intersections of multidisciplines, cultural theory, performance studies, and dance studies provide, in my view, a useful lens through which to analyze Astad’s and Jeyasingh’s works (and other artists discussed in this book). Andre Lepecki’s edited volume of essays “explore(s) the threshold of the fields of dance studies, critical theory, and performance studies.”9 “This transdisciplinary approach to the cultural materiality of dances,” notes Lepecki, “delineates epistemologies that consider and articulate how the presence of the body leaves its mark on critical theories and performance practices.” Lepecki’s focus on “presence” and the “body,” along with “the phenomenological intertwining of presence and body that dance brings about as it moves (even in its most microscopic gestures), forces the recasting of our understanding of performativity, and brings about the current turn in dance studies toward the fields of performance studies and of critical theory.”

Astad Deboo: an “Indian contemporary” dance style Astad’s dynamic artistry in Contemporary Indian Dance, intercultural and global, has fashioned a new dance idiom inspired as much by classical and folk Indian dance styles and martial arts traditions as by pan-Asian and Western dance vocabularies. Astad’s comment that the India contemporary dance style

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“has to evolve and be Indian Contemporary” (epigraph in the Preface) is a guiding principle to analyze his work and that of others in this book. The Indian contemporary dance style includes the content and form of the “now (as indicated by ‘contemporary’),” he elaborates, “as well as the wealth of Indian movement traditions – classical, folk, martial, theatrical.” Contemporary Dance in the West involves the study of movement vocabularies – contact improvisation, release technique, modern, postmodern dance – often for academic degrees. In India, classical dance serves as the base for most performers of the Contemporary. This may be positive (as in drawing from a rich heritage) or negative (when judged against classical dance norms). Astad trained initially in kathak, and later in kathakali, the classical dance theatre form of Kerala in Southern India. Then, in the mid-1960s, Astad watched a performance by Murray Louis in Bombay, which deeply affected him due to its “attention to physicality … and a theory called ‘decentralization.”10 The latter concept expanded the focus of the audience’s attention beyond the dancers and their costumes to “multimedia such as experimental sound and projected light.” Astad recognized that a choreographer can play with the audience’s attention from one or two dancers to the overall visual effect created by movement, lighting, and sound. Astad’s creative choreography was not appreciated within India until the 1990s when audiences began to respond positively, partly in response to the influences of globalization and their exposure to the internet. Astad was ahead of his time in his openness to entering into creative collaborations with multidisciplinary performing artists, like his work with the Indian puppet-master Dadi Pudumjee where Astad’s movements were described as “poetry in movement.” Astad’s signature style combines abstract movement with rasa: “I do work with the rasas, though the work sometimes is abstract. The work has a lot of feeling to it,” he remarks. “I may extend the hand, but when I extend the hand [it comes across differently] whether I’m doing the bhakti [devotional] or sringara [love] rasa, which is in my mind for that particular choreography.”11 As Marcellus Baptista remarks: “What you saw [in Astad’s dance] was a combination of extreme physical control and stunning visual impact, merging the exuberance of narrative dance with the cerebral intensity of contemporary abstraction.”12 Astad’s abstract dance with rasa is unlike artists who aim to focus audiences only on their abstract movement by projecting an expressionless face. In combining abstraction with feeling, Astad is inspired by Indian dance aesthetic where even abstract movement conveys feeling, consciously or not. This is evident in the alarippu, the opening piece in a traditional bharatanatyam recital, or when Chandralekha’s choreography evokes rasa via triangular shapes that the human body assumes, and connecting them to primal human energies. Astad’s work contains deep feeling that he inspires in the audience via nrtta and abhinaya. Most Contemporary Indian Dancers rely on nrtta, pure

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movement without narrative, that they can universalize more easily than abhinaya. Astad combines and transforms both via his distinctive style, a composite of Indian, Asian, and Western movement vocabularies. Astad’s abstract choreography with rasa includes “a journey with abstract geometric forms and spare structures,” observes Ramu Ramanathan in an excellent interview and article about Astad’s career in India Perspectives.13 Ramanthan notes that Astad’s choreography for both Zontas, about an astronaut going into space, and Thanatomorphia “stunned with their fusion of strict form and deep emotion. Simplicity masks complexity … Astad tries to be quiet, introspective, inward looking, and meditative” (India Perspectives, 64). Solo works like Interpreting Tagore (1995), a dance inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem to the Mother Goddess, combines abstract movement with rasa (see photo on cover). He maintains an expressive face as his arms flow like waves, reminiscent of a Balinese dancer as he fluidly moves between Indian dance mudras gently executed at times on one foot. In the final segment, “Every Fragment of Dust is Awakened,” Astad circles non-stop for a magical two-and-a-half minutes like a sufi whirling dervish elevating his audience to spiritual heights. Astad’s skilled execution of familiar kathak chakars creates a distinctive way in which he covers space and appears to flow in undulating motion. A lilting piano tune is matched by circling hands accompanied by an incredibly low back bend that appears to defy gravity as his hands alternate between mudras and modern dance positions. Astad’s collaborative work with manipuri thang-ta (sword and spear) martial artists in Celebration has been called a tour de force that links abstract movement uniquely to the meditative and introspective. Reviewer Malcom Tay rhetorically asks, “What is there to celebrate?” He responds: “That modern dance and Northeast Indian martial arts have been married onstage in this give-and-take collaboration … Clearly, years of performing and diverse training have made his body supple and deeply articulate.”14 As he often does in opening a work, Astad appears to make an offering with his hands outstretched. In one interaction between Astad and his drummer, the former persuades the latter to join in the dance as Astad stamps his feet, drawing the drummer into an accelerating rhythm. “One has keenly followed Astad’s performances and his attempt to create a genuinely new language in codified India,” remarks Ramu Ramanathan (India Perspectives, 61). This much is evident in Revivals (2001), a set of four sketches described as “immaculate. [Astad] was quiet, introspective, inward-looking. There was nothing flashy or show-offy, just plain meditative. And when an artist is able to share that quality with the audience, it is dreamlike. The use of the most eclectic music along with the lights and props, consisting of myriad geometrical models, was precise and spot-on” (India Perspectives, 62–3). In Circle of Feelings (2000), “the boundaries of expression are pushed further,” notes Astad. “Coming from a culture that lays great emphasis on emotional

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expression in dance, it seemed both natural and challenging to explore the realm of emotions” (India Perspectives, 65). Circle of Feelings explores a panorama of sentiments that began and ended on a slow, meditative note … the superb lighting that enhanced the appeal of the austere bodylines and the motionless stances, all the while crafting vivid images of sheer poetry … discipline and control are the hallmarks of Deboo’s exclusive vocabulary, as visible in the movement of every finger, in every stance, and in every twirl. He continually challenges his sense of balance, occasionally on unforgiving levels, which then takes his presentation beyond mere performance, the visual artistry here telling its own tale … The final effect is thus an unusual confluence of music and dance, a passionate encounter from deep within.15 Such technical mastery is coupled with what Priya Pathiyan observes as Astad’s “biggest strength as a performer,” namely his “perseverance.”16 One example comes from his desire to work with the manipuri thang-ta martial artists since the 1980s, though only in 1997 did he get an opportunity when Onida Television “wanted something different,” and they commissioned Astad to choreograph a work. He seized the chance to go to Imphal (in Manipur, India’s neglected northeast region) to meet Guru Devabhrata Singh of the thang-ta group, and “asked for his permission” to work with them. Milestones in a dancer’s life Astad started dancing at the age of six in Jamshedpur, India and studied kathak with Guru Prahlad Das from age eight to 16. He belongs to a minority community of Zoroastrians originally from Persia and assimilated in India, exemplifying a kind of hybridity that is also distinctive in Astad’s style. During the British colonial era, Zoroastrians imbibed English language education and Western arts. Astad stands apart as an exceptional Zoroastrian who took to Indian dance, although he “was unaware of the great dance traditions in this country. Like most precocious children I was interested in moving twinkle toes. In dazzling my audience of one or two” (Ramanathan, India Perspectives, 59). Astad moved to Bombay to earn a college education, but he grew bored studying economics. After seeing Louis Murray’s performance, he notes, “I knew what I wanted to do” (India Perspectives, 60). With this strong sense of recognition about his career path, the young Astad set out on his artistic journey. He completed his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Bombay and left home in 1969, setting out “on a cargo ship which was carrying among other things, goats,” he told Srimoyee Mitra. She continues the story: “As a bright-eyed 21-year-old, Astad Deboo’s maiden voyage out of India was full of anticipations as the ship sailed to Khoramshayer, a tiny port town in Iran. From there, he hitch-hiked through Turkey, Greece, and Austria [among other places] for two months before reaching his final destination, London.”

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Through sheer dedication Astad nurtured “the seed of dance” that was planted in his mind and body. His “long journey in search of a unique idiom” continues Mitra, “took him to “South America, Japan, Indonesia, Europe, China, the USA and Australia.” In the United Kingdom, he attended the London School of Contemporary Dance where he learned Martha Graham’s modern dance technique. In New York, he studied Jose Limon’s technique and trained with Alison Chase of the Pilobolus Dance Company. Ten years later, in 1979, the young dancer returned to India and began to train in kathakali under Guru E. K. Pannicker. Astad’s drive to expand knowledge and improve technique continues; even today, past the age of 60, Astad remains a vibrant dancer “constantly attempting to grow” in his dance “his driving passion.” Astad’s performance venues have been as varied as his dance repertoire. He has danced at major international dance festivals, and even performed with popular artists like Pink Floyd. He gives lectures and workshops across the world as at the China Academy of Arts in Beijing. I recall a workshop that Astad led in 2005 at Kalakshetra in Chennai with advanced bharatanatyam students and their teachers. Astad’s interaction with dancers who had never experienced moving their bodies in any style apart from bharatanatyam was rewarding. His distinctive use of the floor as in modern dance, with use of dancers working together, sometimes mirroring, often using physical touch, was met with embarrassment and giggling. Astad had them use cane chairs as props on which they balanced and moved their bodies in a variety of ways. In the end, the workshop proved to be an eye-opening experience for these Kalakshetra students who realized that freedom from codified dance movements does not mean freedom from discipline. Astad is a demanding artist, whether as workshop leader or choreographer, who practices what he demands – deep riyaaz or total dedication – from any group that he leads. Astad approaches his collaboration with artists with the same intensity. Projects with performing artists, whether puppeteers, martial artists, actors or dancers, “always starts with a series of workshops that gives [him] an opportunity to assess the artists and for them to get used to the way I work.”17 Dancing with the deaf in a world of silence Among Astad’s prodigious talents, and indeed, a testament to his humanity, stand his deeply affecting movement creations with deaf communities. How does a dancer-choreographer teach the deaf to dance, to reach professional levels as Astad has done, and to help them to achieve self-confidence and life skills as they dance? In “Choreographer’s Note” for ContraPosition (Brochure, 2004), a piece he created with eight dancers trained in bharatanatyam at Chennai’s Clarke School for the Deaf, Astad looks back on the origins of his work with the deaf that began in 1988: What started as a one-off workshop with the Action Players of Kolkata grew into a full-length production, performance tours within India, and

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abroad, and many more collaborations with the deaf community in other parts of India and in other countries. When I look back on this journey, I can see the terrain we have traversed. My understanding of deaf performers has grown, my own skills as a choreographer have evolved. But more exhilarating has been the discovery of the deep pool of talent that exists within the deaf community. Astad brings his own high artistic standards to deaf groups and challenges them to excel. This has brought Astad recognition and invitations to work with institutions such as Washington DC’s Gallaudet University; with Mexico’s “Sena Y Verbo,” the Theatre of the Deaf; and with Hong Kong’s The Theatre of Silence. Astad’s tireless work for the deaf is evident in his personal efforts to procure sponsorships and travel funding for the deaf artists to perform within and outside India. Recently, for example, he persuaded mobile phone companies to provide cell phones to deaf students whose families could not afford them. Astad “explains that sending an sms is one of the easiest ways students can stay in touch with their families” (Parsiana magazine), August 2007, 19). Over the years Astad has maintained contact with many of the deaf dancers and actors. These students respect him deeply, so much so that they “prostrate themselves and ask his blessing,” he remarks. “The West is astounded to see the kind of reverence” that is part of Indian tradition where the student expresses his/her devotion to the guru. I have witnessed Astad’s contemporary version of the guru-shishya parampara, when he shares his art with the total immersion and dedication wherein students learn not only the techniques, but gain life lessons from the teacher’s experience. Astad and Kolkata’s Action Players were chosen for the 2000 Deaf Way II Festival held in Washington DC. “Astad cherished [this opportunity]. To start with, more than 8,000 hearing impaired would attend the festival” (Ramanujan India Perspectives, 64). Astad recognizes the “arduous journey” that the Action Players undertook, especially so for the actors, and their ability to approach their task with “a deep sense of commitment and respect.” He continues: Among other things what we’ve attempted along with the purposeful usage of music is to motivate certain feelings of serenity, gay abandon, anger, fear, and so on. The inevitable ups and downs followed, but over time their faith in themselves has grown, and so have their skills as dancers. A sense of continuity already pervades the group’s existence. Older and more experienced members reach out to newcomers to initiate them into a way of looking at dance that is unique, and perhaps the beginning of a tradition. (India Perspectives, 64) Dancing Dolphins, a work Astad choreographed with the Action Players “explored basic concepts such as space, the possibilities of the body, and

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physical synchronization.” Eventually, a “breakthrough was achieved during the Young Scholar’s Program in Washington [DC], when (they) spent an extended period together, working closely and intensively.” Actors “began to internalize dance and in their exploration of abstract movement and rhythm; they communicated with each other as dancers” reaching the goal Astad had set for them (India Perspectives, 65). Astad has associated with Gallaudet College in Washington DC for over 12 years. He was Guest Choreographer and Artist-in-Residence for the Performing Arts Department of Galludet’s model secondary school at Intermediate and High School levels. This association unfolded “in four phases,” he recalls (interview with Katrak, August 2008). Phase one began in India, with workshops and theatre, and then took the actors/dancers to the Smithsonian Festival of India in Washington DC. Phase two brought American students to India in order to introduce them to the country and its cultural traditions. One of the Action Players, in a token exchange, spent time in Washington DC as well. During phase three, 20 Action Players traveled to Washington DC. Phase four aims to conduct a similar program in other parts of the world. Astad took one of the most talented deaf dancers from Chennai, R. Karthika to Washington, DC in 2002 for the Deaf Way II celebration. Astad’s choreography in ContraPosition with Chennai’s Clarke School for the Deaf was chosen for the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics in Melbourne, 5–16 January 2005. I observed rehearsals and performances of this beautiful work several times in Chennai during 2005–6 and later in Bombay. By then, the group had already performed in Singapore, Malaysia, and Melbourne. Along with stunning costumes, I found it poignant to observe the performers’ hearing aids, visible behind their ears, not quite like earrings though evoking a type of aharya (jewelry). ContraPosition opens with joyful nrtta, where dancers in green, sequinned tops and loose pants create formations in lines and circles, using bharatanatyam mudras, neck and arm movements that Astad then disrupts in characteristic style into modern dance physicality. Astad’s solo, performed in a loose salwar with sequinned brownish-gold sleeveless top, displays definite, clear, and minimalist movement lines that demonstrate his keen focus and control of body, executing abstract movements that exude emotion. In ContraPosition, Astad choreographs the navarasas (nine primary emotions as delineated in The Natyasastra). His artistic acumen inspired this choice since his bharatanatyam-trained dancers were familiar with abhinaya. In his choreography, Astad individualizes each of the eight dancers as they portray some of the navarasas. Sringara rasa that includes love in its many manifestations is depicted as physical and erotic in a beautifully lyrical duet between Astad evoking the lover Krishna with R. Karthika as Radha. The other female dancers display dejection and rejection, as if representing the many gopis trying to attract the one Krishna. And the latter’s paramour Radha

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Figure 7 ContraPosition, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Monica Gurde)

is also upset initially at Krishna’s flirtation with other gopis. Then Krishna, played by Astad, cajoles her into a lyrical love duet that evokes sringara via sculpturesque poses and desirous eye expressions. Karthika’s combination of talent and rigorous training in bharatanatyam “gives her the resources” notes Astad, “both to be inventive, and rooted at the same time.” The next sequence moves from the emotion of fear, where dancers execute falling movements, cower, and cover their eyes, to the emotion of disgust that Astad renders powerfully in a solo under a bright red spotlight set uncomfortably on a mouth wide open and eyes ablaze. Astad’s kathakali training and his spectacular protrusion of the eyes, contorted mouth, and feet set in a wide stance while balanced on the side of his soles all convey a sense of other worldliness. Similar to Anita Ratnan’s representation of disgust in 7 Graces, Contemporary Indian Dance legitimizes the emotion of disgust, usually shied away from in classical Indian dance, but quite relevant to our violence-prone modern world. Disgust gives way to the emotion of sorrow/grief/sadness, expressed through kathakali training in a quivering mouth, in an appeal to other dancers who try to comfort the grief-stricken, offering solace. Costumes then change to long, bright red skirts trimmed in black and black glittery sequin tops that move into a joyful sequence as the performance nears its

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end. Astad enters in an ankle-length, glowing purple dress, longer than the customary length in kathak, with white fitting churidhar and begins to makes chakars as he joins the other dancers, weaving in and out of their formations. In a characteristic Astad movement, we see the dancers make a tight fist that moves towards the body and then is thrust out, evoking perhaps feelings of valor and heroism. In the finale, the bowing, characteristic in Astad’s choreography, acknowledges the audience in all corners of the theatre with a gesture of adab, a hand outstretched in front of the body, the palm moving toward the bowing forehead. As an observer, the experience of witnessing these deaf dancers, exuding confidence in their movement and expression was deeply poignant in conjunction with Amit Heri’s resonant original music composition, moving from melodious (to evoke sringara) to jagged and disjointed sounds depicting the emotions of fear and jealousy. In an improvised section, Astad leads his dancers in a modern dance sequence where the taut palm of the hand is placed in front of the face. In this move as in others, the dancers rose to the challenge of embodying Astad’s signature style. Astad remarked to me that teaching his dancers how to convey rasa with abstract movement is difficult. Nonetheless, I saw how the dancers imbibed Astad’s style with aplomb. He recognized this as well, saying “We’ve been able to dissolve the bridge from a very Indian movement to an Astad Deboo gesture.”18 Astad admits that he pushed the dancers “to excel, to go beyond the limitations of their condition. They responded like artists, trusting the exacting process and emerging winners in the end.”19 In this way, dance can be a powerful tool against the social prejudice that mars the lives of the physically challenged. Dancing gives them a self-confidence that they can carry over from the stage to their daily lives. Watching Astad’s ContraPosition, “invited (the audience) to what they called the sounds of silence giving birth to the roar of emotion,” remarks Marcellus Baptista in an ecstatic review. This “amazing hour-long expression of dance,” he continues, created “a combination of extreme physical control and stunning visual impact, merging the exuberance of narrative dance with the cerebral intensity of contemporary abstraction. The guests could not believe that the eight girls could not hear a thing, yet danced with such grace and splendour.”20 Since 2004, Astad has led ContraPosition in 75 shows across India and Southeast Asia, a well as in Granada (2006), Barcelona, Antwerp (Fall 2006), and back home at the Presidential home of Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2007 when Astad received the Padma Shri. Dancing with Astad Deboo’s aesthetic and social vision The key for me was a new generation of dancers who enlarged the circle of people who danced the dance – so as to include all races and economic classes. Astad Deboo (Program Notes, Breaking Boundaries)

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Figure 8 Breaking Boundaries, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Haran Kumar)

Astad’s social vision, to bring dance of his high caliber to disadvantaged communities like the deaf, is a remarkable facet of his contemporary dance. More recently, he brought his skills to the youth of Salaam Baalak Trust, a shelter for street children (in Delhi and Bombay) set up from the profits of Mira Nair’s successful film, Salaam Bombay. Prominent dance critic Leela Venkataraman lauded Astad’s social vision as well as the remarkable aesthetic work entitled Breaking Boundaries that he produced with these disadvantaged youth. “It is very heartening,” she noted, “to see dancers, more often than not caught up in the rat race of career-building, concerning themselves with the plight of the less fortunate.”21 Astad tells Venkataraman: “shaping these kids into dancers was an incredibly demanding and ultimately rewarding task since they were only exposed to Bollywood film-style free dancing.” However, Astad was struck by their “‘hunger and thirst’ to do something in life.” Almost all the kids are “runaways from home” escaping the violence of alcoholic parents and other struggles connected to poverty “often beyond the capacity of children to withstand.”22 In the same piece a youth named Anil Kumar, who at age six left home in Rae Bareli to escape his drunken father’s regular beatings, comments: “‘When sir (Deboo) started our workshop six months ago, we found the whole thing very strange, but

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now we realize how we can use our bodies to perform very unique and difficult maneuvers.’” Breaking Boundaries presents five choreographed pieces “requiring disciplined uniformity” among their 14 or 15 dancers, who move “in synchronized movements” that prove “nothing short of amazing,” notes Venkataraman. “The slow unfolding of the body so typical of Astad Deboo’s own dance, calling for complete inner silence and concentration … created optical illusions of shapes slowly opening out, and changing contours, with the kids in total control.” Astad built not only body awareness in the youth he worked with but also confidence and a group spirit in dancing together. For them to have imbibed Astad’s signature “meditative tranquility” as well as his “exploration of space” and “controlled balance is in itself remarkable,” the experience and results no less so. In line with my analysis of Astad’s signature style, Venkataraman notes “What was impressive was to see how movement went beyond the mechanistic level, investing it with mood and emotion.” The expression of social vision through movement in Breaking Boundaries unfolds in a similar vein in Rhythm Divine. It also marks another

Figure 9 Breaking Boundaries (rehearsal), Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Ketu H. Katrak)

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collaboration between Astad and the marginalized community of manipuri martial arts drum-dancers called Pung Cholam. Although these martial artists were highly trained – and thus very different from the youth of Salaam Baalak who were exposed mostly to Bollywood dance – the work again exemplifies Astad’s talent for transmitting creative rigor to the bodies and minds of his dancers, whoever they are. In both Breaking Boundaries and Rhythm Divine, bodies move in unison, using space evocatively to draw imaginative visual lines – V formations, groups of three and four creating circles and mandalas in symmetry, rigorous balancing poses, the use of benches as props, and rhythms that drum-dancers beat with their palms. In October 2009 I watched both shows, Breaking Boundaries at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Bombay and Rhythm Divine at the Ananya Dance Festival held at the outdoor Purana Quila in New Delhi. It was clear that both groups of dancers had imbibed, indeed internalized, Astad’s signature style, their movements slow, meditative, and technically demanding. In these moments I see Astad creatively passing his legacy – technical virtuosity combined with feeling – to these youthful bodies. Breaking Boundaries is about “body and space.” “Exploring space,” Astad comments in the performance’s brochure, “I had to deprogram the Bollywood moves, the jhatkas and matkas [fast movements common in Bollywood style dance] and inculcate the rasas and the mudras.” Along with this particular challenge, Astad also sought ways to enable the youth to discover their body potentiality via Astad’s own demanding style that uses balancing poses, demanding jumps, and other symmetrical/asymmetrical formations. Astad trained them for four months, inculcating bodily rigor and discipline. In the end, he achieved an astounding level of concentration, even meditative stillness, from a group of inexperienced dancers, 15- to 21-year-olds. On the rehearsal floor, Astad is a serious, demanding taskmaster who sets high standards that he achieves only through hard work, sweat, and sometimes tears. I witnessed such rigor when I observed two rehearsals in the modest Salaam Baalak Trust office and shelter in Old Delhi’s crowded Pahargunj locality. However, the atmosphere changes from rehearsal to post-rehearsal, as Astad grows full of affection and camaraderie for the young people around him, who in turn show obvious respect and affection for someone who takes them seriously and expects their highest potential as artists. As one of them told me, “Many people come to Salaam Baalak and volunteer their time sharing different skills, but Astad’s teaching is different. It is great.” Astad’s tough love pays off because it enables his dance style to provide a unique avenue to self-esteem, and encourages a sense of shared purpose among youth to demonstrate their art with genuine professionalism as well as a sense of community. Astad selects a different sound for each of the five segments of Breaking Boundaries – piano (played by Phillip Tan), North Indian flute (Hariprasad Chaurasia), to classical South Indian vocals (U. Srinivasan). The show at the

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National Center for Performing Arts opens in half-light and half-shadow, evocatively lit by Milind Shrivastava, as 13 dancers bend forward, almost crouching as the light moves over them, creating a breathless sense of expectation. The stillness of Astad’s style feels full and intense, and resonates from the dancers in total concentration and complete presence on stage. Lighting guides the audience’s vision as much as movement as the dancers raise their bodies very slowly and with minimal gestures. Heads rise up last, as if emerging from fetal positions, and unfold into straight, strong bodies that have endured many struggles in their young lives. Astad mentioned to me that, when he initially taught them this choreography, his young dancers were puzzled, and asked him if standing still also constituted dance! Cartwheeling bodies then traversed the stage diagonally followed by a circle as six dancers open one of the dance’s segments. Even as they move in unison, their movement demonstrates the individuality of each dancer. They assume difficult, often weight-bearing poses in pairs or threes building on trust, as when three male dancers clasped hands and descended into low backbends before they pull on their clasped hands to rise back up. Their two bodies back to back, one dancer lifts the other onto his back and then gently lowers him to the ground while the dancer in front adopts a wide stance. Some of Chandralekha’s legacies in body movement and energy, many of which have become part of the Indian subconscious, echo in segments of Astad’s choreography in Breaking Boundaries – as bodies come together into pairs or in threes, as faces come together to almost touch. The energy fields and the palpable breath created between the bodies assume a special space that elicits the audience’s response. Movements unfold as if the passage of time itself fills the gaps in the spaces between bodies. The techniques of prolonging movements, of slowness, and of layered significations that Chandra boldly executed in her work are also now a part of Astad’s legacy as he continues to build his own signature style. As the dancers’ bodies spin in kathak-style chakars (circles), the classical symmetry is broken deliberately by clasped hands that move in front of the face, then shift to the yoga pose of vira vudrasana (warrior) with hands raised above the heads. Also, as in yoga, counter poses balance the body, removing negative energies. There is a noteworthy logic to Astad’s choreography that is similar to the logic of classical Indian dance compositions. The gestures shift in style and intensity, from softly outstretched palms as if making an offering to very bold and sharp movements as in martial arts. One gesture repeats like a choreographic motif when the palm of one hand, tautly held, cuts through the air in diagonal sweeps in front of the body as it bends low. This creates movement that is both alive and surprising. Astad himself is masterful at presenting abstract movement with full emotional engagement of rasa. In the final segment evoking bhakti (devotion), rasa becomes truly touching without slipping into sentimentality, and expresses the sense of devotion that the dancers now feel toward their own artistry, to their teacher

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Astad, to one another, and to the audience. A sense of wholeness envelops the audience, fostering a profound feeling of connection that overcomes the many barriers that divide us as people, particularly those that arise in the Indian context, in the caste and class divisions that these youth have endured all their lives. Breaking Boundaries provides a vehicle for these dancers to demonstrate their full humanity and communicate it to each heart in the audience. Through personal effort, Astad secured bookings for Breaking Boundaries in major cities across India – Mumbai, Kanpur, Chennai, Kolkata, and Bangalore. When they toured, some of his dancers were stepping out of Delhi for the first time, seeing other parts of India and experiencing different audiences. In Rhythm Divine, Astad plays with “a seamless blend of the avant-garde with traditional movement,” as noted in the show’s introductory announcement. The performance opens with a moving body wrapped inside a large, amorphous plastic sheet set on center stage, like a fetus inside a womb, surrounded by kneeling bodies. Astad’s form emerges from the plastic, and he greets the audience with a back-bend, low and challenging as if paying homage to both the audience and the divine powers. The soulful sound of an operatic soprano intones the profound feeling reflected in Astad’s body (Astad has commented to me in interviews that he finds the operatic voice very inspiring for his movements). Throughout the performance’s first two segments, a pervasive dedicatory quality turns everything into an offering to a higher realm, drawing upon qualities of reverence and spirituality that are part of the Pung Cholam tradition of Manipur. As the Program Notes from a previous performance of Rhythm Divine asks, “Is that choreography or is it philosophy?” In Astad’s “Choreographer’s Note on Rhythm Divine,” he comments that “dance theatre requires patience, passion, and persistence to choreograph.” He continues: Dance is in our blood. The similarities, the possibilities, I sense that the very first time I visit Imphal, where I hear new rhythms and the first formulations are formed in my head … Guru Seityaban is open to new formulations. He suggests alternatives. We try to discover – invent, I suppose – an art, and newer forms that do something of the same thing in a contemporary way. Something that makes sense of our lives. I start out trying to create patterns. I want them to connect, to form a new kind of stage-scape, to flow together with the contemporary concepts and the lives of the people in Manipur. I don’t design soothing dance pieces – I don’t like them. I like art to have some raw, vital, earthy quality. The logic of the segments in Rhythm Divine flows from the slow and devotional to staccato beats and martial movements. Astad uses the bol cholum,

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Figure 10 Rhythm Divine, Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia)

the loud recitation of drum syllables and dance steps usually executed with visible drums; however, in this case, Astad chose instead not to show them, but rather “to reference the drums,” as he commented during the Ananya Seminar in Delhi (the day after the show). The performers beat the invisible drums with hand gestures, sometimes clapping and sometimes beating their palms on the floor rhythmically. This holds the audience, expecting to see the drums, in suspense until the last segment. In one section the dancers play the khartals (cymbals) held by bright red cloth etched beautifully by the stage lights against the outdoor venue of the night sky. Astad’s own entrances and exits into the group seemed at times both imperceptible and concerted, carefully marked to direct his energetic interactions toward the drum dancers, imitating their movements, then leading them with his in a sawal-jawab (question-answer) type of interaction familiar to the kathak dancer and tabla player. The breathtaking speed and aplomb with which Astad executes chakars created the emotional feeling of the ecstatic Sufi dancer whose whirling evokes the divine. Ritual gongs punctuated the choreography, and then turned to silence before piercing gunshots reminded the audience of the ongoing violence in Manipur. Despite this shocking rupture, the dance’s overall effect was ritualistic and meditative. At the Ananya Seminar, Astad demonstrated how he made physical movements in manipuri martial arts flow into his own dance moves. He takes a

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clear approach to working with different styles; it is never a matter of simply “adding on,” he says, but rather one of discovering connections between his own technique and other styles. As he does so, he transfers the new bodily awareness and choreographic insights he develops in his own style to differently trained artists. In his “Choreographer’s Note,” Astad remarks: “Rhythm Divine believes dance is a system of ideas. Dance is not a method. And together with music, dance can enrich the moral, the material, and the intellectual. Together, they can make a newer beginning.” The Astad Deboo Foundation was formed in 2002 to accomplish several goals – to provide creative training to the disabled, to foster projects that utilize different forms of creative expression, to recognize talented dancers among the deaf and to facilitate their artistic development. The foundation does not cater only to the disabled – in December 2007, for example, the center hosted a workshop for women performers from Manipur. The foundation aims to document its work and create an archive of materials for future generations to consult. Eventually, with funding, the foundation hopes to create a center where such activities can continue over the long term. In many societies art often lies at the bottom of funding priorities that focus on “practical” necessities like the three Rs, namely, reading, writing, arithmetic. Such budgetary priorities where art is absent doubly disempower the disabled. Hence, Astad’s use of his artistic renown to bring attention to the artistic abilities of the deaf and socially disadvantaged (by poverty, violence) is highly exceptional. Astad continues to travel extensively, a testament to his commitment to learn and grow. I asked him how this impacts on his art; he replied: “Performing in different venues brings in a whole different genre of audience to come and see my work which I am very keen about. But at the same time the important thing for me is that I am still working and I will continue to work” (Interview with Katrak, October 2005). I asked if he could imagine locating himself in one place, working with a dance company. He reflected: I don’t think whether at this stage of my life I would be able to do it because I have been on the road now for 40 years. I haven’t spent a year now in any country for the last 40 years … It is probably how it started off and which has now become a way of living. Nothing is really sort of exciting me to ground me. I need that change, not change in my work. My work is with me all the time. I just need that change of environment. I need the change of food, of music, of people, that is a sort of stimulation for me. (Interview with Katrak, October 2005) Astad’s rasa-filled, abstract choreography – whether solo, group or collaborative – plays a definitive role in Contemporary Indian Dance.

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This vibrant form bears the stamp of Astad’s unique idiom. Although he might not wish to codify his style in the same way that has occurred over the years in traditional Indian classical styles, his movement vocabulary offers innovative and creative models for younger dancers to learn and emulate. Although Astad himself has worked in isolation for decades, keeping faith with himself and his art, he remains a generous mentor to younger artists.

Other journeys in abstract dance: Shobana Jeyasingh We do not want to be bound by history, but we do not want to deny it. It is desirable that one first understand classicism [i.e,. classical dance, ballet, or bharatanatyam] and then understand how to depart from it. To break rules you have to know the rules in a very deep way. Contemporary [dance] need not be a holiday from rigor. (Shobana Jeyasingh, Interview with Ketu Katrak23) Shobana Jeyasingh is a pioneer on the British Asian dance scene in interrogating dance forms whether she is working with modern dance or bharatanatyam. However, she modestly considers herself only “a pioneer for myself. It’s like hacking a path through the jungle, not only in dance but in terms of being a woman, and an Asian.”24 Nonetheless, Jeyasingh was among the first choreographers to deconstruct what she calls “rule-bound dance” and create her own movement vocabulary “out of lots of disparate elements.”25 Jeyasingh has been recognized internationally for the past 20 years “with her dynamic, fearless, and enigmatic choreography” (SJDC site). Jeyasingh’s personal journey has taken her through multiple locations, from Bangalore and Chennai in India, to Sri Lanka, to Malaysia where she began to study bharatanatyam at a young age, and finally to Britain to study English literature. This positioned her in the M/Other country during the 1980s, a time when “a single idea of Indianness,” she told me during an interview, “was very restrictive.” From the outset, this remarkably thoughtful and intellectual artist wanted audiences not to respond “to dance as a cultural phenomenon [but] rather [as] a dance phenomenon.” Jeyasingh cited Salman Rushdie’s useful articulation of the “chutnification of history” and the irony that, although the British “were key in making the chutney in the first place,” they resisted recognizing the complexities of ethnicity or nationality “that were right in front of their eyes rather than what they were conditioned to expect.” Such narrow definitions of identity and authenticity have “only now begun to loosen,” she remarked to me, “because of economic circumstances. India isn’t merely a developing nation. People are more willing to see an Indian product as complicated, diverse, abstract” (interview with Katrak). Jeyasingh’s commentaries in the 1990s urged against the use of Indian dance as a representative of Indian culture rather than as its own particular,

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even objective, dance language. She contested tendencies to orientalize and exoticize that have been an important part of the history of British Asian dance.26 She emphasized the abstract and formal over the narrative legacy of Indian dance in her early work, in an attempt to create her own dance idiom. At the same time, her work challenges audiences to rethink their own stereotypes of India, and to move away from the idea of India as rooted in timelessness, unable to change or keep pace with modernity whether in dance or in lifestyle. Jeyasingh describes herself as a “dance-maker” who is “interested in the ideas behind the dance.” For each project, the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (established in 1988) auditions professional multi-ethnic dancers from Britain, Malaysia, the United States, and Europe. With each new endeavor, Jeyasingh aims to make excellent work, not to promote a national or other identity. The Company is known for innovative movement and collaborative work with artists in film, theatre, multi-media, music, and design. Jeyasingh’s strengths lie in her bold experimentation, such as her “pioneering collaborations with some of the most exciting musicians and artists of our times … [such as] Michael Nyman …and contemporary favorite Kevin Volans.”27 Jeyasingh has also commissioned South Indian film composer Illayarajah and Ramamani from the Bangalore school of Percussion. The company won the prestigious Prudential Award for the Arts and was the subject of a BBC documentary called Inbetween. Jeyasingh is well-known for her site-specific performances in places like “Greenwich Borough Hall [with a live web cast from Bangalore, India], the cafe at Waterman’s Arts, Brentford, The City Hall, London,” and others. Jeyasingh’s many commissioned works include “Polar Sequences for Random Dance, Triptych for Canasia Festival, Canada, City-Zen for City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong among others. She is the recipient of many awards including two Time Out Dance Awards, three Digital Dance awards, and MBE (1995) for services to dance, an honorary MA from Surrey University and an honorary doctorate from De Montford University, Leicester, an institution that fosters teaching of Contemporary Dance. In May 2008 she was named an Asian Woman of Achievement for her contribution to the arts in Britain” (SJDC site). Royona Mitra places Jeyasingh’s work in the context of British Asian dance by tracing a useful history of British Asian beginning with the first generation of migrants to Britain, who typically desired to “preserve” their culture and even “mythologize tradition.”28 The term “British Asian dance,” notes Mitra, “is meant to reflect the assumed dual cultural heritage of these diasporic artists” born and raised in Britain, while the Asian context has been signified by “an attempted homogenization of the multicultural and multinational ethnic groups from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, to name a few who comprise these artists, and secondly, to indicate the root of the performance traditions represented within the genre as belonging simplistically to Asia. In the last decade, the field has seen the

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Figure 11 Flicker, Shobana Jeyasingh’s choreography, dancers: Saju and Niku (Photographer: Chris Nash)

emergence of a further problematic and homogenized term of South Asian dance” (Mitra, “Dancing Embodiment”). Labels that identify a style or a group of dancers are more inadequate today than even 50 years back, Jeyasingh noted in her interview with me, “since there is so much individual experimentation in our global situation.” Rather than labels, Jeyasingh prefers to focus her interest on “the history of the body, but not,” she carefully distinguishes, “a historical body.” Further, she is interested in “bodies in the city, and in physicalizing the kind of cacophony that cities have [Bangalore is different from London,

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for instance], to get the body to be multi-nuanced” in her choreography (Interview with Katrak). Such goals resonate with second-generation dancers in Britain, and indeed also in India or North America. Royona Mitra indicates that this young generation shares both an interest in, and a lived experience of, hybridity (including how they experience both physical and virtual space). Their willingness to discuss the arts in postmodern globality “enables progression, creativity, artistic ownership to surface in the art. Much is owed in this discourse to Shobhana Jeasingh … (who) is perhaps one of the first British Asian dancers to question the significance of classicism in her life and to deconstruct it in practice” (Mitra, “Dancing Embodiment”). During the 1980s Jeyasingh, as Parm Kaur notes “was occupying a different physical, social, political and aesthetic space, that is, Britain and her position in Britain as a post-colonial subject” (quoted in Mitra). Over 30 years later, Jeyasingh recognizes that “the cultural flow around me has changed incredibly with the way Britain has changed, and funding, and people who audition … have got complicated hinterlands anyway. They might have some connection to India, but sometimes they don’t” (Interview in Pulse). Jeyasingh’s “fascination for the intellectualism of dance” draws her to align with contemporary artists who also engage cerebrally with dance language/s, both in Britain (like Mavin Khoo and Akram Khan) and globally (like Hari Krishnan in Toronto and Chandralekha in India). These artists delve thoughtfully into the process of creative work. Jeyasingh’s contemporary sensibility engages provocatively with diverse movement vocabularies, at times displaying “the precisions of bharatanatyam” while at other times creating “more waywardly idiosyncratic movement” of the kind often seen in her choreography over the years.29 “There’s a melting pot of gesture in Shobhana Jeyasingh’s new dance, Faultline (2007),” remarks a reviewer from The Independent. “Some clearly have their roots in classical Indian dance, with wrists elegantly turned, fingers spread out like stars. But then the same dancers will rub fingers and thumb together, as if suggesting money, or beckon with the whole hand” (SJDC site). Faultline, for example, represents the “lives of restless Asian youth in the UK (as they inspired Gautam Malkani’s 2006 novel, Londonstani)” (SJDC site). The work utilizes bharatanatyam, martial arts, and ballet. She also makes full use of multi-media production, creating a pre-recorded score by Scanner (who operates in the experimental terrain between sound, space, image, and form) in which soprano Patricia Rozario duets with herself, singing Errollyn Wallen’s eerie vocals. And in meditative counterpoint to the dance action, the backdrop of Pete Gomes’s film turns from street scenes to Rozario’s silent image flowing endlessly upwards on screen” (SJDC site). The dance creates a “hybrid” language of “gansgta rap, texting [and] Hindi.”30 Jeyasingh notes that this is not a literal representation of the “unease” in being “young, Asian, and male dealing with the police” in London after 7/7 (the bombing of the Underground).

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Jeyasingh’s choreography in Bruise Blood was inspired by the political context of the 1960 Harlem Riots, and specifically, a falsely accused young black man’s powerful statement to the police: “Open up the bruise, to let the bruise blood come out to show them.”31 In this multi-media work, Jeyasingh notes that Steve Reich “extricates part of the sentence and then through repetition and manipulation,” evokes different resonances of meaning from the words. Simultaneously, the music director Glyn and beatbox artist Shlomo blend hiphop and experimental vocal track, using the mouth, lips, and tongue to imitate sounds and create different sound effects. In contemporary choreography music plays a key role and Jeyasingh acknowledges the influence of Michael Nyman, whose music led her “to think about de-monumentalizing the information [of music/rhythm] spatially … that’s how the ensemble idea came about” (Interview in Pulse). In other words, when the music comes across as grand, even “monumental,” it influences both the dancers’ movements on the stage space and the audience’s attention to them and/or to the music. Hence, “de-monumentalizing” the music draws attention in a different way to the performers (and audiences) and how they traverse stage space. In Configurations (1988), Nyman’s commissioned score for string quartet provided the appropriate kind of minimalist sound to Jeyasingh’s exploration of the body in movement. Jeyasingh has also commissioned music from Glynn Perrin, Graham Fitkin, and Django Bates. In addition, in Making of Maps, Jeyasingh combines the Indian flute of R. A. Ramamani, and Western music by Alistair Macdonald. Along with changes in music, Jeyasingh’s set designs have “always had a modernist feel,” remarks Roy. Since Palimpsest (1996), even the “costumes have moved significantly away from referencing Indian-style clothing, becoming bolder and more streamlined” (Roy, “Growths and Outgrowths,” 162) Romance…with Footsteps (1993) “retains structural similarities” with the bharatanatyam varnum (where nrtta and abhinaya are both showcased), notes Janet O’Shea. “Jeyasingh radically alters both sections of the classical varnum … treats mudras as spatial shapings… and initiate[s] contact between dancers (who) frequently tip, pull, or push each other off balance.”32 Bodily contact is a crucial modification of the varnum that is usually a solo performance; however, even with duets or group choreography, the dancer avoids bodily contact. Raid (1995) uses the Indian game of kabbadi in which mixing sports movement with dance “opened up a greater spatial and dynamic range” (Roy, “Growths and Outgrowths”). In Palimpsest (1996), different vocabularies no longer operate distinctly but instead overlap and crisscross, marking what Roy describes as “the beginning of Jeyasingh’s mature style” (“Growths and Outgrowths,” 161). While the dialogue in earlier works like Romance seems to lie distinctly between the classical and the contemporary, Jeyasingh now allows “multiple voices speaking at once, or inventing new languages … with a heightened sense of tension, density, and speed” (161).

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In Surface Tension, continues Roy, “Jeyasingh used filmed projections within a stage work” for the first time (161). Jeyasingh’s recent choreography for Just Add Water? uses food as a metaphor. The idea came to Jeyasingh “from observing that one area where people have no problem mixing and integrating is to come together for eating. The piece is about integration and assimilation rather than about food … It is not about recipes.” Rather, food becomes “a useful way of talking about memories, conflicts, whenever people with one type of history meet another” (SJDC site). In the segment of the piece on Jeyasingh’s website, two dancers use telling phrases like “Thanksgiving Day,” “Pumpkin Pie.” Jeyasingh comments that there are “two ways of portraying the human body”: either through acting with text where a character can be portrayed, or by simply dancing where only the abstract personality is evident. Such is the case in Just Add Water? where the dancers “are not acting the words, they are performing them as dancers,” and where “we get to know them in a personal way, as historical people, their history, languages” (Interview in Pulse). Reviewer Donald Hutera comments, “Tempers and tensions rise as dancers begin to interact, some annoyingly insistent about the supremacy of what they ingest.” Images layer over spoken script; for instance, a closeup of boiling water projected onto the backdrop. “These pulsating visual whirlpools,” notes Hutera, “are then replaced by dancing … sharp, sinewy, and splintered motion that edges towards the athletic.” Orlando Gough provided an imaginative soundscape, a “dense, aggressive score of jangling rhythms and barking, manipulated vocals,” notes Hutera. Their “ways of connecting also include slower, slithery floor-based partnerings that signal a thematic shift from food to copulation … a steamy blend of living ingredients from which potent new flavours might arise.” As the hour-long piece winds down, words like “adding and stirring” float in and out of the movements; a voice says, “add the turmeric, the ginger, the pepper, cinnamon, tamarind …” and gradually fades away (Interview in Pulse). Celebrating 20 years of Jeyasingh’s choreography, “a creative force that has shaped so much of UK dance today,” The Dancers’ Cut: A Birthday Celebration presents “a human story about meetings and partings, love and longing – and hatred as persistent as the monsoon rains. This is dance on the inside. Film combines with live performance to show us the dancers’ take on the work … and how … Jeyasingh’s unique style has shaped their own creative lives” (SJDC site). Jeyasingh, innovative “dance-maker” In the 2009 Pulse interview, Jeyasingh notes: “I find science fiction the most inspiring genre for choreography. It’s a choreographer’s medium [that] uses time, space, and bodies to make its narrative.” I was intrigued by this provocative connection and Jeyasingh elaborates (in my 2010 interview), namely that just as science fiction “imagines a future body” and situates it in

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Figure 12 Just Add Water? Jeyasingh’s choreography (Photographer: J. C. Masclet)

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time and space, so do choreographers like herself. She further clarified that Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company’s by-line states: “Imagining the future of the body.” “The act of choreography,” she remarks, “is designing individuals into one narrative.” She acknowledges “a passion for composition. For me, choreography is about designing movement … Generating movement for me is having a table, a pen and paper, and writing and composing the movement … In classical dance, the script is the steps of the dance. In contemporary dance, you’ve got to write the script and direct it (Interview in Pulse). I asked Jeyasingh about the challenges that the availability of multiple tools presents to the contemporary choreographer and how she works with layering her choreography without allowing the separate elements to distract. She answered that “every art form needs a frame … what is available to us now are dynamic frames,” whereas even 50 years back we might only have had painted backdrops. One important development today, Jeyasingh observed, is “the virtual body with different ways of experiencing it” (Interview with Katrak). When we see dancing bodies on stage we experience them in actual time; however, it is now equally possible to create actual time within virtual time, as happens whenever people communicate through media such as Skype, which somehow transcends time and space in order to bring people together. In contemporary technological developments, framing and contextualizing the body are critical challenges for a choreographer. Lighting can create a distinct form of choreography through the play of light and shadow, while color can inspire mood and affect. This can happen through a variety of multimedia effects, even computer-generated ones. “It is like a chariot with six horses all going at the same time,” she remarked, “It is not easy.” However, the choreographer must decide as to “where the focus is going to be, how to direct the eye of the audience and craft the audience’s focus. The more elements you have, the harder it is to direct the eye to move, to rest, to choreograph the audience’s eye.” Just as the choreographer engages freely in sharpening focus or deliberately “splitting focus,” Jeyasingh notes that audiences are free to make their own choices as well about where to place their attention on the stage. Multi-tasking, a common fact in contemporary life that audiences can bring to the theatre, creates new opportunities for dance, but also new problems. Film can be particularly challenging, notes Jeyasingh, since audiences “understand the grammar of film more than the grammar of dance and therefore are drawn to it” (Interview with Katrak). The fact is that Jeyasingh is a formidable thinker who likes to consider that “the ideas behind the dance” do not take away from the emotional impact of her work. “I enjoy thinking. For me every dance is like a crossword puzzle. In the best possible world, structure is an emotional experience” (Interview with Katrak). For an audience to understand “structure as emotional,” it needs to be empathetic, like the sahrdaya and rasika, who

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they respond to with open hearts. Jeyasingh recognizes “a rather sad fact that dance literacy, kinesthetic literacy is the least developed of all the literacies from school-going age onwards” (Interview in Pulse). To critics who have sometimes narrowly judged her work “as cold, mechanical, distant,” Jeyasingh asserted passionately: “the body also has a psychology of movement that is equivalent in some sense to emotion. That is a kind of rasa; the rasa of movement” (Interview with Katrak) Deboo and Jeyasingh in their different locations of Mumbai and London have made pioneering contributions to the new language of Contemporary Indian Dance. Their commitment to exploring movement, to the body moving in space, to non-narrative work that communicates with rasa to audiences worldwide is significant. The challenge of using abstractions concretized via the human body achieved so well by Chandralekha continues in the significant body of work that Deboo and Jeyasingh have accomplished, with promise of more to follow in the future. We move next (Chapter 3) to what might appear at first glance as a step backward since we analyze masters (and emerging artists) of traditional Indian dance who innovate from within those vocabularies along with contemporary uses of music, costume, and affect. However, it is noteworthy in the evolution of Contemporary Indian Dance and worth recognizing, the rich uses of traditional forms by stalwarts in these forms. This work then leads us to discuss Contemporary Indian Dancers who use hybrid movement centrally in their creative choreography along with, especially among diaspora artists, edgy themes of gender and sexuality (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).

3 Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Choreography by Masters of Traditional Indian Dance and Emerging Innovators After two to three decades of working experience, today’s masters of traditional Indian dance in India and the diaspora embrace a style described by New Delhi-based Aditi Mangaldas as “contemporary choreography based on kathak,” and also, I would add, based on bharatanatyam. Even as this work remains committed to the familiar, recognizable idioms of traditional Indian dance and martial arts, it also reflects a contemporary sensibility via eclectic music, innovative costumes, and multi-media tools along with tropes that have become iconic in Contemporary Indian Dance, such as slow movement, sounds of water, the gesture of washing hands, and modern dance style use of the floor. In Part 1 of this chapter, I discuss creative choreography based on kathak by Bangalore-based Madhu Nataraj, New Delhi-based Aditi Mangaldas and Trivandrum-based Daksha Sheth; bharatanatyambased innovations in the choreography of Ahmedabad-based Mallika Sarabhai’s dance, and theatre work aiming for social change presented in urban Ahmedabad, and in rural areas addressing issues of gender health and equality. Bharatanatyam is also the foundation for the contemporary work of Delhi-based Navtej Singh Johar and Mississauga (Canada)-based Lata Pada’s Sampradaya Dance Creations. All these dancers’ innovations transcend “extensions of tradition” where dancers re-work traditional myths and legends or locate two traditional styles like bharatanatyam and kathak side by side.1 Part 2 of this chapter discusses a select group of emerging choreographers – Mayuri Upadhya (Bangalore), Anusha Lall (New Delhi), Prethi Athreya, and Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Chennai) who are on a journey of discovering their own signature styles within the multi-layered language of Contemporary Indian Dance. Finally, I discuss Chennai-based Padmini Chettur who has developed a style without resonance with Indian traditional dance, but which evolved after ten years of performing in Chandralekha’s choreographies. Like Chandra, Chettur remains in a class by herself, though Chandra did not eschew Indian aesthetics and affect in her choreography the way Chettur does. 84

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PART I CREATIVE CHOREOGRAPHY Innovations based on kathak Madhu Nataraj Madhu Nataraj along with her mother Maya Rao are a unique team in Bangalore. Maya Rao, the only Indian with a Postgraduate Certificate in Choreography from the former USSR, established the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography in New Delhi in 1964. In 1987, she moved the Institute to Bangalore, where it is affiliated with Bangalore University and offers a three-year BA degree program in “Kathak and Choreography.” Its impressive syllabus includes “World History of Dance,” “Natya Shastra,” and classes in stage design, lighting, mime, and movement. The Institute offers a unique forum for dance education in India since it uses “traditional dance methodology alongside modern pedagogical techniques, keeping pace with global trends in dance education.”2 As a collaborative arm of the Natya Institute, Madhu Nataraj established Natya STEM (Space, Time, Energy, Movement) Dance Kampni (NSDK) in 1995 with the goal of exploring a contemporary dance vocabulary that remains recognizably Indian in its movement (primarily kathak) and aesthetic approach. STEM’s interpretation of kathak in a contemporary framework has made it a prominent dance company in India. Its signature style engages both Indian classical and folk forms as well as contemporary works that include mythological and historical themes. STEM’s signature style includes “motifs of Indian movement disciplines, original music, experiments with rhythm, [and] interactive design” (stemdancekampni.in). Madhu Nataraj, a graduate of the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography, has also studied contemporary dance with Karen Potter ( Jose Limon style) and Sara Pearson in New York. Madhu believes that “dance needs to break away from the shackles of rigidity to become meaningful.” To this end STEM has defined its own dance vocabulary that derives from Indian traditional and martial arts as well as working with original musical compositions and scenic designs (stemdancekampni.in). STEM uses its contemporary style to explore socially relevant themes, particularly about women’s status in Indian society, violence against women, and other philosophical and psychological issues working with the feminist rubric of personal-aspolitical. For instance, a piece called Yugma draws inspiration from Bertolt Brecht’s “seven deadly sins of the petty bourgeoisie” and Indian novelist Raja Rao’s Serpent and the Rope (the title of his novel) to make fun of social norms and notions of superficial virtue. STEM’s repertoire includes Khoria: Exploring femininity, feminism and sexuality; Crows, Caws, Facades: Insecurity and Us; and over a dozen full-length works and briefer sequences. Moh: In the Realm of Love, performed in collaboration with the Karnataka Women’s Legal Rights Cell, deals with the “violence and violations around us.”

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Figure 13 Vajra, Madhu Nataraj’s choreography (Photographer: Ramya Reddy)

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Mandala: The Circle of Life creatively represents Indian philosophical ideas, and symbols from tantric philosophy with a vibrant audio-visual landscape that both enlightens and entertains the audience. Madhu and STEM dancers share a genuine collaborative spirit as I observed sitting in on a rehearsal in Bangalore. They were preparing for a program at a large venue that demanded choreography to match the size of stage and audience. Since I was interested in observing their unique language of Contemporary Indian Dance, they kindly performed a completed work from their repertoire, entitled Monochrome, showcasing kathak, yoga, and martial arts. Jazz rhythms and clapping resonated effectively with kathak tempo as bodies created shapes with leg extensions and back-bends. In another work, Tarana, I noticed that each dancer’s individuality in facial expression came through even as they danced in pairs and group formations. Apart from performances, STEM is involved with the wider society in Bangalore where the company uses dance to build self-esteem among street children, the disabled, and women’s organizations. Madhu kindly allowed me to accompany her to a workshop she conducted with street children. As we drove through Bangalore’s crawling traffic, I talked to Madhu about her personal dance journey and her choreography based on kathak and contemporary dance. Madhu recalled her training in the Martha Graham technique in New York City and remarked that if she had stayed there, she would have become “just another modern dancer.” However, she did not want to give up the Indian aesthetic that has “so much beauty in it and so many stories.” She noted that STEM does four to five shows a month for a variety of organizations, including corporations. The scene in Bangalore is different from Chennai, she commented, where dancers often have to personally pay the sabhas where they perform. We arrive at “Drishya: A Learning Centre for Children from Urban Poor Communities,” a partnership venture between AVAS (Association for Volunteer Action and Services) and DRIK (Dwarkanath Reddy Institutes for Knowledge), an initiative of the Ramanarpanam Trust. Madhu leads the children in warm-up exercises and teaches them to focus the eyes and the mind. They are encouraged to engage in free movement and to improvise. In the mirroring exercise each child moves into the centre of the circle and performs an everyday gesture that is imitated by the group. Madhu encourages feedback. She teaches them words that are new to them such as pranayama and talks about the balance and focus needed to accomplish the chakars in kathak. “We all have the power to create” from our own imagination, she tells them, and draws parallels between life and dance techniques such as mirroring. “In life” she notes, “it is important to lead and to follow,” and to know when to do one or the other. As this settles into these young minds, they mirror and follow Madhu. Madhu tells me that the children are learning “creative dance” (a phrase that was used to describe Uday Shankar’s dance) that arises from their own

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ideas and experiences, not connected to any particular dance style. Of course, previously learned styles may nevertheless emerge from one’s body as happened to me as my body subconsciously brought forth bharatanatyam mudras and movements. This demonstrates how difficult it can be for those trained in classical Indian dance to move in “creative dance” without ingrained training surfacing. For the children who do not have training in Indian classical dance, Madhu’s training in movement inspires life-skills of focus and discipline rather than mastering any particular classical form. Movement itself functions as a form of release of energy, as well as a form of organized ‘play’ for these children who survive on the streets often in dangerous situations. Madhu’s work with these children parallels (with differences) Astad Deboo’s work with street children in Delhi – Astad actually trained them to perform Breaking Boundaries (discussed in Chapter 2). For Madhu, the goal is to use movement itself as a form of therapy, release, and joy for these children who survive under tough conditions on the streets. Aditi Mangaldas Traditional or contemporary … there has never been a contradiction between the two in my mind. I look at the ancient dance form of kathak with a modern mind. I work with the dynamism of kathak, and strengthen it. (Aditi Mangaldas3) Mangaldas is regarded “as one of the pioneers of modern kathak, both as a performer and a choreographer,” as one who has given kathak “an intellectual dimension,” one writer notes.4 She is recognized for “infus(ing) kathak tradition with a sensitive modern outlook that truly celebrates the classical styles and its potential.”5 Mangaldas heads “Drishtikon Dance Foundation: Classical kathak and contemporary dance based on kathak.” She is recognized for her imaginative use of kathak to create a contemporary vocabulary in which the classical movement and aesthetic continue to be visible. Mangaldas does not regard kathak “as a tether that holds [her] back, but a deep root from which [she] draws the strength to grow, to explore new forms, and use the past to create a language of the future.” She continues, “I love to travel through my body and my mind, and to let these parts travel through different parts of space … Is it possible to watch the space within oneself, just as you watch the space outside?” (aditimangaldasdance.com). From age six to 22, Kumudini Lakhia trained Mangaldas in kathak and equally in “the courage to be free and fearless, the ability to understand the relation of my body to the space that surrounds me” (aditimangaldasdance. com). Aditi also studied with Birju Maharaj, and was “mesmerized by him” even though she realized that she wanted to be an individual rather than “a reflection copy” of either one of her gurus. Once she reached a point

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where she had learnt the maximum she could from Lakhia and Maharaj, it became important to her “to learn to walk again,” as she puts it. In the late 1980s, according to Mangaldas, the traditional Indian dance scene in India began to open up to innovation – initially, changes in “externals” like costumes were seen although the dance and music remained recognizably traditional. Mangaldas wanted, for instance, to translate her interest in female gender issues into dance. With this in mind, she created works with new content, new costumes, and an entirely new look on stage with works such as Letters to a Child Never Born, which explores the connection and disconnection to a child in the womb. Footprints on Water (1995) marked a landmark in Mangaldas’ choreography, a work that she describes as “a comma” in her evolution toward her own style of movement that began to move a little outside kathak.6 When Eternity Ends (1998) delves into the concept of lament embodied physically in “a broken spine,” radically different from the usual erect and upright posture of kathak. Her work, Textures of Silence and Rhythms of Sound (2000) uses yoga and plays uniquely with silence, such as when she places silence between the dance syllables intoned as “ta” and “dha.” From 2000 on, Aditi notes, her “kathak technique is watered with global inspirations and directions, and contemporary ideas. The tree grows from a kathak base and has gone beyond kathak.” More recently, Aditi has begun rediscovering yoga and how it raises awareness of the spine (also central in Chandralekha’s innovations) in centering the body. Lighting design has also grown increasingly important to Mangaldas. Whereas in classical Indian dance, lighting and visual design focus on the dancer, in contemporary work, lighting is used differently, and more dynamically for the entire stage. In costuming, Mangaldas prefers to pare down from the layers of lush fabric common in traditional Indian dance and to free the body, make it visible, and reveal its shapes and lines. Mangaldas commented on the historical and geographical roots of kathak and how within a certain ambience, iconic gestures such as Krishna with his flute would be recognized (Interview with Katrak, February 2006). But, in our global landscape, how do artists translate such iconography for an audience that is unfamiliar with this context? What are the constraints and what are the gains of placing kathak in a global environment? Mangaldas believes in questioning and not simply abiding by precedents and the timehonored values that reinforce them. She recognizes that aspiring to contemporary style is a different journey for each artist – from changing costumes, to music, to adding text. However, “by just removing the teeka (dot worn on the forehead between the eyebrows) [the work] does not become contemporary” (Interview with Katrak, 2006). Mainly, Mangaldas remarked that her contemporary choreography based on kathak works primarily with kathak’s “physical language,” not its abhinaya that is much harder to translate into a contemporary vein. She aims to use “in a controlled way kathak’s burst of energy” and kalari’s similar

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vitality that is “swift and has immense power. In its repose, you can see the electricity… I want the kalari and the yoga to be in my body when I do kathak, I do not want to just superimpose all these things” (second interview with Katrak, 2009). Ultimately, she does not believe in choosing between traditional and contemporary, but in letting the process unfold in an organic way. She loves to dance and believes that any change has to come from within. “I don’t need to explain myself to anyone.” She also loves to do Bollywood dance. “It is a genre (like folk, jazz, or salsa). We have to recognize that. You have to like it or dislike it… I like to challenge my body, mind, emotions and all – in Indian dance (they) are not separate. And it is very important to me to constantly see that this essential quality is not lost.” In the contemporary vein, “we are just individuals … it is each individual’s search. This is not a movement. How it will evolve, that I do not know” (Interview with Katrak, 2009). In this 2009 interview, Mangaldas questioned the conceptual baggage of words like “contemporary” and “traditional.” “Do I have to choose between tradition and contemporary?” she asked. “Is it possible for both to co-exist, to stimulate each other? How do I answer the dichotomy within myself? How do I come to terms with the fact that though I perform an art thousands of years old, I still look at it with the mind of today?” Aditi answered her questions by drawing an analogy to her work Footprints on Water that portrays six seasons, moving from one to the other much like different dance styles flowing from one to another. “Like night bouncing into day and then night again,” she elaborated. And she ended again with a question, “Can one ever step into the same waters of the river twice?” When decoded, this metaphor indicates that neither Mangaldas the artist nor the river remain the same over time. In Footprints on Water, she remarked, she “was holding on to the parachute of tradition. Then, suddenly, (she) felt the need to free-fall” (Interview with Katrak, 2009). Mangaldas’s study of literature inspires her use of poets such as Rumi and Neruda in When Eternity Ends to explore emotions of desire, bondage, anguish, and lament giving them a contemporary interpretation. Mangaldas is fascinated with portraying abstract concepts of time and space, the interplays between the two on stage, and how time can be experienced through space, along with other notions. Timeless explores how “to hold present time (not past or future).” Now Is takes the concept of living in the present further via Mangaldas’s contemporary idiom for kathak.7 The dance’s set is unique, especially at the point when the backdrop moved from one side to the other as the dancers created an effective layering effect. The Program Notes describe the work as “a simultaneous dialogue between the three art forms of painting, music, and dance that explores the timeless present and is built around the central question: Can one live creatively, live in the ‘Now’?” The challenge of living without the burden of the past and future can be a deeply philosophical quest that is difficult to actualize

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Figure 14 Aditi Mangaldas in Timeless (Photographer: Vipul Sangoi, Raindesign)

through the moving body. In Now Is, Mangaldas’s choreography presents a male and female dancer in contemporary bluish-green gauzy top and loose pants matched with Mangaldas in a striking red sleeveless outfit with loose trousers. The two dancers evoke a ballet-like lyricism and romance through their interlinked arms and emotional expression. Mangaldas, herself in highly virtuosic kathak chakars, wove in and out, dancing with the duo and in her own solos. While she explored choreographic motifs that were not taken from kathak, such as the evocative movement of fingers etched against the backdrop of projected images by German artist Siegward Sprotte, viewers were caught between a modern dance-like sternness that then melted into kathak-based emotional expressions. In parts, Shubha Mudgal’s voice reminded us that we were grounded in the North Indian musical aesthetic, although other musical traditions filled the soundtrack like flute, percussion, veena and keyboard. The soundtrack came across as pleasing, though it remained in disparate parts. Using her approach, Mangaldas can do more to push the frontiers of contemporary exploration in movement and music than she could by going back and forth between movement innovations and returning to her well-mastered kathak idiom. Her moving between her masterful kathak and contemporary movement and then back to kathak took away from a sense of an integrated whole. Nevertheless, it is significant to endorse Mangaldas’s

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Figure 15 Aditi Mangaldas, Now Is (Photographer: Dinesh Khanna)

search on an artistic path into creating her own contemporary idiom where kathak continues to resonate. Daksha Sheth My contemporary work is based on the Indian traditions … incredible martial arts forms, incredible music, incredible resources of rhythm exist here and the new research on the rope has completely transformed our work to a different level. Lots of people in the West are doing rope work, but ours is unique because it has been evolved through the centuries …. We are doing what we are doing because we live in India. I don’t think

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we can create this kind of work anywhere else and always my resources will be from India.8 I have put in my 25 years of kathak training and 18 years of martial arts into the process of evolving my own style … my own language in dance. It is only after this kind of dedication and work that you can create something which is new and will last for a long time. (Daksha Sheth9) Daksha Sheth’s original choreography, inspired in part (similar to Mangaldas) by kathak guru Kumudini Lakhia, whose “innovative spirit has moved much beyond kathak in creating works that have stretched the boundaries of Indian dance” (dakshasheth.com). Uniquely, the Daksha Sheth Company bases itself away from metropolitan power centers like Delhi or Chennai, in a small village near Thiruvananthapuram, outside Trivandrum in Kerala. The company aims to combine Indian traditional movement arts, especially kalari martial arts (which Chandralekha also used with great originality), the martial arts cum dance style of chhau from the states of Orissa and West Bengal in eastern India, and mallakham (gymnastic work using hanging poles and ropes in aerial work) from Maharashtra in western India. The interdisciplinary combination of contemporary movements with Indian traditional arts including theatre, dance, and martial arts is a hallmark of Sheth’s style. Sheth was among the first female artists to study chhau with guru Shri Krishna Chandra Naik. The genre depicts stories from the Indian epics that highlight energetic rasas of valor and anger. Traditionally, only males performed chhau, even taking on female roles. The combination of kathak’s fluidity and lyricism with chhau’s strenuous virility marks Sheth’s choreography. Among three forms of chhau – Seraikella, Purulia and Mayurbhanj (each named after the regions where they originated), the first two use elaborately stylized masks to imitate the movements of animals and birds, sometimes deploying weapons like the sword and shield, whereas Mayurbanj chhau does not. Purulia chhau’s masked folk dancers depict the goddess Durga and her battle with the asura (demon). However, contemporary choreography such as Sheth’s borrows from the range of movements and postures of the mask-less Mayurbhanj form. Like Chandralekha, Sheth’s creativity roots itself in Indian traditional arts that she mines in her contemporary choreography. Just as Chandra made waves with her bold representations of the body’s sensuality and sexuality in her choreography, Sheth’s innovative work in kathak was “blacklisted” for years as traditionalists effectively rendered it invisible to the public.10 Sheth drew a lot of criticism for her daring career moves. “‘People said,’ notes Sheth, ‘“bandaria ka naach seekh rahi hai” [she is learning to dance like a monkey]. But I don’t care what people think of me.’”11 Like Chandra, Sheth’s

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stunningly innovative use of the body proved “shocking” to audiences. “I was told that it was like pornography [and] that I should be banned from the dance field. People write that my dancers wore langot (loin cloth) … After the first 4 shows at Khajurao, Mangalore and Bombay, we had to put the production [of Sarpagati, Snake Dance] on the shelf for 2 years, because nobody wanted to see us, nobody even wanted to call me for any shows. So, we were just doing our own work … We carry on with whatever we do, we believe in ourselves.”12 Ironically, an invitation from Germany to revive Sarpagati, where it was a huge success, led to invitations to perform it within India. Sheth’s experience resembles that of other artists like Deboo, who also suffered a lack of appreciation within India (see Chapter 2), and Ram Gopal, another early innovator who became a sensation outside India in the 1950s. Sheth and her composer husband Devissaro (from Australia) both recalled meeting Gopal in the 1980s when he spoke about his success at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in the 1950s. Later, in 2002, Sheth and Devissaro presented Sarpagati at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Another dancerly connection is worth noting, namely that Sheth’s guru Lakhia danced in the 1950s with Gopal in Europe. Sheth and Devissaro co-direct The Daksha Sheth Dance Company, and co-founded the charitable organization AARTI, the Academy for Arts Research, Training, and Innovation, in 1989. Devissaro is a musical composer trained in piano, Dhrupad vocal, and pakhwaj (percussion). He creates original

Figure 16 Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

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compositions for the company, and is also the visual director working on stage design, costumes, and lighting. Their daughter Isha Sharvani is the lead dancer and their son Tao Issari is a solo drummer. Together, Sheth and Devissaro have developed a vocabulary that “attempts to address contemporaneity in the ‘de-culturalised’ language of mind-body movement. It is not a pretty or ethnic embrace of self-conscious modernity.”13 This evokes a fascinating paradox: even as they do not aim to rely on external accoutrements like costumes and aharya (decoration) of traditional Indian dance, all their movement vocabularies are rooted in Indian tradition. And although they embrace Indianness in their art, they wish to draw attention to the potential of the physical body itself as a universal concept rather than grounded in a specific culture. Sheth is interested in creating a kind of universal body language that can appeal to audiences not knowledgeable about Indian arts. Simultaneously, her “desire” as she notes “to create (her) own dance form” is rooted in Indian “ritual, ceremonial, and folk forms.” In any case, her rootedness in Indian movement arts transcends narrow ethnic boundaries and appeals broadly on a bodily level to diverse audiences. In her pursuit of originality, she challenges herself and her dancers, most notably her principal dancer Isha Sharvani, “to push the limits of physicality in dance … to explore the most impossible things that the body is able to do.”14 The physicality of male and female dancers results in a strikingly bold sensuality, as exemplified in Sarpagati, which was inspired by snake worship in India, and drew upon rituals, myths, and symbolism connected to the snake. Popularly, the snake is associated with fertility and power. Tantric symbolism connects it to the kundalini energy that is believed to lie coiled at the base of the spine. Once awakened, the energy travels upward to activate the different chakras in the physical body. The three lower chakras “symbolized as the elements of Earth, Water and Fire … relate to three fundamental drives which form the basis of survival: the drive to accumulate, to procreate, and to dominate.” In Sarpagati, two bodies perform incredible gymnastic feats hanging on ropes, twirling with them, suspending themselves, and performing unusual movements. In one amazing move, Isha Sharvani sits on the mobile ropes in a padmasana or yogic lotus position (with the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot on the right thigh). Padmasana is usually done on the unmoving ground. Another fluid movement in Sarpagati shows the male and female while hanging on the ropes, also holding hands, moving towards one another, separating, and swaying back and forth. An evocative background is created via green lighting and ritualistic sounds. Sheth remarks that she likes to work with bharatanatyam-trained dancers who have “a good araimandi, because in the kind of dancing I do, I like squatting a lot. At the same time, when they join us, I train them in a different way … in yogasanas, gymnastics, and kalari. I don’t like dancers with too many long years of training in a particular form, because then they become so rigid. It is very difficult to undo what they have learnt. There’s a mental

Figure 17 Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

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block too … It was difficult for me too because I had 22 to 24 years of kathak training in my body.”15 The Company’s first full-length production, Yagna (Fire Sacrifice) was based on The Vedas (Hindu religious texts) for the 1992 Vivarta Festival in London. Yagna uses verses from the religious text, The Rig Veda, presenting a spectacular show of light and sound with vedic style chanting, a male chorus, and lively percussion led by Devissaro. BhuKham (The Dance of Earth, Body, and Sky) explores the interactions between earthy groundedness and the urge to fly and conquer space. The creative choreography skillfully uses the gymnastic tradition of mallakham that demands inordinate physical strength. India Today’s commentator was full of praise for “Esha Sharvani [as] the future face of contemporary Indian dance. Sinuous, supple and all of sixteen … (Isha) storms the Indian dance scene with an unconscious electric sensuality, she leaves her audiences gasping. Here is a vital versatility that can only be found in youth. She raises gymnastics to sheer art.”16 BhuKham was produced in association with Australia’s multimedia performance company skadada. Reviewer Arundhati Subramaniam in the mainstream Indian Express newspaper praised Sheth’s choreography in BhuKham highly for “tak(ing) Indian dance where it has never been before … Here, indeed, are all the elements of the circus that we have loved as children with an almost atavistic relish: the

Figure 18 Dancer Isha Sharvani in BhuKham, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro)

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thrill of anticipation, the sharp intake of breath at the sense of the dancer, the daring, the riveting physical skill, and the lingering feeling of awe at witnessing the human body pushing at the very limits of its endurance.”17 Another remarkable feature of this piece is that it combines emotional and thoughtful responses: as Kavita Srinivasa notes, “Daksha Sheth went beyond entertainment. She made the audience sit up and think.”18 And Londonbased Reginald Massey remarked: “Here was the laser-sharp cutting edge of creative graphy that drew its inspiration from ancient myth and powerful primordial ideas which, when analysed, were disturbingly contemporary … Sheth’s riveting choreography was pregnant with thought and vibrant with evocative body language.”19 Sheth’s company collaborated with London-based dance theatre company The Kosh to produce Falling Angels for which artists traveled to Trivandrum, rehearsed for seven weeks, and then performed across India in 1997–8. Postcards from God is a multimedia production inspired by Mumbai-based poet and visual artist Imtiaz Dharker who portrays strong and articulate Indian women. Postcards from God “deals with life in the slums or ‘juggis’ of Mumbai, but here the ‘juggi’ is a metaphor for our own lives; not quite whole, but made up of bits and pieces; cast-offs, leftovers from other lives, stitched together as best we can like a patchwork quilt. It deals with the fragility and the miracle of life, with love, hope, cynicism, and prejudice” (dakshasheth.com). Sheth based her choreography of Search for My Tongue on a poem by Sujata Bhatt who was educated in the United States and now lives in Germany. Both the poem and choreography express the conflicts of second-generation youth, who have “forgotten” their mother tongues that “have atrophied from disuse” (dakshasheth.com). The choreography recreates dreams and memories and links the youth searching for their identity to relatives in India. The poem evokes other broader issues, and has also been described “as a metaphor for Sheth’s own search for an independent dance identity and language.” Sheth does not identify a single signature style to describe her work; in this she is similar to Akram Khan, who refuses to identify one style for his contemporary hybrid choreography inspired partly by kathak along with other vocabularies (discussed in Chapter 6). Like Khan again, Sheth recognizes that hers is “an evolving dance vocabulary, and this evolution is the signature of my work. However eclectic my works appear, there is growth.” She has indeed, as she puts it herself, “stretched the boundaries of Indian dance, exploring a wide range of movement idioms, performing in diverse styles.”20

Innovations based on bharatanatyam Navtej Singh Johar Bharatanatyam became the trademark of India … the emblem of Indian culture. And the dancer became the ambassador of India … Then you are not dancing, you are not an artist … Bharatanatyam is not difficult to

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learn or adapt if you are pretty enough and rich enough. And the roundness that comes from internal landscapes has been kind of put aside. Just virtuosity. (Navtej Singh Johar21) Delhi-based Navtej Singh Johar has an intense love/hate connection to bharatanatyam. He trained at Kalakshetra from 1980 to 1985 when Athai (as Rukmini Devi was called) was still alive. “It was the best part of my life,” he notes in the same interview. “Kalakshetra is like an ashram, and the connections that you make with its space is unparalleled … But I also knew when I was at Kalakshetra that just doing sabdams and varnums might not be all that I would want to do.” Johar admits that he absolutely loves the bharatanatyam form “with its integrity … [and] its own intelligence,” but he does “not believe in thematic and fusion … (or) in combining bharatanatyam with something else … I am not into mixing.” Prior to studying bharatanatyam, Johar worked in street theatre. There, “although I liked the freedom the body has in the streets, I missed a certain lyricism … the lack of poetry … I was getting into abstraction and I also had a yearning for a sense of very subjective expression which would give me a spiritual (connection). I chose bharatanatyam because of its soulfulness” (Interview with Katrak). After Kalakshetra, Johar spent nine years in Michigan, working in modern dance with many companies. He asserted (in the same interview) that the history of modern dance in the West was a reaction to the classical that had become “a museum piece”; this does not pertain in the same way in India. “We cannot say that we are reacting to bharatanatyam. We don’t have that antagonism. It is a very problematic area” because both sides, traditional and contemporary, dig in their heels and become “judgmental” rather than being open to letting the art evolve. “We are actually trying,” he comments, “to apply a foreign paradigm to something indigenous and it doesn’t fit.” Johar thoroughly separates himself from India’s mainstream classical dance scene because he has grown both critical and distressed, passionately so, about bharatanatyam’s increasing commercialization. Hence, he works on the margins: I hate the way [classical bharatanatyam] is represented … The attitudes around [it] are absolutely defunct and putrid. And chauvinistic … there are so many conveyor-belt bharatanatyam dancers. The form lends itself to it … The attitudes that surround the form have become too mean that it can’t hold the beauty. They are too self-righteous, too self-conscious … The form has become cut to a very mean size. Abhinaya is India’s gift to the world. And yet, when I go to concerts people don’t have abhinaya – that beauty, that poetry, that lyricism, that sweetness, and that sadness.

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So I think that’s why contemporary [becomes attractive] not for the sake of contemporary but to find freedom within this very reality of what bharatanatyam has become. (Interview with Katrak) Johar routes his process of arriving at a contemporary idiom from bharatanatyam through yoga: “if I really begin to go down to the basics of bharatanatyam and begin to realize how the body is manipulated; if I can locate subtle pressure points in the body from where we exert and assert that identity of bharatanatyam. Identify those points and push the limits of those points. That’s what I am trying to do … It is a very organic thing. From yoga I am going to do bharatanatyam” (Interview with Katrak). He aims to create work where “the mood is bharatanatyam and the movement is contemporary.” Johar regards “choreography as a craft. Not an art. It is an outer eye that puts things together. I can say Chandralekha is a choreographer. I do not think Rukmini Devi called herself a choreographer. She was a director. I think choreography needs objective vision. It is distinctly different from [performing] … It has to be envisioned separately before you actually get into the performance. Space becomes very important [as do] lighting, sound, and movement. The links become very important. The transitions, how the energies flow (with groups)” (Interview with Katrak). Johar’s bharatanatyam performances are deeply devotional. He selects dance items that embody such affect; for instance, his dance to Dikshitar’s kriti addressing Madurai’s fish-eyed goddess Meenakshi that combines bharatanatyam with a modern representation of celebrating the goddess’ qualities. Johar’s movements, at times meditative, illuminate the Devi’s shakti and erotic power. Johar’s Fana’a: Ranjha Revisited, a collaborative work with Sufi singer Madan Gopal Singh (that I saw in New Delhi, 9 February 2006) uses North and South Indian vocal and instrumental artists together on stage. Johar and Gopal combine the Sufi love legend of Heer Ranjha from North India’s Punjab, with the South Indian story of Tamil Nadu called Kutrala Kuruvanji in which a gypsy foretells the fortune of the heroine Vasantvalli and her destined union with Lord Shiva. Despite its stunning music and moments of choreographic tour de force, the regional differences between North and South Indian movement and affect remained separate even though the artists attempted to bridge the divide. Nonetheless, I appreciated the intensity and the passion created by the music of cello and flute, North Indian Sufi sounds, and Carnatic solkettus.22 Mallika Sarabhai Bhratanatyam is like a banyan tree with great roots. You can bend it, turn it, do whatever you want, but its roots remain strong. And how many

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more love varnums can I do? I want to take dance further, to use it as a language, as an agent of change.23 In 2010 Mallika Sarabhai received the Padma Bhushan, the government of India’s highest honor of service to the nation; in her case, for her creative work in dance and theatre, and her use of art for projects aimed at gender equality and social justice in rural communities in Gujarat where she lives. In 2008 she won the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award. She has received other national and international recognition for her contributions to society for her art-based activism. Her journey into contemporary choreography has several roots – training in bharatanatyam and kuchipudi, martial arts, acting in film and theatre, as well as a doctorate in Organizational Behavior from Gujarat University and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad, her base. As an artist activist, Sarabhai believes in the power of art to transform society, and to inform “a critical mass of opinion, energy, of effective change to say enough to all that is wrong … To form a platform for people who care – care about people, about non-violence, about cruelty, about poverty, about injustice, about greed and deprivation” (mallikasarabhai.com). To fulfill these goals, Sarabhai creates socially relevant work with Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad that she has co-directed for the past 30 years with her mother, the prominent bharatanatyam dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai. Through Darpana Academy as well as other branches of the company such as Darpana for Development, Darpana Communications, and the Folk and Tribal Dance Company, Mallika exposes many crucial societal issues – limited gender roles for rural and urban Indian women, maternal health, and the environment among others. Her innovative work contributes significantly to both the form of contemporary choreography at the intersection of Indian dance and dance theatre traditions and its content vis-à-vis social and gender issues. Mallika’s mother, Mrinalini is an incredible model for Mallika to follow. A pioneer of her time, she used bharatanatyam vocabulary not only for creating traditional devotional items but also for developing a creative choreography that depicts social themes such as bride burning (connected to dowry) and environmental pollution. Mallika danced in some of her mother’s compositions, and through them gradually developed her own contemporary style. In addition to traditional dance, she draws prominently on theatre techniques and everyday gestures in stylized ways, as exemplified in her work Mean Streets on Earth (1992) depicting the violence faced in daily life. Mallika is a multi-talented performer who uses her powerful voice for story-telling, acting, and dancing. She was selected to play Draupadi in Peter Brook’s legendary theatrical representation of The Mahabharata, which toured for five years (1984–9), first in French and then English, in France, North America, Australia, and Japan. As with other female figures in the epics, even submissive or silent (under patriarchal domination) characters

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Figure 19 Devi, Mallika Sarabhai’s choreography (Photographer: Yadavan Chandran)

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can be played with different emphases to reveal their strength and agency. Dance commentator, Aditi Tandon remarks: “To Mallika, Draupadi remains the perfect feminist.”24 Mallika notes in the same article that Draupadi “is the only woman in our mythology whom men could not reduce to a goddess because she was just so strong. They could not limit her to the altar. She was courageous enough to tell Yudhisthira: ‘You may be a great man, but you’re a weak man.’ I respect her for that.” Mallika recounts her experience of being approached by Peter Brook for an audition to play Draupadi (www.mallikasarabhai.com). At the time, she did not speak French and “had never been on the professional stage as an actress, but yes, (she) had done many films.” Mallika got the part, followed by “several anguished months of indecision, the worst sense of being torn apart I have every felt.” She recounts that her “first shock and battle” was over Brook’s interpretation of Draupadi. For Mallika, Draudapi, her “favorite Shakti woman was being reduced to a wimp!” Mallika also found Brook’s style of working cold and distanced, without much encouragement. “Month after month of frustration that nothing I seemed to do was any good. Then a breakthrough – not through him [Brook] or from him but from audiences at the previews. Another year of working, performing, rehearsing.” Despite these difficulties, Mallika considers what she learnt from Brook to be “pivotal”: He pushed me into introspection, into learning how to garner all my intellectual faculties to argue my point, to make a winning defense of my point of view. He stripped me of false vanity and modesty … He taught me to peel away at the skin of a character like an onion till you reach the nothingness which is the essence. And he pushed me into putting my entire being, publicly, where I put my mouth. Everything I have done since, in the field of performance, took root from those years of having to fight for my right to say what was right. Draupadi remains an icon of Indian womanhood and inspires continuing contemporary depictions, as in a recent plan reported in Mumbai Mirror by filmmaker Subhash Jha, who “plans to make an international film with an international cast of The Mahabharata” (22 June 2010). Jha’s choice of actress to play Draupadi is the talented Indian film actress Madhuri Dixit. Another contender is the American Angelina Jolie, an idea that has created a negative buzz in terms of her ability to play an Indian woman. Mallika Sarabhai’s own portrayal of Draupadi in her dance-drama, In Search of the Goddess, makes Draupadi question her marriage to five husbands as in the epic: “shared by five, a commodity in the marketplace?” This experience of playing Draupadi and touring across the world with Brook’s production made Mallika realize as she remarks in the article by Aditi Tandon that “the best language for activism was artistic expression.

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With this language … I started telling social realities through dance theatre” (The Tribune, 13 October 2007). Sarabhai embarked on several feministthemed dance cum theatre productions. “With Shakti – The Power of Women (1989),” remarks Tandon in the same article, Mallika “had arrived on the Contemporary Indian dance scene. Her ability to write her own works, transcend tradition, and employ idioms like martial arts to project human longing lent her the edge that still sets her apart.” Sita’s Daughters (1990) transforms this iconic female figure of The Ramayana from Rama’s silently suffering wife to one who openly and disarmingly rejects her oppression. Sarabhai performed Sita’s Daughters all over India – in slums, cities, as well as in Britain and the United States. Sarabhai wrote the script based on Harsh Mander’s book entitled Unheard Voices for a musical theatre work (2006) that showcases some of India’s teeming millions, the silent population of marginalized and undesirables such as beggars and child laborers. In five monologues, the lives, struggles, and triumphs of these ordinary people are staged. Sarabhai’s rural work where she uses her artistic talents to address issues of social change has resulted in many unique projects. She takes her Darpana

Figure 20 Rural Health Project, Darpana with Mallika Sarabhai (Photographer: Jignesh Patel)

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performers to villages where they train traditional artists and rural people. Art is a powerful tool to raise awareness on many issues. These projects interact with local people who are involved and invested in creating a better future for their communities. In her talk, “Dance to Change the World,” Sarabhai discussed and performed the power of art as a tool for social transformation.25 She worked with Darpana and local actors to create a drama with music and drumming to convey a simple idea that could potentially save millions of lives from drinking dirty water. The idea used by WHO was to use a clean cotton garment folded eight times to catch dirt. The Acting Healthy Project (2008) “used local tribal youth from the Chhota Udaipur region of Gujarat and trained them as actor activists [who could educate women on] how to avoid maternal deaths and infant deaths amongst the very deprived communities in thirty villages. The project was supported by ArtVenture, Singapore” (mallikasarabhai.com). Sarabhai’s key role in other UNICEF-funded projects has trained rural youth to communicate messages about health and hygiene, prenatal and postnatal health, and AIDS awareness. She told her educated, industrialist-based audience of TED fellows in the same talk, “Dance to Change the World,” that in order to work towards a better world we must “treat art not as a cherry on the cake but as yeast,” and “to use the arts” alongside economic development schemes. Sarabhai’s social awareness agenda includes her work as co-director and actor in Arvind Gaur’s Jite Bhi Hein (We Also Live, 2009) that explores the difficult living and working conditions of Indian laborers in Dubai. She also acted in Bertolt Brecht’s Good Woman of Szechuan that was adapted to Hindi and directed by Arvind Gaur for the 34th Vikram Sarabhai International Art Festival. (Vikram Sarabhai was Mallika’s well-known scientist father who played a formative role in India’s burgeoning space program and who died when she was 17.) Sarabhai and her husband Bipin Shah co-founded Mapin Publishing, which they continued to operate after their divorce. Mapin has published several volumes on India’s heritage of fabrics and about other aspects of folk culture. Their son and daughter are up and coming classical dancers. Sarabhai recently stood for local elections in Gujurat’s Gandhinagar district against an old-timer of the Bharatiya Janata Dal (BJP), the Party that espouses fundamentalist Hinduism and holds power in the state. Sarabhai has been personally targeted because she spoke openly against the government of Narendra Modi during and after the 2002 genocide of Muslims in Gujarat. Sarabhai had the courage to file a petition in the Supreme Court asking for the Central Bureau of Investigations to investigate the riots. There were open efforts to discredit her, and her passport was impounded.26 She remains an important voice both in her immediate locale of the state of Gujarat along with her more national and international profile as a feminist activist performing artist.

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Lata Pada My personal vision of dance is continually inspired by tradition. Tradition is the cornerstone for the creation and practice of my art. Simultaneously, my work needs to be relevant and accessible to contemporary audiences. My dance is Indian in technique and universal in context … In presenting Bharatanatyam in a modern, more relevant context, I am communicating to new audiences the universal nature of this dance tradition while simultaneously nurturing the integrity of technique and aesthetics. (Lata Pada27) Lata Pada is a bharatanatyam artist based in Mississauga, Canada. She is the first South Asian artist to be appointed in 2008 to the prestigious Order of Canada. Pada is the Artistic Director of the Sampradaya Dance Company (1980) and Sampradaya Dance Creations (1990). “Sampradaya” (in Sanskrit) meaning “tradition” forms the bedrock of Pada’s work. Her position is similar to Mangaldas’s – both find continuities between Indian traditional dance and their use of contemporary idioms. Pada remarks, “I have always felt that contemporary dance is but part of a continuum of centuries of an evolving tradition. I do not always see the dichotomy in classical and contemporary; the polarity does not exist in my artistic vision. Tradition does not imply stasis; it is a dynamic and vibrant response to changing trends and realities of the society within which it exists. I honour and celebrate the classicism of Bharatanatyam, it is the touchstone that I will be inspired by in my search for new meaning in my dance.”28 Pada believes strongly that bharatanatyam is a world art form that has contemporary relevance. Pada’s noteworthy contemporary work with Sampradaya Dance Creations innovates by engaging thoughtfully with bharatanatyam that can speak to an audience’s imagination and that can also inspire change in society. Sampradaya’s work “reflects the hybridism of our lives and transcends the borders of culture, religion, and ethnicity” (sampradaya.ca). While acknowledging its base in bharatanatyam, Sampradaya is recognized for its “versatility and strength in its diverse innovative inter-cultural works.”29 Sampradaya’s diverse repertoire asserts its “classically contemporary” vision;30 a “mystical merger of traditions, past and present.”31 Pada’s distinctive style has been characterized on narthaki.com as “Classicism with an individual stamp of creativity” (May 2001). With Sampradaya Dance Creations, Pada plays a significant role in making South Asian dance in Canada increasingly part of the mainstream, featured in dance festivals and “rapidly gaining recognition with funding agencies, nationally and regionally (in Canada). There is a growing thrust towards applying the highest professional standards to our productions,” remarks Pada, “working with collaborators of acclaim.”32 Pada’s deeply moving, autobiographical work Revealed by Fire (2001) includes “universal themes of loss and grief … [and] the power of art to transform,

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especially post-9/11,” comments Pada.33 In “Dancing to Transform,” Pada comments on the use of the fire icon – both destructive and creative – in her choreography. Fire consumed the airplane carrying her family and, “when faced with catastrophic loss,” she remarks, “there are two roads – to be destroyed by the fire or to allow it to reveal our hidden core of strength and identity.”34 The work is described as “a tale of indomitable courage told with sterling honesty and integrity … The dance language pushes the frontiers of Bharatanatyam to its outer limits.”35 The latter is accomplished by transforming the non-verbal gesture language of bharatanatyam into movement mingled with spoken word and theatrical repetitions of lines such as “It was an ordinary day. I was rehearsing. The phone rang…” One writer remarked that the company’s use of technology such as video and photography sets a vibrant example “bound to lead to other attempts in India to marry technology and live performances.”36 This has indeed been proven true in the increasing use of technology in performance. For Pada herself, including theatrical tools such as voice along with dance “was an exciting extension of [her] choreographic vision” (Interview, narthaki.com, May 2001). The effective visual design by Cylia von Tiedeman used digitally mastered family images and textiles lit by images of intense flickering flames. The technological tools added a significant dimension to the double meaning of the word “revealed” in the title of the work – video iconography of fire evoked the awful deaths during that mid-air plane’s explosion. “Revealed” also conveys a paradoxical un-revealing since the fire consumed everyone on that ill-fated flight. Revealed by Fire made Pada face “several issues of womanhood and identity” that she had to resolve. “The work was not about the telling of a tragic story. It was more importantly about the transformation and the catharsis that I underwent in searching for my identity as a woman. Emerging from the artistic test has given me a new sense of self, it has also convinced me of the importance of creating works that come from a deeply personal source, it is what connects and transforms the audience with one’s work in the most intimate way … (transforming) bereavement into renewal” (Interview, narthaki.com, May 2001). Pada’s shunya explores, in her own words, “the paradox of zero and infinity at the same time.” The choreography uses bharatanatyam and kathak with contemporary tropes in costume, water sounds, circling movements that come across as balletic pirouettes and kathak chakars. This work in its representation of abstract concepts of zero, space, and infinity is reminiscent of Aditi Mangaldas’s Timeless that delved into dancerly depictions of notions of time. A collaborative work entitled, B2 (pronounced “B-squared”) between Sampradaya Dance Creations and Ballet Jorgen explores the movement confluences shared by ballet and bharatanatyam – as in the plié – as well as differences such as ballet’s soft arm positions in contrast to stiffly held bow-shaped arms with elbows raised in bharatanatyam, and of course toe shoes versus bare feet. In B2, both forms retain their distinctive idioms

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Figure 21 B2 with Shruti Javali and Ballet Jorgen, Lata Pada choreographer (Photographer: Masna)

“without attempting fusion”; rather, the work creates “a striking dialogue” between the two forms through movement.37 Sampradaya, under Pada’s artistic vision has worked interculturally, linking different dance forms such as bharatanatyam and flamenco in a piece called Apart Yet Together. Such successful synergy of merging a variety of movement forms from different nations and cultures showcased in Canada is noteworthy.

PART II EMERGING CHOREOGRAPHERS A journey of discovery: personal language/s in Contemporary Indian Dance Bangalore-based Mayuri Upadhya A significant feature of emerging choreographers is their verbal articulation and thoughtful discussion of their creative processes, their willingness to engage openly with the challenges of producing new work in their

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locations (tradition-bound or not), and cultivating audiences. Bangalorebased Nritarutya, co-founded (2000) by Mayuri Upadhya, artistic director, and principal choreographer Sathyanarayan “create a personal language in dance which is all their own.”38 Nritarutya’s booklet entitled Reflections … on Dance poses thoughtful questions: What is Contemporary Dance? How can classical techniques be adapted into contemporary dance? What is the importance of dance to society? Is dance less than a career but “more of a vocation” quoting Shobana Jeyasingh (in the booklet), or “dance as a calling” quoting Anita Ratnam? “Dance-art is not a mirror to hold up to reality, it is sometimes, as Brecht has said, a hammer with which to shape it. As the great Indian seer Sri Aurobindo once said, it is only the artist in the new era who has the power to see truth with ‘violent clarity.’” Nritarutya, like STEM (discussed earlier in this chapter) also uses dance with street children, incorporating movement as part of an agenda of social justice. Their name, Nritarutya, combines the words nrrta (dance) and rutya (tree branches) representing the different movement vocabularies of ensemble members. Sathyanarayan is trained in kathak, martial arts, chhau, modern dance, tae-kwon-do, and a number of Western movement forms including modern dance, salsa, tango, mambo, jive, waltz, and Broadway styles of dance. Mayuri is trained by Chennai-based Indira Kadambi in bharatanatyam and also studied kathak, yoga, and folk dance from Karnataka (a state in Southern India). She combines fine arts and visual arts in her dance movement choreography, as evident in Silence, Five Minutes with my Inner Self, Push Me, and What do Puppets do? “In my work,” notes Mayuri, “the attempt is to create encounters and moments of intersection. In my art, collaboration is of primary importance.” In her links with visual artists, musicians, and poets, Mayuri regards herself “as an artist who crosses boundaries.” Among Nritarutya’s productions, Aseema: Beyond Boundaries, performed in Singapore (2005), combines Indian dance rhythms and stunning visual images in the choreography. Prayog (2001) pays “homage to creativity and deciphering the world from an artist’s perspective where the dancers are within an imaginary circle and they dance within a maze of ropes depicting the phases of life; Between Lines is a sequence comprising dancers defying gravity, suspending themselves on ropes.” A series of Dance Sequences include “Earth,” where movement is earth-bound, “an exploration of primal movement,” “Foot Notes,” “an adaptation of folk-dance formations in a more elaborate, contemporary design,” and “Ardhanareshwara,” which depicts the coming together of masculine and feminine energies to create shakti. What do Puppets Do? presents a sequence that questions the thin line between reality and illusion. Chennai-based Preethi Athreya Preethi Athreya, trained in bharatanatyam with the Dhananjayans, works on creating her own style of Contemporary Indian Dance. Athreya danced

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with Padmini Chettur’s group for six years (1999–2005), then branched out to choreograph her own work. She acknowledges the difficulty of living in Chennai where people consider bharatanatyam as supreme, “almost divine,” leaving little scope in which to discuss experimental work. This environment differs from the West, notes Athreya, where there is “no confusion” and classical and other forms co-exist. But in India, the issues get mixed up and it becomes difficult to debate the “mixtures” as they are evolving. Athreya makes a plea, especially in tradition-bound Chennai, to allow discussion and development of different artistic endeavors, and creative processes apart from the classical. Athreya remarked that she begins her choreographic process with a basic movement motif such as a squat and then explores how to move within that.39 How far can the movement go? Through this exploration, a movement structure begins to suggest itself. The movement itself, she notes, “imposes a boundary.” The speed, weight and other features of the body then grow out of the movement. In this process, the spine is central. Hand movements remain minimal. As the movement evolves, a time-cycle floats into the mover’s consciousness, such as a seven-beat cycle. Athreya works only with a metronome that sounds the beats so as not to be distracted by any of the emotional depth, mood, or general affect that would arise from within one’s subconscious hearing Indian classical or folk music. Athreya noted the challenge she faced in finding a composer who would be willing to look at a dance’s movement and then develop music from that. She deliberately avoids using a familiar song that would distract the audience away from focus on the body. “Music is the sound of the body on the floor,” she remarks. Even silence is part of sound. In her choreographic process, Athreya does not focus on a theme or a concept as a base; rather, she relies on body movement. It is problematic that bharatanatyam remains on a pedestal, hence evaluations of dance flow from that perspective, making it difficult to understand why one choreographer is considered “good” and another one not. Not everything is in The Mahabharata, she remarks. Athreya urges others to “celebrate ordinariness or even ugliness” and to “get away from imitation” (Interview with Katrak). Like other Contemporary Indian Dancers, Athreya focuses on her “intention” in creating a movement; she wants self-consciously to deconstruct each movement. Often, such work is more appreciated outside India. She believes that Indian contemporary artists must develop their own language and not simply borrow from Western modern dance, such as imitating floor movement; they must mix forms to create a new hybrid language instead. She echoes Astad Deboo’s call to create an “Indian Contemporary Dance form” distinctive from contemporary dance in the West. Athreya’s MA in Dance Studies from Laban Choreological Studies includes “four perspectives: experiencing, experimenting, documenting,

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and analyzing.”40 This encouraged her to plunge deeply into the interrelationships between movement and space: “Space is a hidden feature of movement and movement is a visible aspect of space.” She also explores the connections between Laban’s naming of certain movement lines and dynamics and Indian nomenclature, such as “lasya, laya, manodharma, rasa” for example. Athreya was also influenced by William Forsyth’s improvisational techniques, “a method of ‘writing’ dance or ‘inscribing’ spatial forms in the kinesphere of the body.” Athreya explored the “transaction between space, sound, and action” via a visual recording in order to understand “the choreographic intention.” She notes: The issues underpinning my work have a lot to do with where does performance begin and end … what are the relationships between sound and space, how does sound amplify or diminish space, how does architecture overcome the limits history has set for it, in what ways does the moving body, its mirror reflection and its shadow affect the space in the frame of the viewer, are these various ways of representing the body synonymous with each other etc.41 Athreya’s contemporary piece, Inhabit: 3 Solos (2006) was received positively by the local press: “Those who say contemporary traditional bharatanatyam is cosmetic and designed more for projection of the dancer than the dance must witness Preethi Athreya’s dance. There is a touching gentleness in her dance, a completely internalized, totally selfless giving of dance.”42 In Porcelain (2007), Athreya creates movement that interacts with photographs of porcelain art by Walter Stumer and music by Tobias Stumer. She explores the paradox, namely that porcelain can resist very high temperature and yet is extremely fragile. The play of light and shadow along with her figure silhouetted on the backdrop in performance is striking. In Pillar to Post (2007), again, Athreya’s choreography moves in between sculptural pieces on stage made by Valsan Kolleri (from the laterite rock of his native village in Kerala). Athreya explores interactions with objects and their relationship with her body and space. Although abstract, she attempts to somehow dialogue with the visual design and the music. In 2002, Athreya worked with Chennai-based Anita Ratnam in “Silent Scream: AIDS, Youth and Women,” commissioned by DESH (the Deepam Educational Society for Health). The piece sought to bring the dangers of AIDS and the important social issues surrounding it to light using dance, movement, and verbal content. Art and activism joined hands in this project. Nirmala Sheshadri Another emerging contemporary choreographer-dancer with a Chennai connection is Nirmala Sheshadri who grew up in Singapore, training in bharatanatyam with Santa Bhaskar (in the Kalakshetra style). Nirmala is

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interested in “cross-cultural and multidisciplinary exploration in dance.” She is active on the Singapore dance scene, serving on the Arts Resource Panel, and has received the Singapore National Arts Council’s “Young Artist Award.” One of her contemporary works, Crossroads, that I saw at Kalakshetra (22 October 2005), co-choreographed with bharatanatyam dancer Neewin Hershell, describes the choreographic journey as a “coming together of two dancers, one from Singapore, the other from Kerala, meeting in Chennai.” The piece played with subtle changes to traditional bharatanatyam through its exploration of the human body, male and female energies and their synergy, even though each is distinctive. Crossroads also blended movement with poetry, voice-over script with visuals, and the portrayal of “human emotions and angst through mathematical forms. The eternal journey of differences, joinings. Of meetings and partings” (Program Notes). Nirmala’s embrace of Contemporary Indian Dance began with a realization, a gut-level feeling of alienation from performing yet another margam after having done several performances in traditional bharatanatyam – a sentiment echoed by other artists such as Anusha Lall (discussed below), and Anita Ratnam (Chapter 4).43 Nirmala noted to me that it took a lot of soul-searching. She made a major decision to cut her hair and wear it short on stage; however, she mentioned that she would keep a braid hairpiece handy in case she felt that she absolutely had to appear “traditional” in certain venues. Other artists like Mallika Sarabhai and Natasha Bakht (Chapter 5) also wear their hair short. Interestingly, most Contemporary Indian Dancers (of Indian ancestry) keep their hair long and wear it styled or in a braid rather than obviously short. This does not seem to be a major concern for dancers of other ethnicities who dance in companies such as Hari Krishnan’s InDance (Toronto). Long hair is a mark of both femininity and female sexuality in most cultures. Indian traditional dance showcases visibly long hair pulled away from the face so that the expressions are clearly visible, either in a braid, or an attached braid if the dancer’s hair is relatively short. The dancer plays with the braid in amorous scenes symbolizing eroticism, or in abhinaya sequences, she decorates her hair with flowers. At times, traditional dancers wear their hair pulled back into a bun. Most India-based Contemporary Indian Dancers with a background in traditional Indian dance continue to wear their hair pulled away from the face, if not in a braid, then tied back, even if it is only shoulder high. As a contrast, diaspora-based Contemporary Indian Dancers draw attention to their hair by wearing it short (there are exceptions such as Mallika Sarabhai in India), or wearing it down, flowing around the face, even deliberately covering the face, or moving with the face sideways, backwards, or forwards, all creating a different effect than in traditional Indian dance. In these cases, the audience’s attention is drawn deliberately away from the face to the full body. Nirmala Sheshadri’s Outcaste Eternal (1999) is a dance-theatre piece based on a true story of the sexual revenge that a sexually abused woman takes

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on an entire community, forcing it to address its sexist and rigid norms. Nirmala begins the piece by narrating details of the unfair judicial system, where a sexually abused woman hardly gets justice since her perpetrators, especially if they are upper-caste Brahmins, get off scot-free. In this true story set in 1900s Kerala, Paptikutty was 14 when, on her wedding night, she was raped by her brother-in-law while her husband kept guard at the door. Later, Paptikutty exerted revenge by seducing 64 upper-caste men, keeping proof of their illicit liaisons. She exposed them publicly, leading to their punishment. Nirmala revived this piece as a solo dance performance in 2007 and 2009. In Then and Now: Personal and Artistic Reflections” (2003, revived in 2009), Nirmala plays with the past, the memory of her bharatanatyam margam performances, and the present when she experiments with choreography and different media, especially poetry and visual art. She juxtaposes dance with orchestral music, poetry, and painting by Singapore’s most renowned multidisciplinary artist, Tan Swie Hian. Nirmala’s collaborative spirit makes her contemporary work vibrant and enables her to keep pushing the boundaries of her bharatanatyam training. Nirmala is a thoughtful artist who explores what a dancer can say with traditional ragas (different musical scales) and how they can be stretched to convey a different impact as in her participation in Raga Mandala, which Krishnaveni Lakshmanan (a former principal of Kalakshetra) choreographed. Reviewers described it as “a dance-dialogue with a difference. It seeks to explore the concept of Raga and Mandala at three levels – physical, emotional, and spiritual to highlight an all-pervading Asian worldview, at once enriching and ennobling, even as it journeys through the process of creation at the gross, subtle, and causal levels … [The piece evokes] many sacred paths … (that lead to) discovering one’s own sacred centre space.”44 Different vocabularies were woven into the production – classical Indian dance, and spoken dialogues in English. Nrityagram-based Neewin Hershell Neewin Hershell (who danced with Nirmala in Crossroads) is based at Nrityagram, “a dance village” outside Bangalore established in 1990 by the late visionary artist Protima Gauri as a place to nurture Indian classical dance in a gurukul setting. Students at Nrityagram train in yoga, martial arts, creative movement, study of Sanskrit, mythology, and mime. Nrityagram also inculcates “an understanding of the inter-relatedness of all arts and physical traditions, not only of India, but also of other countries” (nrityagram.org). I traveled 35 kilometers from Bangalore to Nrityagram, tucked away off the main road, an idyllic natural setting where I met Neewin who teaches bharatanatyam, even though the school focuses on odissi, and the group travels extensively in India and abroad. Neewin spoke of many personal struggles to attain his goal of being a professional dancer

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given his economically modest background. He had worked for a few years with Anita Ratnam’s Arangham group and that had benefited him greatly. He danced in Ratnam’s choreographed work Gajanana. Anita supported her dancers by treating them professionally and was the first to pay dancers for rehearsal time, a practice criticized by other dancer teachers. Chennai-based Aniruddhan Vasudevan Aniruddhan Vasudevan’s personal exploration in Indian dance is noteworthy for his collaborative spirit, an esprit that I have observed among this young generation (in their thirties) both in India and the diaspora. Aniruddhan is willing to work with dancers from different bharatanatyam schools, bringing together distinct signature styles developed by an individual guru or institution, a practice that would have been frowned upon some years back. In Chennai, the institution Narada Gana Sabha fosters innovations from within tradition, such as re-telling Indian epics and folktales presented at the “Natyarangam” festival each September. Aniruddhan trained in bharatanatyam with Chitra Visweswaran who encouraged both creativity and collaboration among her students (Interview with Katrak, February 2006). He has also danced for nine years, beginning in 1995, with the “rich Telugu dance-drama tradition” of Bhagvata Mela. In 2003, he had a “milestone experience” with Sreelatha Vinod, a senior artist, when he danced in Silpadikaaram, a prominent Tamil classic dance-drama. Another turning point in Aniruddhan’s career arrived with his own dance composition of musician Lalgudi Jayaraman’s Chakuresi varnum. This is a bhakti-sringara piece about Krishna, usually performed by female dancers. Vasudevan interprets it differently with dimensions of male desire and homoeroticism. “There is no acknowledgment of male desire” in conservative Chennai, he notes,. In any case, he performed this varnum in Midnapore for Kolkata-based Anasuya Bannerjee who works with rural children. She told Vasudevan to “bring a varnum. I want them to see a proper, proper varnum.” His execution was technically impeccable. Although he was nervous about presenting the homoerotic dimension, somehow that emphasis on male desire “flowed” in the performance. “I did it without theorizing on it” remarks Aniruddhan. “When I finished doing it, I realized I had effected a whole new interpretation. I felt I had queered the piece. Some of them (audience members) noticed” (Interview with Katrak). Aniruddhan wants to “protect and safeguard it (that experience). Push the frontiers of it a little bit more … I prefer subtlety … manipulating those slippages (between sringara expressed for a human of a certain gender, or for a deity), and just suggesting an interpretation and leaving it there. Just doing it … you know you have done it. You know you have completely changed something. You do not have to state it” (Interview with Katrak). Aniruddhan has also chosen, as he noted in the same interview with Katrak, to explore another trajectory through the “queer readings of texts” – a bold

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move in sacrosanct bharatanatyam spaces like Chennai that would more readily accept changes such as modern dance intertwined with bharatanatyam than the representation of male desire using bharatanatyam. However, this does not prevent an artist like Aniruddhan from reinterpreting traditional lyrics in homoerotic directions. Even in the past, Indian male dancers of traditional styles, if homosexual (and this would not be discussed publicly), would remain closeted; they would not openly portray female or male homosexual desire. This is very different in diaspora locations such as Hari Krishnan’s Contemporary Indian Dance wherein male desire is represented openly, and gender identities and stereotypes are vibrantly challenged (Chapter 4). In Aniruddhan’s case, such openness is difficult in the Indian context. Nonetheless, he asserts a progressive political standpoint by investigating homoeroticism in reinterpreting bharatanatyam lyrics. It is significant to recognize this as an important first step, even though it is subtle and may not always be “read” or “admitted” by a conservative Chennai audience conditioned to appreciate only heterosexual desire in bharatanatyam lyrics. Although Aniruddhan’s attempts to bring in homoerotic readings into traditional bharatanatyam may receive more overt recognition from diaspora audiences, for the time being, he pursues a more modest goal by expressing male desire discretely within the bharatanatyam format. New Delhi’s Anusha Lall and the Gati Dance Forum Anusha Lall’s innovative choreography in Tilt draws from her training in bharatanatyam and pushes the form in new directions through her uses of space, computer-generated images, and eclectic soundscape. Tilt is described as “an exploratory work, a starting point [towards] discover[ing] fresh dynamics and creat[ing] new perspectives.”45 The work’s structure is derived broadly from the tillana and builds in a similar way from the “mayyi adavus, leading into the dynamic flourishes of the travelling tatai tat adavu, and ending with a dedication” (Program Notes). Three female and one male dancer wear non-expressive faces (as in modern dance) and dress in loose salwars and fitted tops. The females wear sparkling silver paint visibly on their lower arms that do not make sounds as traditional bangles would. The soundscape is a mélange of African bongo drums, new-age tones, didgeridoos that convey rain, guttural echoes, and the mridangam. Music and movement are deliberately not synchronized; only the mridangam accompanies a nrtta sequence that repeats itself as a choreographic motif that marks various directions, as the dancers move sideways and diagonally creatively covering space. The abstract movements break bharatanatyam’s symmetrical lines intentionally. Dancers cup hands in a repeated gesture instead of forming mudras. When two dancers move, the others stand and observe with expressionless faces. Bodies move up and down, on toes, or stamp the ground. The four dancers do not really come together; rather each performs his or her

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movement. Casual walking follows energetic stamping. At the Max Mueller Theatre, where they performed, the audience sat on two sides while the musicians sat in the front. The dancers’ gaze seemed paradoxically both turned inward and staring into space, but not directed to the audience. Tilt is an exercise in movement that pointedly eschews expression, emotion, or any distraction through traditional bharatanatyam’s abhinaya or aharya. The attention is held on the spare movements and on body-lines and muscles. Computer-generated images effectively reflected from the floor upward into the dancers’ faces as they moved. Abstract patterns via computer graphics were projected on the floor with images of sky and clouds even as discolike colors and lights swept across the theater. A variety of shifting patterns covered the floor in a grid-like pattern, and then a tidy rectangle appeared alongside vertical and horizontal lines. Lall’s personal dance journey developed from early training in bharatanatyam with Leela Samson, performances with Samson’s dance company Spanda, and onto her contemporary innovative work.46 Lall noted that in 1998, she literally woke up one day and felt that she could not dance classical bharatanatyam anymore. She felt alienated (like Navtej Singh Johar) with what was happening to the form in its stage presentation. So, she began to question, and in doing so recognized her own ambivalent connection to dance. Her MA in Art History took her to England; staying on after her degree, she studied with Shobana Jeyasingh. Anusha described her experience performing contemporary dance for one year as “more an experience of unlearning” than learning. After returning to India, she did not want to return to bharatanatyam, nor did she want to undertake “fusion dance.” She was looking for another way. She worked with Attakalari Center for Movement Arts in Bangalore on a research project that explored questions about bharatanatyam’s form and expression. She wanted to somehow “appropriate bharatanatyam from the inside.” Increasingly Anusha began to approach the form itself and to find ways of modulating it, in order to explore its dynamics and rhythmic possibilities. Anusha noted: “every form has an imagination associated with it” (Interview with Katrak). She wanted to explore “if the form of bharatanatyam could be played with, altered, without breaking that imaginary of the form.” Questions such as “how much deviation” from the set bodylines would work? Would a change of position for the elbow or the head contribute to this kind of refashioning? If a lot is changed then referencing the form would be lost and there would be a break from it. So, for instance, in Tilt, the use of the arms definitely reference bharatanatyam, although the movements were slow and continuous rather than adhering to the traditional sequence from nrtta to abhinaya. Lall noted another method of working: “playing with energy” and observing how the body moves in space, tropes used by pioneer Chandralekha, and other Contemporary Indian Dancers. The exploration of the shift

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between holding the body still, then bending and tilting it contributed to Tilt’s choreography. Among four bodies, none occupied centre stage. Rather, they were all at an angle (“tilted”) from the audience, thus breaking the frontal view common in traditional Indian dance. The audience sat close to the dancers on terraces of bleacher-type seats from floor level upwards. In 2007, Anusha took the initiative to form an organization named “Gati Dance: Performance, Practice, Research.” The inspiration for this arose “from an acutely felt need by independent dancers in the city [New Delhi] for a space for interaction, exchange and interrogation with respect to their work processes and creative concerns” (gatidance.com). The organization provides artists the opportunity to learn new movement techniques and to be part of a community where they could “situate their work and allow it to grow.” Gati also aims to document and archive established and emerging practitioners, especially “the evolution of new languages through innovation and experimentation in the context of existing dance practices in India” (gatidance.com). Critical writing on dance that engages with contemporary concerns is also encouraged. Gati’s Summer Residency Program selects dancers (on a competitive basis) who work with mentors to develop choreographic strategies and skills, showcasing completed works at the end of the residency. In 2009, the final performance, called “All Warmed Up,” included Swati Mohan’s “Doha” based on a couplet by Kabir, “Excess” by Manola Gayatri, and other works. Three different specialists – dancer Navtej Singh Johar, drama specialist Maya Krishna Rao, theatre director and lighting designer Zuleikha Chaudhari – mentored each participant.47 Lall admitted that there remains “a big hole” in locating mentors, since established artists are not always willing to guide young artists along an exploratory path. Lall remarked that we need “new ways of transmitting information.” Gati Summer 2010 Dance Residency had three emerging choreographers who would “develop their choreographic skills and build a working methodology for dance creation” (gatidance.com). Gati’s first dance festival, “Ignite! Festival of Contemporary Dance” slated for 10–13 November 2010, included high-profile artists, like the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, as well as dancers who live in India, like Padmini Chettur and Navtej Singh Johar. This festival like Chennai’s The Other Festival (co-curated by Anita Ratnam, discussed in Chapter 4) makes significant space for contemporary dancers to present their work within India. Lall would like “to begin to create a methodology for addressing traditional forms and making them more accessible to change; to make a basic vocabulary that retains certain elements of traditional forms and discards others while retaining the essential flavor and elasticity of the form” (Interview with Katrak). Gati addresses what Lall describes as an “unspoken yearning for the Western aesthetic and the Western body as presented in

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contemporary dance” by offering classes in contemporary movement techniques. Of course, one needs to retain “integrity to one’s own art” and not sell out for the sake of newness. Lall believes that her education in dance “was incomplete” because the student receives the technique and an entire worldview without questioning or exploring its transformative potential. Like other emerging choreographers in Contemporary Indian Dance, Lall is on a path towards further exploration of traditional forms for innovative choreography.

Padmini Chettur: contemporary dancer, not Contemporary Indian Dancer My intention is to re-look and re-define the role of the body. My intention is to do quality work that pushes the definition of dance. (Padmini Chettur48) Minimalist, but replete with abstract ideas and movements. That’s Padmini Chettur’s dance vocabulary.49 Chennai-based Padmini Chettur uses abstract dance in distinctive choreography that she describes as Contemporary Dance rather than Contemporary Indian Dance. She rejects the word “Indian” since it evokes stereotypes of exoticism and the decorated female body. Chettur invents an alternative to the bharatanatyam style in which she trained initially, and which she performed for ten years under the late Chandralekha from 1991 to 2001. However, Chettur is “looking for complete detachment from her classical formative years … At the core of Chettur’s work is resistance. Her work unveils a taut vision that takes the contemporary dance of India … to radical dimensions” (padminichettur.com). Chettur imbibed significant aspects of Chandra’s legacy: an awareness of the body through kalari; energy flows that channel to audiences even while performing in stillness; male/female unity and polarity; and an understanding of space and time. Chettur recalls Chandra saying, “Don’t let rigor mortis set in,” whenever dancers had to be still for “a duration of up to five minutes. It took us years to understand the concept of pulling energies through the body so that in stasis it remained fluid. In my work now as well – though manifest through another aesthetic – I employ this image of the body as a series of channels.”50 Chandra effectively demystified bharatanatyam; however, Indian iconography, Sanskrit literature, and tantric texts remained very important to her. “Chandra wanted the female body to be powerful,” notes Chettur. “Chandra loved very sensual, powerful images of women; dynamic such as dashapuja, the 10-armed female goddess where she meticulously choreographed the geometry of the arms … We are of a different generation and our images would be different. But Chandra

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fully believed in that aesthetic. She did not create mysticism but the power of the mystical without being mystical … Chandra was a true visionary in [transforming] bharatanatyam.”51 Although Chettur formed her own company in 2000, marking “a huge departure” from Chandra, the mentor’s influence remains strong. The main difference lies in the Indian aesthetic basis of their work. This is not because Chettur has simply moved to modern dance; far from it, since Chettur claims that her use of the modern remains rooted in Indian traditions. She lists examples like “the foot as an erogenous zone,” the drawing of attention to the sensual “extremities of the body” away from the breasts. However, she departs from Indianness in not exuding emotion through the face and eyes as in abhinaya. Chettur’s impassive face aims to make the audience focus on “how the energy field around the physical body enables the body to grow beyond the physical,” she explains. “This is not a trick; it takes years of work, sweat, to reach that level” (Interview with Katrak). Choreography for Chettur is very different from the way “composition” works in bharatanatyam, which relies on narrative and music. Chettur begins with an “empty canvas, empty space” with no particular theme, and lets the “movement create meaning … creating a vocabulary demanded by a concept” (Interview with Katrak). “Meaning is created almost accidentally within dance” (Publicity materials, Paper Doll). Like Chandra, Chettur may begin with a concept, even one that can be visualized like a cut-out paper doll, but then she frees herself of “figurative associations to the ‘paper doll’ image” so that “what remained was a very pure spatial abstraction of this, which was merely a ‘line’. This line for me held meaning – spatial, rhythmic” (Publicity materials, Paper Doll). Chettur’s other works include Wings and Mask (1999), followed by Brown, the duet Unsung, Fragility (2001), and 3 Solos (2003). Each choreography demands meticulous work often taking “two to three years to complete,” she explains. “With every new work I do further research on the body to come up with a fresh set of movements. I then give them a logical structure. Precision of time and space are vital too. These three elements are what comprise choreography.”52 Fragility, presented at the alternate space of Chennai’s Other Festival, explores “vulnerability,” which a reviewer describes as “a temporary state of being when we abandon our strength to confront our weaknesses. Moments when we are caught off-guard … It is a new dance language … A mental and emotional shift from understanding to experience” (Sankaranarayanan, on Chettur site). Shobana Jeyasingh’s articulation of “the rasa of movement” (discussed in Chapter 2) is useful in responding to the slow movements and “an abstract play of verticals and horizontals [in Fragility which] is far from the norms of modern dance in its subtle footwork with varying degrees of contrast between the contact of the ball of the foot, the flat sole or the level toes, a sweeping pirouette or one with the arms folded.”53 Chettur

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Figure 22 Padmini Chettur, 3 Solos (Photographer: Laurent Pillippe)

comments intriguingly that an integral part of her signature style includes a “search within those aspects of movement that have nothing to do with form,” when “the boundaries of movement (are pushed) to the point when we are left suspended in space” (Chettur, Publicity materials). Pushed premiered in Seoul in 2006, toured across Europe, and then appeared in 2008 at Kalakshetra in Chennai, and in 2009 at Attakalari’s Biennial in Bangalore. The title indicates how Chettur “tries to push creative margins, push the body in search of her vocabulary in movement, push the mind to realize the need behind a movement, and push the understanding of the audience to appreciate the physicality of dance” (Sankaranarayanan, Chettur site). Like Jeyasingh again, Chettur regards the “physicality” of this work as “deriving from the concept of emotion,” even though emotion per se may not be overtly portrayed. Objections to this work reflect what some audiences in India desire as articulated by reviewer Deepa Mohan – “some narrative” or “some music that I (the reviewer) can classify as music.” The inability “to identify with what was happening” makes viewers uncomfortable. This criticism was followed by a prescriptive note that, “when abstract

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dance is staged it would be better to engage the audience beforehand with a brochure outlining exactly what is being attempted.”54 Chettur’s explanation indirectly addresses such critiques, namely that she needs to “be honest to (her) art. I know no other way of working,” she remarks. “It’s not that I deliberately create something people can’t comprehend and appreciate. That is not my intention. My intention is … to do quality work that pushes the definition of dance” (Sankaranarayanan, Chettur site). I am sympathetic to Chettur’s desire as an artist to carve a space for her brand of abstract, non-narrative work. It is technically virtuosic and contains a challenging sternness that resonates with audiences, if they can submit to her style without expectations of some reference or reminder of traditional Indian dance. Chettur’s stark style reminded me of the American choreographer Yvonne Rainer, and her move from dance to film, “which positioned dance in an aftermath,” as Mark Franko notes in a provocative essay.55 The notion that “emotion evokes the aftermath of avant-garde asceticism in ‘postmodern’ dance” is reflected in Chettur’s choreography, along with the notion of “emotion … whether exposed or hidden” as “facts (that) can be described as such.” Rainer “discovered the use of emotion and its connections to narrativity” during her influential visit to India in 1971 (Franko, “Some Notes”). Although Chettur regards her style of dance as different from Western modern dance, modernist dancers like Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham also struggled at different stages in their long careers “to thwart subjectivity (natural attitudes),” as Franko comments, “and arrive at essences.” Chettur seeks similar goals, even though she engages subterraneously with issues like gender politics in Paper Doll. Chettur’s work roughly parallels Rainer’s Trio A, which makes “a historical shift in the subject of dance to pure motion.” The movement exists in time and has to be caught in “a kind of instantaneousness” that is akin to theatrical movement (Franko, “Some Notes” 292). Rainer, like Chettur, eschews “meaning,” although Rainer notes in her India Journal that “maybe we in the Western avant-garde are really fooling ourselves in our contempt for that question, ‘What does it mean?’” (Franko, 293) Franko contends that film allows Rainer to arrive at “a new synthesis which brings meaning and emotion to avant-garde practice” (294). Rainer’s goal echoes in Chettur’s choreography, namely “to reveal people as they are engaged in various kinds of activities … to weight the quality of the human body toward that of objects and away from the super stylization of the dancer” (Rainer, quoted in Franko, 296). Rainer’s Trio A emphasizes the notion of “Just doing it” and this, notes Franko, “inaugurated a performance style” (297). Rainer aims to “reduce movement towards the natural and toward the neutral or instrumentally abstract” (297). Franko quite brilliantly reveals several double binds that face Rainer. I believe Chettur faces them, too, even though, like Rainer, she appears as “a natural doer” (293),

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and even though she eschews spectacular appearance and subjectivity. Even in the literal act of externalizing the movement and “detaching” it “from agency” there is, as Franko asserts, “a politicization of literalism.” Chettur’s signature style, rooted in her bodily and internalized accumulation of movement vocabularies, enables her to interpret minimalism and draw out emotion “as fact,” as Rainier puts it, and to then take the body in performance to new heights. In this way, Chettur’s journey in abstract dance makes her own significant imprint on Contemporary Indian Dance. In conclusion, explorations of movement based in traditional Indian dance and martial arts traditions by masters of the styles, such as Mangaldas, Sheth, and Sarabhai among others discussed in this chapter, and by emerging artists, such as Anusha Lall and others, demonstrate the vibrancy of traditional bharatanatyam and kathak that are reinvented successfully in contemporary choreography along with other movement vocabularies such as modern dance, and contemporary affects of costuming, music, and visual design. These artists take us along our journey where, without minimizing their achievements, the contemporary remains close to the traditional. In the next chapter we travel transnationally, both geographically and artistically in our analysis of further inventions towards hybridity (where Indian traditional dance may echo or is parodied) in the language of Contemporary Indian Dance in India and the diaspora.

4 Hybrid Artists and Transnational Collaborations: Chennai, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur

While Uday Shankar traveled from East to West, a newer generation of choreographers like Anita Ratnam (Chennai-based) and Hari Krishnan (Torontobased) take transnational collaborations to a different level. They have co-choreographed dance works since the late 1990s, with Krishnan also using his directing talent in the overall staging, creating visual and aural affects in the presentation. While both trained in bharatanatyam which remains a deep resonance in their work, they bring a unique contemporary sensibility to their hybrid dance language of Contemporary Indian Dance, namely, transforming bharatanatyam from within, creating inventive palimpsests of movement vocabularies from India and the West, and fashioning striking visual, spatial, facial (bold refashioning of traditional abhinaya, or using nrtta rather than lyric poetry as in traditional bharatanatyam to convey emotion) and aural effects. Hybridity of their dance form goes along with their representations of cutting-edge issues of gender and sexuality. Such changes in form and content create an overall effect that is different from the changes made by masters of traditional bharatanatyam and kathak discussed in the previous chapter. In this chapter, I also discuss Ramli Ibrahim’s multi-ethnic Sutra Dance Company (Kuala Lumpur-based) that works in contemporary innovations from the classical Indian dance style of odissi. These three artists’ creative choreography differs from the artists discussed in Chapter 3 mainly in their bold deployment of hybridity in movement vocabularies including minimalism, challenging stereotypes of gender and sexuality, and collaborating across national boundaries. Their creative work is illuminated via theorization of the concepts of hybridity, modernity, and transnational feminism. In particular, I link the notion of hybridity and metissage (of mixed origins) in these choreographers’ movement vocabularies to the transcolonial links made by Ratnam and Krishnan, located in the ex-British colonies of India and Canada. Further, both artists experience continuing neo-colonialisms – for instance, who gets funded according to the Canada Arts Council parameters; and in India, how the state decides which artists get to “represent” the nation in international festivals, or what 123

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kinds of experimental dances are encouraged or frowned upon. For Ramli Ibrahim, as a Muslim, located in Kuala Lumpur, practicing Contemporary Indian Dance (from his training in Hindu-based odissi) presents challenges. His contemporary idiom also incorporates Malay indigenous dance forms creatively into his choreography. Krishnan’s distinctively hybrid signature style reinvents what he calls “vintage bharatanatyam” along with modern dance in a Contemporary Indian Dance language that explodes conventional notions of gender, culture, and nation. Krishnan’s and Ratnam’s personal histories have brought them to an artistic place where their work is characterized by their interactions with different geographic and artistic locations whether in Chennai, Toronto, or London (where Krishnan serves as mentor during summer workshops by the South Asian organization Kadam). Ratnam calls her style of Contemporary Indian Dance Neo-Bharatam, suggesting that she retains the notion of both the new along with her base in bharatanatyam and Indian aesthetics of color, music, and affect. Ratnam described aptly as a “contemporary classicist” has evolved a signature style from what she terms the “parallel mythology” of Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan goddesses expressed in a variety of movement vocabularies. Her contemporary choreography makes original contributions in her linking of reinterpreted goddess archetypes with a unique recuperation of the sacred that she describes as “the female transcendental.” Along with this redefined spirituality (different form traditional bharatanatyam’s bhakti that Chandralekha had rejected as fake religiosity), Ratnam situates herself in contemporary urban, feminist experience. Krishnan’s choreography demonstrates a similar linking of the spiritual (in his devout dedication to learning devadasi dance items from surviving hereditary practitioners), along with a firmly contemporary innovative engagement as Artistic Director of his multi-ethnic InDance Company based in Toronto, in creating hybrid works that overtly subvert racial and gender prejudices both seriously and humorously. Krishnan grew up in Singapore, then migrated to Canada. Bhabha’s concept of “sly civility” and “mimicry,” wherein “mimicry represents an ironic compromise,” enables a conceptual understanding of Krishnan’s parodying of stereotypes.1 In its “desire for a reformed, recognizable Other,” the discourse of mimicry constructs itself “around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference.”2 Mimicry, never accurate but always ambivalent, undermines colonialism’s “grand discourses of humanism, Enlightenment, and so on” (Huddart, Homi K. Bhaha, 65). While Ratnam and Krishnan create collaboratively across India and Canada, Ibrahim links Malaysia to India, and further into the global South to Australia. Transcending national borders and different regions within the nation (such as urban to rural) is not only geographical for these artists; they also cross boundaries of traditional Indian dance forms transforming them from within. A creative commingling of local and global is found in their

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artistry. Ratnam, rooted in her indigenous Tamil context (with ancestral links to her family village in Tirukurungudi, where she has revived a ritual theatre tradition called Kaisika Natanam, discussed below) is an ethnoglobal artist as I have described elsewhere – that is, someone who is firmly grounded in her own cultural, social, religious ambience along with global openness in artistic work.3

Anita Ratnam: “a contemporary classicist” You start with nothing. Just the empty space, the idea and your body. To trust your physical presence in silence is the best way to begin all choreography in contemporary dance … The style of dance I now practice is called Neo Bharatam, a form that is the synergy of all my classical and meditative movement techniques, flavored by my life experience as an Indian woman. To be a contemporary dancer in India is to challenge oneself every day … Dynamic and fresh, contemporary dance is like a prism, reflecting and refracting the main flashes of life as we see and live it. (Anita Ratnam4) Ratnam’s reinterpretation of the sacred, drawing energy from Indian female goddess traditions that are recuperated uniquely is the cornerstone of her contributions to Contemporary Indian Dance. The sacred in her hands transcends narrow religious and regional frameworks to touch humanity in any culture, bearing a meditative quality, a yoga-like life-energy that links human beings even through the commonality of the breath. This sacred feeling is also part of our collective unconscious in the Jungian sense. While universal, Ratnam also grounds the sacred for herself in the local, regional, and ritual traditions of her Tamil heritage without narrowly limiting it. The sacred is accompanied often in many traditions, and certainly in India, with the sensual as expressed via color, decoration, and the fragrance of flowers or incense. Hence, even as Ratnam’s interpretation of the sacred steps away from narrow religiosity, she evokes an Indian aesthetic resonance in her bold and careful embrace of aharya (decoration) in her contemporary dance. She does not reject color and ornamentation as some Contemporary Indian Dancers do, drawing attention only to the body. Although the pioneer Chandralekha’s choices of clothing for her dancers – vibrantly colored cotton saris rather than silk – made a significant statement, she worked against the over-decorated classical dancer who became a female spectacle. But Ratnam delights in the sensuality of the spiritual, also an Indian aesthetic tradition. Hence, she selects from a wealth of Indian fabrics and colors used in inventively designed costumes for specific pieces, such as bright red organza for loose pants and fitting top, or heavily woven cloth like tapestry as seen in her work, 7 Graces, or the heavy midnight-blue silk to create an

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amply pleated sari down to the ankles in Neelam. Her thoughtfully chosen unostentatious jewelry does not distract from the dance itself, but adds to its overall aesthetic quality. Ratnam’s clothing signature is to creatively add or remove a piece of fabric from one dance item to the next, replacing a scarf with a necklace, or a waist-belt with a loose pallu (the end of the sari) hanging in the back instead of the front as in the traditional draping – such subtle changes keep the audience’s senses nourished with rasa. Ratnam’s choreography draws from many different streams of dance. Although bharatanatyam is most visible (studied from a young age at Kalakshetra in Chennai), she also trained in kathakali and mohiniattam (both from Kerala). She holds an MA degree in Theatre Arts and Television from the University of New Orleans, and a PhD in Women’s Studies from Mother Teresa University (Chennai) with a dissertation on “The Challenges of Reconstructing Kaisika Natakam, a ritual temple theatre tradition.” Her key role in reviving two tenth-century temple ritual dance-theatre works entitled Arayar Sevai and Kaisika Natakam involved substantial investment of personal time and resources along with collaborations with scholars, musicians, theatre specialists and dancers to reconstruct the texts from a palm-leaf manuscript. After four years of work was completed in 1999, she presented this ritual dance-theatre at Tirukurungudi’s Vishnu temple.5 This thirteenth-century theatre tradition is performed annually during the lunar month (15 November to 15 December). I accompanied Anita in November 2005 from Chennai to Tirukurungudi, braving the unusually heavy rains in Tamil Nadu that year and witnessed an amazing dance drama performance (from 9pm until 2am) inside the village’s Vishnu shrine, attended by a huge and responsive audience of nearly the entire village. Kaisika Natakam is a 5-hour performance that tells the story of a lowborn devotee called Nambaduvan who travels to the entrance of the Vishnu shrine and though he cannot enter given his low caste, he can sing in adoration of the Lord. A demon intercepts his journey, threatens to devour him and is later transformed by the devotion of Nambaduvan’s music. The demon is blessed and regains his normal human shape. The story underlines the power of music and the force of single-minded devotion.6 The making of a multi-talented artist Ratnam was a well-received solo performer in bharatanatyam before she went to New York City after her marriage. During her ten years (1980–90) in New York City “as a television commentator,” she notes, “I found my voice and my stride.”7 She became a successful TV producer of programs like the Festival of India, and Indigo – the Colours of India, a weekly series of art, travel, and culture that was seen in the United States and on TV Asia. While in New York, Ratnam “shunned dance,” and upon returning to India, she did not want to return to the solo bharatanatyam performance circuit. Instead, a serious soul-searching began when she realized that she was

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both a part of and yet apart from the traditional Chennai scene of classical Carnatic music and dance. She began to explore alternate movements along with remaining rooted in Tamil literary, musical, and even ritual traditions about which she is deeply knowledgeable. She began a fruitful exploration of linking the local and global with the advantage of having lived abroad and being capable creatively of adding new energy to traditional forms. In 1992, Ratnam founded the Arangham Dance Company and Arangham Foundation, whose goals “encourage cross-cultural collaborations with dance and other arts forms: festivals to present and showcase international talent, [such as] Purush, The Other Festival, Old Texts New Textures, Past Forward … [and] Tranz, the choreography mentoring workshop for young dancers. Like the Goddess Durga, I wore many hats and held many calling cards in my multiple hands” (India Perspectives, 19). Ratnam is remarkably multi-talented – dancer-choreographer, cultural commentator, producer, presenter, publisher, and writer. One of Ratnam’s major contributions to the development of Contemporary Indian Dance was her founding and nine-year collaboration (1998 to 2007) with arts enthusiast Ranvir Shah, co-curating “The Other Festival: Music, Dance, Drama, Art, You,” an alternate venue for experimental work in dance, theatre, and music, a significant counterpoint to the highly celebrated “Season of (Carnatic classical) Music and Dance” in Chennai each December. “The Other Festival” was the first of its kind in India, providing an important avant-garde space for experimental work from within India and beyond, presented in the very heart of traditional Chennai. “We welcome the burst of artistic activity around us,” remarks Ratnam in the 2005 Program, “and in everyone to examine the ‘other’ in our lives and our art.” Shah notes that faced with global changes in the arts, “we create our own vocabulary.” Such a “fringe festival encourages dialogue and discussion and pushes the boundaries of living art that changes over time.” Both curators’ goal was “to inspire a new audience” for cutting-edge and experimental creative work. Indeed, many of the artists from India and beyond discussed in this book (Astad Deboo, Padmini Chettur, Navtej Singh Johar, Akram Khan, Aditi Mangaldas) showcased their new creations at this venue. Another of Ratnam’s incredibly important contributions to Indian dance is her phenomenal brainchild of establishing narthaki.com (on 14 April 2000) a major portal of information on bharatanatyam artists, reviews, essays, and interviews across India and the diaspora. Attakalari: Dance Journal of India’s tenth anniversary issue “celebrates the top ten” Indian performing artists, including Ratnam’s foundational work in initiating and maintaining this site (that costs around 5 lakh rupees a year).8 Anita’s democratic attitude towards “leveling the playing field of dance through information” comments dancer-scholar Aniruddhan Vasudevan, “was an epiphany of sorts” (53). Anita herself is amazed at the “staggering impact the site has made on dancers’ lives … It sinks in whenever I travel outside India,” she

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remarks, “and people actually come up and thank me and even touch my feet, saying, ‘Akka, this is for your narthaki.com” (54). The site includes many voices and registers, such as “Ask Mrinalini,” encouraging questions from young dancers to the senior dance legend Mrinalini Sarabhai, a lively discussion board, a reviews section called “Roses and Thorns,” and listing of resources for dancers from musical accompanists to dance costume-makers. Via narthaki.com, Ratnam has “cleared a space” for virtual discussions of Indian dance. Vasudevan comments that Ratnam “has been a catalyst for change on the Chennai arts scene. With strong cultural entrepreneurship qualities and curatorial abilities, she has managed to push the boundaries of cultural work in the city” (57). Over the years, Ratnam has nurtured many young dancers, encouraging them in their own quests to create new movement work. Indeed, in the 1990s, she made important transnational connections by bringing new techniques – contact improvisation, using the floor as in modern dance – from her frequent travels to the West to local Indian dancers. In Ratnam’s solo and group choreography with Arangham dancers, she introduced new elements of physical contact between dancers (alien to bharatanatyam) and innovative ways of using stage space. Looking back on her major choreographic accomplishments, Ratnam notes that in 1996, upon returning to India, she “longed to delve deeper” into dance “like the sixth-century Tamizh saints, the Azhwars – who immersed themselves in hymns of bliss.”9 This search for what she terms lyrically as “the sacred spiritual” has guided her quest over the years, using dance (that she “needs like a heartbeat”) to express her anger against societal norms, restrictive roles for women, and many other social prejudices in India. “I became an activist … by refusing to walk the trodden path. Saying goodbye to gurus, fond parents monitoring performances … Farewell to all known signifiers of comfort and conditioning” (India Perspectives, 19). Venturing into unknown territory, Ratnam faced the challenge of delineating “a new language” for her dance, “a modern way of looking and doing.” She could look to no mentors or gurus, nor seek the comfort and security of an age-old tradition with a set repertoire. “The contemporary deals with the here and now” she remarks, “it can be provocative, disturbing, enigmatic” (At a Glance, 40). The dancer does not have the security of following familiar ragams, talams, costume, and staging. Ratnam creates her Contemporary Indian Dance both from within an inward personal search and from external stimuli in the contemporary world. She looked also to other art forms – painting, music, prose, even the work of lighting designers and installation artists that stretched her horizons even further. “A craggy hillside, a large stone, a shard of porcelain,” remarks Ratnam poetically, “a nightmare, an abstract painting, all these can inform or stimulate contemporary dance. Often the movements are drawn from classical, martial, yoga, meditative arts, gymnastics, and life itself” (At a Glance, 41). Her works

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incorporate “spoken text, natural and street sounds, a snatch of conversations from the construction site,” or even “a sob or gasp as part of the soundscape.” Ratnam’s inventive choreographic tools have inspired both emulation and imitation among other Contemporary Indian Dancers. Ratnam identifies “three different combinations of creation and construction in Contemporary Indian Dance” that shape her work and, by extension, I believe that this is also a useful delineation for other artists. “They are: Old Form – New Content; Old Content – New Form; New Content – New Form.” Although she has worked in all three categories, she finds the last one “the most challenging to follow,” since the artist starts “with a clean slate” without a set raga or tala, or familiar lyrics (India Perspectives, 19). While Ratnam belongs firmly in the league of the thinking artist, her choreography, like Astad Deboo’s, evokes rasa, combining intellect and thought into a form of “corporeal intelligence” that draws from the mind-body unity as proposed in Indian aesthetics and movement disciplines like yoga (India Perspectives, 18). Ratnam challenges her audiences to think and engage, and “not to leave their brains along with their coats” (a Brechtian injunction) as they enter the theatre. While most Contemporary Indian Dancers work with nrtta when they create new work, Ratnam and Hari Krishnan are both adept at also using abhinaya in inventive ways in their contemporary choreography. Ratnam is recognized for “redefining bharatanatyam as a global style – a transcultural experience.”10 “I was always drawn to the idea of turning Bharatanatyam on its head,” she remarks. “My larger agenda is to create a new audience, a younger audience for Indian dance. I fear we are losing an audience who is alienated and intimidated by its formalism.”11 Contemporary audiences are wary of sitting through solo bharatanatyam margams that unfortunately often lack good technique, covered up by a dancer’s youth and beauty. What is uniquely global, or rather ethno-global, about Ratnam’s art is that it links the local/regional with the global/transnational in her evocation of the sacred that connects humanity beyond narrow religious affiliations. Further, her notion of the “female transcendental” reaches into a global feminist consciousness that remains cognizant of gender inequality even as it reaches for a specifically female spiritual quality, such as in Ratnam’s choreography about female mystic poet-saints such as Meera or Andal. Her global vision combines a transformed bharatanatyam with pan-Asian and Euro-American movement traditions. In such creative traversing of geographic and movement boundaries, Ratnam contributes uniquely to the evolving language of Contemporary Indian dance. Neo-Bharatam: Ratnam’s Contemporary Indian Dance In-between spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular and communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and

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innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society. (Homi Bhabha, Location of Culture, 1–2) Ratnam’s Contemporary Indian Dance captures a contemporary idiom that retains an Indian aesthetic and affect along with working in-between panAsian movement vocabulary and Western modern dance. Anita’s style of choreography has a distinctly female, even feminist thrust. Neo-Bharatam works in-between movement vocabularies that she has internalized over the years – bharatanatyam, yoga (“before [it] became a fad” she told me), Indian martial arts of kalari, Buddhist chants, modern dance, Chinese traditions of tai-chi, Qi Gong, and wu-shu martial arts, kathakali and mohiniattam incorporated at times with theatrical tools – voice, script – presented via innovative music, costume, and deployment of stage space. Ratnam emulates, for instance, the softer gaze of the eyes as in yoga or tai-chi that convey energy in a different way from the sharp look of the eyes in traditional bharatanatyam. Ratnam remarks that this multi-layered dance language was more unnerving to critics than to audiences in 1990s India. “Most writers were confused. Was it dance or theatre they were watching? I spoke and sang in my work, using silences and ritual sounds, like the conch, temple bells, priests chanting as part of the sound score itself. Sometimes a lone voice, piano notes, a saxophone, the drone of a tanpura or a didgeridoo. Movement became stilled and serene. I began to see my dance as my own way to answering the myriad questions I had about life” (India Perspectives, 21). Even as she brings her own unique perspective on tradition, she seeks the in-between spaces and deliberate breaks of movement in order to work against what she calls “a closure” in classical bharatanatyam, and embodies hybridity in her work. Ratnam’s engagement with tradition includes incorporating ritual, liturgical Tamil poetry, along with a vibrant contemporaneity. “To dance is to know what beauty is in the bones,” she comments lyrically. “To dance is to believe in poetry. To dance is to make oneself vulnerable willingly” (India Perspectives, 21). Ratnam’s signature choreography includes tropes that have become part of Contemporary Indian Dance and that also resonate universally such as the soothing sound of water, or a meditative stillness, even silence. Indeed, sounds of water and silence touch the human core of a receptive audience anywhere in the world, and there is a shared human desire for centering, balance, and stillness in a fast-paced world. Ratnam conveys these meditative qualities via her increasingly minimalist movement and the deeply evocative musical maps that accompany her performances. Ratnam was one of the first Contemporary Indian dancers to use the sounds of water as a signature trope in her work. This has since become more widely used by other dancers (even the ones discussed in Chapter 3) with greater or less success in terms of how such sounds and silences are integrated into the overall work.

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In Daughters of the Ocean – a landmark departure for Ratnam in 1999 – she had her dancers imagine walking through water with many lotuses, being attentive to the gentle rippling sound of the water as well as the stillness. In another signature work, Seven Graces … into the aesthetic realms of the Goddess Tara (also entitled 7 Graces), Ratnam embodies Chinese wu shu martial arts with Tibetan Buddhist ritual hand gestures (discussed below). This key collaboration and co-choreography between Ratnam and Hari Krishnan is a path-breaking work in Contemporary Indian Dance. Along with a palimpsest of movements that are reworked internally the work includes visual art and theatre tools. This piece truly exemplifies the multiple roles of a choreographer who must execute an entire production with attention to costume, light, sound design, multimedia, and overall staging. In traditional bharatanatyam, gurus did compose movement with intricate nrtta. However, they did not claim to be choreographers and, indeed, significant as their contributions remain, they were not. Redefining the sacred Ratnam’s Contemporary Indian Dance since the 1990s redefines the sacred making it relevant for our times, enabling viewers to differentiate between sacredness and religiosity. External manifestations via statues of deities, incense, and flowers are not part of Ratnam’s idea of the sacred; rather, she evokes the divine within each individual and draws her audience into connecting with this sentiment in their own personal ways, inviting them to move into an inner quiet space as they lose awareness of their mundane everyday lives and attempt to transcend their limited egos. This concept of sacred becomes personal, female, even familial, reaching into what Ratnam terms “the female transcendental.” It also reaches into a wider humanity that touches diverse audiences with varied beliefs of the sacred or even none at all. The sacred in Ratnam’s choreography retains its rootedness mostly in Indian philosophical, religious and ritual traditions, though she also leans on Tibetan and Chinese traditions. The coming together of sacredness and faith, faith and thought, belief and discourse, while seemingly paradoxical, works congruently within Indian aesthetics. Ratnam builds upon these connections, similar to the integral links between dance and drama, or between music (voice) and movement to create a sense of wholeness in reconfiguring the sacred. Ratnam embraces bhakti (devotion equally for a deity as for a lover or a child) as sacred, thought-based, and thought provocative rather than a sense of blind devotion. This is a significant foundation in Ratnam’s choreography, different from pioneer Chandralekha’s rejection of superficial religiosity and embracing the physical body itself as her “religion.” However, Ratnam, similar to Chandra relies on Indian philosophical tenets such as the chakras and mandalas working with geometrical, diagonal movement patterns unfolding on the stage space.

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Ratnam explores Indian Tantric philosophy and its delineation of chakras in the human body in Adhirohana (The Ascent, 1998) where she evokes how human energy moves from the kundalini energy at the base of the spine to the shirsasana chakra at the top of the head. In this piece, as in another more recent work, Neelam (2006), Ratnam uses mandalas that invigorate geometrical patterns with sacred connotations. On stage, she uses square stools, and other shapes such as triangles to invoke energy that comes through mandalas. A physical representation of the sacred is expressed via meditative movement. Ratnam incorporates the slow and deliberate leg lifts and placing of tai-chi that connects with what she calls its “inner energy” (Women Choreographers Symposium, Chennai, December 2005), as well as the sense of outer control in this Chinese martial art that trains inner turbulence. Such movement disciplines as yoga or tai-chi enable via physical control and discipline to access the inner warrior within each of us. Indeed, Ratnam’s work enables us to recognize that the foundational discipline of movements such as yoga or tai-chi (originating in India and China respectively) is the same in their shared goal of integrating the human body, mind, and spirit via the body. In 7 Graces, Tibetan ritual gestures evoke a reaching inward into a place of silence and stillness embodied in minimalist dance. Ratnam explores three types of space – inner space, choreographic space, and devotional space – within which one takes care of oneself and one’s spiritual growth that then radiates outward into creating harmony in the external society. The sacred as faith-based as well as anchored in thought is part of Hindu religious tradition as presented in the discourse by Lord Krishna discussing the painful human realities of life, death, and violence to Arjuna in The Bhagvad Gita. Krishna as Arjuna’s charioteer in the Kurukshetra battle attempts to infuse the warrior Arjuna with conviction that his act of killing even his own kin in this context is the right action. Arjuna is in despair, and needs physical strength and spiritual faith to return to the battlefield. In this instance, I see faith as interwoven with discussion and debate rather than as unquestioned devotion. Such openness is certainly an ideal not found easily today among most communities, or among individuals guided by unquestioning faith. However, in Ratnam’s choreographic explorations I find a notion of the sacred that allows thoughtful intervention whether in the figure of the ninthcentury mystic poet-saint Andal, or the Buddhist goddess Tara. Ratnam’s linking of spirituality with the female archetype (goddess, mystic) is represented in her choreography in Naachiyaar (2001) that began Ratnam’s crossing the borders of different mythological and goddess traditions. Naachiyaar retells the story of the ninth-century female mystic poet Andal whose passion for Krishna is expressed sensually in the famous ten verses addressed to the conch that Krishna’s sweet lips have touched. In one of the verses, Ratnam portrays Andal’s physical and spiritual anguish as she

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Figure 23 Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Briana Blasko)

addresses the conch that was blessed by Krishna’s lips. Andal asks the conch, how do Krishna’s lips smell? Do they have the fragrance of camphor or lotus? The final segment culminates in an explicit sexual fantasy of a bridal procession and its group of dancers. In order to visually narrate this dream, Ratnam converts a long, unstitched piece of fabric into a flute, a garland, and a conch.12 Andal embodies Krishna’s male spirit within her female one since she desires so strongly to merge with the male god. The verses go on to even express Andal’s threat to the conch that she will destroy it with her powerful gaze if it will not reveal the secrets of Krishna’s sweet lips to her. The erotic sensuality coalesces with the spiritual. In another segment, Krishna’s mytho-religious leela (play) is recreated as he dallies in Vrindavan gardens with 16,000 gopis (milkmaids)! Ratnam replays the devotee’s religious ecstasy where Andal almost loses her mind in her desire for union with Krishna. The goddess motif reappears in subsequent works: Devi, and Utpala (2004). In 7 Graces (2005), Ratnam draws subtly on compassionate goddess Tara subtly as a reference point rather than literally, to suggest female energy of the womb and the pain of childbirth. The dance offers numerous configurations of the mystical number “7” along with the navarasas that Ratnam dramatizes vividly on her face along with Buddhist liturgical hand mudras, Tibetan gongs, and Carnatic vocals mingled with Western style piano.

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Goddesses also play a prominent role in Ratnam’s Daughters of the Ocean (1999), inspired by Shobita Punja’s book of the same title where family stories, personal narrative, and the feminine principle play a prominent role. Here, femininity and shakti are represented by stories of the origins of Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga. The audience is guided by Ratnam’s spoken recollections of her mother and grandmother named after Lakshmi and Saraswati. Such play upon Indian lore rich with goddess stories also illustrates the fact that no male god is complete without his female consort, his shakti. Daughters of the Ocean opens with a backdrop of blue water and lotuses that cast shadows upon dancers who crawl, fall flat, and leap on the floor in silence, creating angular and circular shapes to express the waves of the ocean.13 A slow alap, typically the opening musical line in Carnatic music that announces the particular raga to be sung, accompanies the motion. Male and female dancers undulate sensuously as human desire flows like the ocean’s rhythm. A Sanskrit sloka brings the spiritual and sensuous together into the figure of Mahalakshmi, sitting with her back to the audience. The dancers’ expressions combine devotion and sensuality as the jatis are broken deliberately by words over a microphone. Ratnam narrates her great grandmother Saraswati’s story, an unusual woman who asked questions and was ahead of her time. The backdrop shifts to flaming red to reflect the fierce goddess Kali, warrior-like armed with weapons that both protect and destroy. Male dancers take kathakali-style wide foot stances indicating powerful bodies, and transform Nataraj’s usual blessing gesture with a flat palm into closed fists. Ratnam balances motion with stillness and silence in Daughters of the Ocean, and her work after this increasingly plays with silence. Audiences used to traditional Indian dance are very uncomfortable with pin-drop silence. Ratnam believes that this piece delineates “a style of performance art for the Indian context, unique to the modern Indian experience.” Traditional material is blended with contemporary style of dance and theatre. The piece also relies on improvising and moving away from the bharatanatyam’s erect stance with strict angularity of limb positions by using the floor, making body contact among dancers, all as new ways of moving within the Indian dance context of the late 1990s. Ratnam notes how difficult it was to get bharatanatyam dancers to retrain their bodies (recall Daksha Sheth’s similar comment about the difficulty of moving differently if one’s body is trained for many years in one style), to imbibe the soft knee-stance from tai-chi or to trace the air and lift the legs higher than in bharatanatyam. Ratnam encouraged her dancers to feel, say, the water, or the lotuses, or the sound of the flute and to create movement from what those sensations and sounds inspire. Communicating with the audience is the final litmus test of success and Ratnam demands the audience’s engagement via imagination and thought. For an ethno-global artist such as Ratnam, both feeling and thought underlie the sacred. The spaces in between the varying liturgical or ritualistic practices are significant hence compartmentalizing the sacred as something

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bounded by Vaishanava, Shaivite, or Krishna bhakti is limiting. Ratnam concerns herself less with authenticity in a particular ritualistic practice than she does with a personal, hybrid spirituality, where the collaging of different religious traditions animate her dancing body on stage. Ratnam seeks ananda, when the human soul even fleetingly tastes the nectar of the divine, or at the very least, a transcendent feeling beyond the human. Recall tenth-century Sanskrit philosopher Abhinavagupta’s concept (discussed in Chapter 1) that heightened aesthetic experience can spark divine joy. Ratnam seeks this effect through stillness and silence, the yogic qualities of sthira (calm strength) and sukha (gentle softness) in her choreography. The goddess and femaleness in Anita Ratnam’s choreography Ratnam’s notion of the sacred via the female goddess and “female imagery” guides her choreography from the 1990s into her recent work, Ma3Ka.14 “Dance is my attempt to populate my world with interesting women. Some of them are those we recognize as goddesses,” notes Ratnam. “They have mischief, rage, anger, they can kill, protect, laugh, they have sensual power. They are, I hope, enigmatic, complete, intelligent and passionate.”15 Her choreography intertwines the spiritual and sensual, even representing the sensual in the spiritual; sensuality encompasses everything that appeals to the five senses and physical sex is only one expression of this. 7 Graces (2005) is a culmination of Ratnam’s earlier solo and group works – Arya: The Divine Feminine (her first solo thematic piece in 1991), Utpala (2004), and Daughters of the Ocean. Different tropes of these earlier works resurface in new and distinctive ways in 7 Graces. The coalescing of saint/goddess/woman, of the physical and the divine is portrayed at the end of 7 Graces when Ratnam ascends a platform and becomes one with goddess Tara represented in the form of a backdrop painting (or video-slide). Ratnam’s shoulders fit exactly into the curvature of the Goddess, creating a momentary sense of exaltation in both performer and spectators (see further discussion and illustration below). 7 Graces “offers a journey to aesthetic eternities, exploring the aura and grace of the feminine transcendental” (Brochure). Ratnam, as with all her works, first presented it in Chennai in 2005, and later in different parts of the world, including at New York City’s Joyce SoHo in 2007. This work is an “organic” development from Ratman’s previous explorations of “goddess worship and personal experiences with urban Indian feminism.” Her personal interest in comparative mythology and feminine archetypes in different cultures drew her to Tara’s many legends, not retelling them literally but rather creating a work that brings together her “personal mindscapes,” as she terms them. 7 Graces is “my most difficult work so far,” remarks Ratnam. “It is also my most vulnerable work.” This “vulnerability” might be connected to the very internal space of the female womb, the intimacy of that space for mother and child, and the pulling action that opens the

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piece as though the dancer tugs on the umbilical cord giving birth to a new choreographic journey. As the dance begins, Ratnam moves with her back bent (a movement made iconic by pioneer Chandralekha in Sri to depict female oppression, discussed in Chapter 1) from the outermost edges of the stage, tracing all four oblong sides with a pulling movement. Gradually the movement quickens into circles becoming smaller as her pulling motion into the body builds in intensity, recreating the pain and rigor of childbirth. In the full-length version (51 minutes) of this work, this pulling motion continues for 12 minutes. Ratnam challenges the audience to stay with the repeated movement as the music moves from Carnatic voice to piano, to Buddhist ritual chanting and gongs while the subtle, slow repetition of Anita’s fists pulling imaginary energy into her gut evokes the umbilical cord that nourishes the child in the womb and is cut at birth. “Time is suspended,” she remarks in an interview with me “during this initial pulling movement.” From the beginning of this piece, Anita notes that “she is working from within” herself, not relying on a set tradition or movement vocabulary. There is an “inner sense of letting go; this is not going into a trance but it is undertaking one’s own personal trance journey.” At times, the spell is broken intriguingly by clapping the hands, or an audible gasp, providing a certain release to dancer and audience. A succession of lush colors (reminiscent of the Indian rangoli and kolam patterns drawn as auspicious markers at the entrance of homes) are projected in large distinctive squares on the stage floor announcing the seven choreographic segments – black, blue, green, red, yellow, saffron, and, finally, white that contains all colors. The number seven of 7 Graces is significant in Indian philosophy, reflecting the 7 chakras of the human body, and the goddess Tara is believed to have 7 eyes so that she can keep a lookout from all sides for human suffering and offer compassion. The work has “7 fluid kinetic languages in the dance vocabulary, 7 soundscapes, lightscapes,” notes Hari Krishnan, the work’s co-choreographer and director. The color black in the beginning evokes an emerging from the womb as Tara emerges from the tears of the Buddha at witnessing human pain. The movement evokes an emerging from chaos, the undertaking a difficult passage/birth, the mother in the painful, near timeless realm of childbirth before the release. Then, the move to the color yellow, then saffron indicates the Earth, next to fiery red and the depiction of anger/rage, then soft blue moving to green with sounds of water. Colors are evocative gestures conveyed via lighting and like everything in this work, they are not to be interpreted literally. Anita and Hari hope that “the audience will respond in a multitude of ways to the richly textured layers of the work” (Program Brochure). Ratnam notes that it is as if she is telling her entire life-story through this highly abstract piece, where she uniquely pushes the boundaries of abhinaya by depicting overlapping emotions taking the audience on a journey almost

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like the dark night of the soul with a frenzied, frenetic circling motion with the thumb in shikharam at the center of the forehead as the body undulates in circles, getting faster and faster. After the internal storm there appears to be an external calm. The music matches the movement in creative resonance with a lyrical, innocent sounding female voice in a Carnatic lilt entering the aural landscape as a cool, reviving, and calm sound after the frenzy of gongs and the droning of ritual syllables. In Beyond Tradition (DVD) Ratnam comments that she needs one reference to her Carnatic tradition (voice or percussion) “as an umbilical chord” in her contemporary work. Ratnam’s very mobile face deliberately fragments the representation of human emotions as if deconstructing them deliberately. Hence, a mother loving a child blends into the hypocrisy of social interaction, along with a bold portrayal of the grotesque. Emotions of love, anger, and fear are seen commonly in classical Indian dance. However, the emotion of disgust, though portrayed in traditional dance, is depicted with boldness and originality. Ratnam notes that the depiction of “personal issues is very disruptive for Indian audiences” who are used to the depiction of familiar mythic stories, where even if a proud or overly sensual nayika deviates in her behavior from moral norms, the lyrics and movements bring the aberration back to an acceptable social level. The musical landscape of 7 Graces is arranged so creatively as to be profoundly moving. At times, a musical phrase appears to inspire movement, and at other times, music follows after a movement phrase is completed. The pure sound of the Carnatic female soloist is followed by similarly tugging-atthe-heartstrings piano playing by Anil Srinivasan (in his own composition), intermixed with dance syllables and mridangam beats by K. S. Anirudha, recited by Shubhashree Ramachandran, along with mountain flutes, wind chimes, and Tibetan gongs. The bold intervention of Pavarotti’s sonorous “Ave Maria” accompanies the dancer’s final ascent onto a platform as her human form appears to merge with goddess Tara’s image. As the dancer ascends a platform with the painting behind her, her shoulders and Tara’s merge as a voice comes up tantalizingly not from the recorded soundtrack, but from Ratnam herself singing in the Carnatic vocal tradition in which she is trained. In this moment, as Ratnam describes to me in an interview, she aims to move from “jeevatma to parmatma” (from human to divine), erasing the ego, rising beyond it in joining the goddess – not to be taken literally, but rather as embodying the divine. The performer seeks to touch even a single moment of the sacred and divine. “The last step,” she remarks, “is an ascension into another space and an attempt to get closer to the idea of the sacred” (Interview with Katrak, 28 March 2006). This feeling of being outside recognizable time and space is also a “colorless” realm. The performer becomes the image of the sacred and the singing indicates a finding of one’s voice expressing itself paradoxically without an ego or a self. It is a letting go of everything in the human realm. The music shapes the choreography integrally and leads

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the viewer/listener into the movement and affect of the piece. As the dancer becomes the dance, the music echoes the movement. 7 Graces presents transformative choreography that values hybridity of movement along with stillness and silence; drawing on goddess archetypes, reversing stereotypes, and not simply adding new movement to classical bharatanatyam. Krishnan, as co-choreographer, comments that this piece is “a departure from conventional contemporary Indian dance in many ways. For example, we deliberately chose not to work with any text or slokas. Also, I wanted the work to be performed without the use of props, since I feel the rich movement vocabulary, emotional intensity, and eclectic soundscape will be sufficient for the work to speak to a range of audiences” (Brochure). Krishnan hopes that this work “pushes the parameters of narrative expression and the physicality of contemporary Indian dance in an ever-expanding direction.” Anita’s redefining of the sacred continues in her work Framing Five, where she draws upon a diversity of religious traditions: “Christianity (Pentacle), Islam (the five pillars of the religion), Buddhism (last and fifth incarnation), Chinese, and Tibetan traditions not to talk of Hinduism where the figure five is mystical and represents so many layers of the human, religion, and nature.” The Indian philosophical concept of panchabhoota (five elements) is embodied in the human body and that plays a part in religious ritual. This animist invocation of natural elements around us and within our bodies represents the coming together of nature with human body-mind in this work. Another collaborative work between Ratnam and Krishnan, provocatively entitled Ma3Ka, continues an exploration of the sacred, drawing upon goddess icons in Ratnam’s unique way. “The strength of the spiritual and the inspiration of the mythological are undeniable. Mythology is not outside of us and part of some distant past,” she notes to Chitra Swaminathan. “Divinities and heroes come into our homes. … So when I dance and tune into those kinds of stories and images, I only use them as springboards and keep asking myself, ‘What do I have to say as a dancer, today?’”16 Ratnam and Krishnan combine their two creative minds to represent the trinity of Indian goddesses, Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Meenakshi, as well as the women in Anita’s family – her 95-year-old grandmother, her late mother, and her 22-year-old daughter. A positive review remarks, “It is difficult to ignore Anita Ratnam’s art.”17 Then quoting Anita, the review continues: “there is enough vocabulary in my body but I prefer to invest my contemporary works with a primal meditativeness.” Reviewer Cadence Mandybura comments that this “ambitiously contemporary, bold experimentation” may be “overwhelming” to some audience members, though they “are sure to be touched by some segment of this rigorously imagined and executed production.”18 Mandybura quotes Ratnam’s explanation: “this production is so different that it’s a challenge, a risk, and also deliciously naughty to try to prick this safe cocoon of classicism

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Figure 24 Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Avinash Pasricha)

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this space [Chennai] represents.” Anita dances within a triangle drawn on stage and the concept of the number three pervades the work. The costume designer Rex comments that “the nuanced interpretations and abstractions are sewn into the fabric of the work.” The Lakshmi section features a sequence of runway model walks, as Anita paces through various personas she has held during her life – model, stage actor, and film personality. In the musical score, the familiar Nokia mobile’s ring lurks among other modern effects. “I feel,” remarks Anita, “that there’s something called urban abhinaya – the way we tweet and other little gestures. Why not bring them into [the work].” The work is a rich visual design that connects the “ancient, modern, timeless, specific.” As with the soundscape of 7 Graces, here, too, Anita masterfully weaves the aural combinations that indeed lead the choreography – Anil Srinivasan’s delicate piano, Viji Krishnan’s violin, and K. S. R. Aniruddha and Darbuka Shiva’s multi-percussion, along with Anita’s narration in English and Revathy Sankaran’s story-telling in Tamil. Anita’s generous fostering of such musicians gives both a platform and collaborative opportunities to these talented artists. Prominent reviewer Leela Venkataraman in The Hindu describes Ma3Ka as “an amalgam of many creative minds. A unique nonlinear dance weave of myth crossing over to real life images.”19 Most recently, in response to an invitation to dance at the Commonwealth Games’ Opening Ceremony in New Delhi (October 2010), Ratnam created a striking new work, true to her ethno-global artistry. Maalie (Mother) is a dance-theatre response to the poetry of Nigerian artists Wole Soyinka. Chinua Achebe, Ifi Amadiume, Christopher Okigbo, and Tony Marinho. Ratnam notes (email to Katrak) that she was inspired by the words of Ifi Amadiume, namely that “the British colonizers left but were replaced by worse oppressors – African men.” The choreography begins with the metaphor of birthing – a universal experience for women. Ratnam draws parallels (email to Katrak) between African and Indian stories of goddesses “giving birth to birds and animals though breath, sweat, tears, and moisture.” She comments further that she used “a story-telling section recalling one of Mandela’s favorite tales of a mother and daughter in the bush. It carried a prophetic image of an army of babies (newly born) who carry guns and who use their umbilical cords to tie up the enemy.” The dance-theatre work reflected “the extreme sensuality and gross violence” that the poems expressed. Maalie bridges cultural and geographic divides among cultures, attesting to Ratnam’s aesthetic that engages creatively with African poets’ evocative words resonating in the body of a Contemporary Indian Dancer.

Challenging stereotypes through hybridity: Hari Krishnan’s signature style I don’t believe in stereotypes and I don’t like to be called ethnic, exotic and foreign. It’s just the idea that whenever something is not Western,

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it’s considered less … My goal is to make bridges with the other cultures and make my own accessible to others, especially in Canada, given its diversity and cultural freedom and support. This is not about having everything taken over by diversity. At the end of the day, it’s about celebrating excellence in any chosen art form. (Hari Krishnan20) In 2007, Hari Krishnan was honored with the New Pioneers Award by Skills for Change in Toronto. This gave occasion for Krishnan’s thoughtful engagement with concepts of diversity and ethnic stereotypes in his signature style in Contemporary Indian Dance. Krishnan’s InDance Company, based in Toronto since 1999, brings together distinctly multi-ethnic dancers of South Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Canadian origins. They have performed in prominent international venues such as New York’s St Mark’s Dance Space, the Joyce Soho, London’s Royal Opera House, Chennai’s Krishna Gana Sabha, and Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. Krishnan also founded the Mangala Initiative, a non-profit Canadian organization that offers financial assistance to female artists in rural Tamil Nadu. Though based in Toronto, Krishnan has been Artist in Residence at Wesleyan University in the United States since 2000, where he teaches bharatanatyam and lectures “on the postcolonial experience” as he puts it, “as well as on the global contemporary manifestations of South Asian dance” (InDance publicity materials). Raised in Singapore, Krishnan, born into a family that practiced classical Carnatic music and dance, was steeped in bharatanatyam from a young age. His bharatanatyam guru was the late Kittappa Pillai. Krishnan always asserts the modernity of bharatanatyam and its global practice today as “a signifier of South Asian identity.” The bedrock of his creative ventures into other dance vocabularies and his adventurous collaborations remain in what he describes as “the contemporary abstractions of bharatanatyam.” Krishnan has “reconstructed several vintage temple and court dance genres” in the Thanjavur tradition, learning temple-dance repertoires from the last surviving member of the hereditary female dance community from the Tiruvarur temple in South India.21 He is the only dancer to have inherited the entire repertoire of the Viralimalai temple tradition from R. Muttukkannammal, the last devadasi to be dedicated at the Murugan temple in Viralimalai. Krishnan’s contemporary immersion in this historical recuperation of devadasi contributions, of nattuvanars and their families, enables him to pass down this legacy to his InDance Company – beautifully showcased in June 2010 at a “SoloDance Symposium” that he co-curated with Davesh Soneji at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). It is heartening to see that some part of the devadasi repertoire is alive in the bodies of these young Canadians of Indian, Japanese, and Caucasian ancestries. Krishnan’s move to Canada was extremely fruitful for his artistry. After training in ballet and modern dance and earning an MA in Dance in

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1997 from York University in Toronto, he is completing a PhD program in Dance at Texas Women’s University, Denton. In addition to choreographic work, Krishnan contributes to scholarly dialogue about Indian dance, postcolonialism, globalization and the arts of India, modernism in bharatanatyam, and the history of devadasi dance traditions in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh in South India. Krishnan’s art has been described as “holistic,” combining bharatanatyam’s vocabulary and music along with “contemporary, urban, postmodern culture,” as Lalitha Venkat notes (narthaki.com, 7 August 2005). His company’s dancers are first rate in technique with diverse training in contemporary bharatanatyam, ballet, modern, and postmodern dance. However, Krishnan has grown wary of the word “multicultural,” believing it has almost come to signal “mediocrity.”22 Krishnan would agree with Homi Bhabha’s critiques of multiculturalism that it problematically elides differences of cultural background, ethnicity, and nation since such variations raise “conflict or crisis.”23 “What really interests Krishnan,” remarks Here and Now’s commentator “is the world we live in today and the possibilities for taking an ancient dance tradition and giving it contemporary relevance, even making it a way to comment on the very notion of cultural identity.”24 In a dance work provocatively entitled Recipes for Curry, Krishnan “uses contemporary styles of Bharatanatyam,” notes Crabb, “in an almost subversive way to illustrate perceptions of race, culture, and heritage.” This challenging approach is evident in much of Krishnan’s choreography. In the duet he performed with Allan Kaeja in Yogurt and Venom, a work that he calls a “multilingual dialect,” he notes that “it’s like we are creating a hybrid space, something that combines contact improvisation and Bharatanatyam.”25 In pieces like Prakaram, some movements occur in silence. The choreographer often dances with his back to the audience. Into this mix Krishnan adds movements that are deeply emotive, like touching a face delicately as he moves between shadow and light. Krishnan’s signature style of Contemporary Indian Dance is distinctly hybrid, evoking that no one dance style or culture is totally pure or authentic; every culture (even if not overtly colonized) has elements of being mixed, with different influences having an impact on identity formations. Scholar David Huddart points out that although postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha is cited in discussions of hybridity, his (Bhabha’s) emphasis is “less on hybridity than on hybridization; in other words, he insists on hybridity’s ongoing process.”26 Bhabha explains that “colonial hybridity” is not a problem of genealogy or identity between two different cultures which can then be resolved as an issue of cultural relativism. Hybridity is a problematic of colonial representation and individuation that reverses the effects of the colonialist disavowal, so that other “denied”

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knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the basis of its authority – its rules of recognition … what is irremediably estranging in the presence of the hybrid – in the revaluations of the symbol of national authority as the sign of colonial difference – is that the difference of cultures can no longer be identified or evaluated as objects of epistemological or moral contemplation: Cultural differences are not simply there to be seen or appropriated.”27 According to Huddart, “Bhabha believes that hybridity calls into question traditional analyses of colonialism which tend to merely reverse the terms of colonial knowledge” (Huddart, 23). I would grant that the intervention of the concept of hybridity complicates our analysis of colonial and neocolonial situations; however, it is quite a different matter to assert that cultures per se do not exist, even if one questions them as unitary, total, or holistic. And even if fragmented, their authority was contravened by the dominant colonial powers. The mixing of cultures as delineated by cultural theorists such as Paul Gilroy or Stuart Hall is different, and more useful I believe, than Bhabha’s since they relate such mixing to history, and however unstable or fractured identities may be, the mixing, the creolization, is recognized as historical fact rooted in historical events of slavery, colonization, displacement, and relocation. One of Krishnan’s signature hybrid choreographies is the playful and provocative Bollywood Hopscotch (that Ratnam describes as InDance’s “signature” piece) parodying both the melodrama of Bollywood-style expressions of sorrow, love, and violence, and bharatanatyam’s growing speed and Bollywood look. The hero’s pursuit of the bashful though available heroine is acted and danced provocatively and with ample humor. The work includes another layer – Bollywood cinema footage screened as a backdrop behind live dancers. Shah Rukh Khan with Aishwarya Rai from Devdas open the piece, gushing emotion, with one tear held perfectly below Aishwarya’s eye. The talented Rex is the company’s costume designer. Bollywood Hopscotch’s fabulously inventive costumes reveal more skin than is customary in Indian dance, as women sported red leather short shorts, or red leather skirt as a trim over black shorts with a strap leather top, or with a pompom behind like a playboy bunny. Gender stereotypes are played with via costume – the women wear shorts, whereas one male dancer wears an ankle-length blue gauzy lungi-style skirt covering his legs, while another dons black leather short shorts with a criss-crossing leather strap over his bare chest. The dancers reveal their thighs and often dance with their backs to the audience. The imaginative lighting design in Bollywood Hopscotch projects squares (as in hopscotch) of different colors – red, green yellow, purple, and orange – in total there are nine squares that the dancers move on and around (a similar leitmotif of colored squares was also used in 7 Graces). The music switches from bharatanatyam solkettus recited energetically and with appropriate

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Figure 25 Bollywood Hopscotch, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire)

punctuation by Krishnan himself (trained as nattuvanar), to Bollywood-style musical scores familiar to many audience members. The choreography is structured and paced to move between the bharatanatyam jatis and the Bollywood-style dramatic enactments of a love chase, followed by a fight scene, then a seduction scene full of coyness, and finally a quick almost seamless succession of a jati followed by a Bollywood-type pose, critiquing how the classicism of bharatanatyam is being taken over increasingly by dancers who act as would-be Bollywood babes. As the hero chases the heroine, they weave in and out of other dancers holding poses that evoke gods and goddesses – a parodied religiosity. A female voice whispers expectantly over the microphone: “dekho, dekho, vo aa gaya” (“look, look, he has come”), interrupting the movement. 2007 was a very productive year for Krishnan with three works: Breaking through Surface, Recipes for Curry, and Inverse. The legendary Canadian dancer Margie Gillis choreographed Breaking Through Surface for Krishnan’s solo (with music by a Montreal-based avant-garde composer, Ganesh Anandan). Krishnan appears on stage carrying a jacket that becomes a prop. He embodies the dancer’s struggle to “break through the surface,” whether that surface represents life’s difficulties or embodies the effort to reach a surface like a drowning person struggling to reach above water. Initially, the dancer carries

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the jacket on stage, then puts it on and walks all around the stage. He uses the jacket to elevate his body on one side and then on the other side as if moving along a circumference. Hari then undrapes the jacket, and walks in deliberate steps, bharatanatyam-style. Next, he drops the jacket as a male voice, in a very soulful Carnatic style, rises. The dancer twirls the jacket around his head and body as he circles the stage, and then runs faster and faster in ever-smaller circles. He drops the jacket in one corner, then steps on it and moves it forward along a diagonal with his feet marking the directions. As the pace of movement picks up with the jacket under the dancer’s feet, it seems as if the jacket might trip the dancer. Krishnan’s choreography for Recipes for Curry includes eight dancers who move in different combinations of rows, circles, and straight lines, at times moving to silence, at other times moving in pairs. Modern dance accompanies bharatanatyam neck movements while the legs perform ballet; the floor is used for bharatanatyam stamping, pirouettes, and modern dance movements. The piece makes dynamic use of two different stage levels. Dancers’ movements alternate between elevating leaps, grounded cartwheels, circles, and diagonal moves. Even as feet perform bharatanatyam movements, they disrupt the symmetrical bharatanatyam bodyline with jerks and breaks in surprising places. Inverse is another example of Krishnan’s signature choreographic style where symmetrical bodylines are broken deliberately – the neck is bent, arms are held in soft arcs, leaps flow in quick succession from bharatanatyam style lunges that land squarely grounded on the floor, to balletic jumps off the ground. Another characteristic movement in Krishnan’s choreography is evident in the carefully selected moments when his dancers give the audience a sharp, intent look, somewhat participatory and somewhat distancing – a gaze made iconic in Chandralekha’s pioneering choreography in Sri, where a group of women turn from an inward gaze to look sharply at the audience (discussed in Chapter 1). Light and shadow play beautifully on the two dancers’ faces and bodies in Inverse, casting shadows that surround the stage. In the end, they turn their backs to the audience, walk to the back of the stage bringing one arm up to the lower back; the female dancer’s hand opens in an alapadma and the male’s hand closes into a mukula. In Box, Krishnan choreographs a subversive commentary on contemporary bharatanatyam. Two dancers move strictly inside two lit, side-by-side square boxes; a Caucasian wears a traditional bharatanatyam sari, untraditionally black in color, while a South Asian dons black trousers and black top. Krishnan enters the stage and sits to one side. Uncharacteristically, the mridangam player sits across, rather than beside him, on the opposite side of the stage. Krishnan recites the solkettus and keeps the talam with cymbals. In one long continuous jati, with no breathing room in between, the dancers execute many bharatanatyam jatis as in dhit dhit teis and ta ka dhi mis inside the lit boxes as if they are trapped inside them. In fact, they are not allowed

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to step outside their marked box during the four-minute composition, as if imitating bharatanatyam dancers today whose lengthy jatis and tirmanams exhaust themselves and their viewers. The piece ends in a startling move with each dancer jumping across to the other box and as they are in mid-air, the lights go black. The image of boxes being exchanged evokes the significance of dancing “outside the box,” a call to transnational bharatanatyam dancers to explore new leaps of faith in their movement and music. Krishnan choreographs a similarly stunning finale in his light-hearted piece entitled Mea Culpa, inspired by Ted Shawn’s 1926 photograph of himself posing as Nataraj. The male performer enters in a suit, then removes his jacket to show an unbuttoned blue silk printed shirt and then startlingly reveals fishnet stockings (subtle gender-bending) under the pants! He begins with his back to the audience in the Nataraj pose, and ends with the same Nataraj pose deliberately swaying slightly before flopping to the ground as the lights go black. During the piece, the performer dances to Rossini’s rousing music with balletic leaps and pirouettes, while also transgressing strict ballet lines with distinctive bharatanatyam-style neck movements. Krishnan noted in a post-show question and answer session at the Joyce SoHo (NYC) that he wanted to put the male body on display in this piece, in order to reverse the customary display, sexual or not, of the female body. I interviewed Emily Watts, one of InDance Company’s dancers in Toronto (30 January 2009). She shares an artistic journey similar to that of Shyamala Moorty of The Post Natyam Collective (discussed in Chapter 5). Both studied ballet from a young age and have now assimilated bharatanatyam language into their contemporary work. Ballet tends to cultivate a “superior” attitude, noted Emily, so that even the transition to modern dance, such as dancing in bare feet, marked a major departure for her. The same is true for the shift to bharatanatyam. Emily met Krishnan at Wesleyan University during her undergraduate studies. Hari invited her to join his dance company and she is “thrilled to be part of (it),” though she lives in New York City and travels to Toronto to participate in Krishnan’s shows, which she did in Bollywood Hopscotch and Owning Shadows. Emily noted that Krishnan “is very good at pushing dancers out of their comfort zones.” Improvisation is not as easy for young South Asian dancers trained in bharatanatyam as it is for others trained in Western dance, she explains. Bharatanatyam trained bodies are not used to floor movement, or to touching the bodies of other dancers on stage. Emily noted that some of the dancers of InDance face such difficulties in moving across the boundaries of multiple dance aesthetics like ballet, modern, and bharatanatyam. Similar to Moorty’s exploration of ballet and bharatanatyam in Balance of Being (Chapter 5), I asked Emily about the two different movement vocabularies of bharatanatyam and Bollywood in Bollywood Hopscotch, and the attempt to integrate them in a hybrid work. Did the choreography strive to evoke a sense of flow or disjuncture, layering, collage, or palimpsest? In

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response, Emily described the creative process, pointing out the fine line that performers learnt to walk between the over-theatricalized forms of bharatanatyam and the melodramatic poses of Bollywood. In earlier stages of development, the two styles operated separately. “Now, as we continue to work on it,” she remarks, “we are really pushing to make both movement styles as similar as possible and at the same time be edgy.” The piece has now evolved to the point where there are “more Bollywood via bharatanatyam gestures,” such as in “wiping away a tear with a codified bharatanatyam mudra.” The two styles come together, collide, and are even inverted so that bharatanatyam becomes more dramatic and Bollywood-esque, and Bollywood more gestural in the bharatanatyam sense. Over the past four years, Emily remarked, since this piece was first performed, the gap between bharatanatyam and Bollywood styles has closed. This integration makes the audience think, even as it entertains. The two styles flow and rupture across the space of nine neatly colored squares lit in a multiplicity of red, yellow, purple, and other colors.28 True to the image of “hopscotch” in the title, dancers traverse the squares, in both carefully crafted nrtta and abhinaya, imitating Hindi cinema’s Amitabh Bachhan and the indomitable Helen. I was as struck by the movement and acting in Bollywood Hopscotch when I saw it at the Joyce Soho in New York City (April 2009), as I was by the startlingly inventive costumes by the company’s designer Rex. Emily was in red leather shorts that displayed her long legs, along with black gloves, Mausumi, another company member, in a black knitted scarf that she twirled on her arm during the dance, and Shobhana looking like the typical Bollywood heroine to Vinod’s desiring male gaze. With Bollywood film footage in the background, the piece opens with the dancers in a group pose akin to glamorous models. The movement then breaks into solid bharatanatyam jatis done in precise unison, which is doubly challenging because the dancers do not perform in place but rather traverse the stage along a diagonal. When they reach a momentary stopping point, they turn to give a sharp look in unison to the audience – a look seeming internalized within the subconscious of Indian choreographers originating with Chandralekha’s Sri. The startling costumes are meaningful and entertaining: dancers in shorts doing the araimandi, unhindered by any covering of the thighs and legs (as in traditional bharatanatyam where the body, especially the crotch area and the breasts, are covered by layers of a sari). Each of the five dancers is individualized distinctly in the choreography. When they overplay emotions, as Emily does with her “tragic” persona, she creates a fittingly melodramatic mood. Instead of the tear-jerking response of Bollywood style, here the audience laughs and in that hilarity engages with the movement. Krishnan is unique in integrating abhinaya along with nrtta in his Contemporary Indian Dance. Abhinaya is much harder “to bring into the contemporary context,” remarks Emily, “since all our references of expression are from the media or from theatre, and acting. So, abhinaya

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comes across almost as a parody when done in the midst of contemporary work” (Interview with Katrak). The piece ends as it began with the group as if poised for a photo where each dancer strikes a particular pose in line with the character that s/he has played – such as the frail yet strong heroine to the hyper masculinity feigned by a thin bodied and bare-chested male. In a differently toned serious choreography, Owning Shadows, Krishnan evokes universal resonances about the dark side of lust and greed in human nature, inspired by the demoness Surpranaka’s story in The Ramayana where she lusts for Rama. Surpranaka, the ten-headed demon Ravana’s sister is a crucial catalyst in the entire epic since when Rama spurns this demoness’ love, dismisses it as lust, teases her, and with his brother Lakshmana’s help cuts off her nose, Surpranaka reports this humiliation to Ravana who then abducts Sita. Krishnan abstracts from Surpranaka’s lust to explore the seamy side of human nature through abstract choreography, leaving much to the audience’s imagination. Indeed, Krishnan acknowledges, even “owns” the dark side of human nature, as the title suggests. He demonstrates the abstract notion of good and evil as co-existing in each individual by making the two bodies on stage move at times back to back as if to portray one body. At times, they split apart as they enact one emotion or another. Rippling, wave-like light leads the choreography as it plays on bodies under a gauzy net. More than two bodies seem to be present, but only two emerge, as if stirring from deep sleep. They are in striking costumes: the male in a gauzy long skirt and the female in a long silvery, ample skirt, with a red and black fitting top. The voice-over text intones: “Roots, mangled in deep affection… Jasmine withered … Bodies covered in sludge … coming through.” The original music composed by Michel Smith combines lyrical sound with screams, disturbing human sounds, and ominous-sounding whispers. The dancers emerge from the net, as though caught in a net of desire, going sharply into a bharatanatyam jati with jerking movements that break the symmetry. Krishnan creatively uses bharatanatyam syllables, rather than words during abhinaya, reversing the conventional use of nrtta usually for abstract movement only, and not to convey emotions or narrative. In Krishnan’s innovative reversals, nrtta accompanies the dancers’ emotional agonies in this exploration of human lust and greed. Emotions not immediately connected to words in lyric poetry (as in traditional bharatanatyam), but rather to nrtta enables Krishnan to “push the boundaries of both nrtta and narrative expression,” according to Lalita Venkat (narthaki.com). The dancers “de-spectacularize” the agony and ugliness of humanity’s dark side even as they understate it in tone. The male begins in a gentle mode, raising his arm as if caressing his cheek; the woman twitches and writhes with clawlike fingers as if her body has been taken over by lust, reflecting Surpranaka’s desire for the “broad-shouldered Rama.” The Ramayana portrays domesticated love as socially acceptable but brands the demoness’ desire as lust. However, Krishnan deconstructs both

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Figure 26 Owning Shadows, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire)

Sita’s and Surpanaka’s feelings; indeed the human and the demoness reflect one another and Surpranaka’s desire imitates Sita’s. A recent essay by Gabriele Brandstetter sparks, in my mind, an evocative echo between the demoness, animal-like in her lust, and the representations of animals in dance.29 Brandstetter notes that when Anna Pavlova dances the iconic Dying Swan, she “becomes” the swan even as she evokes a contrast between the dancer and the swan, untamed and free from the rigorous discipline of ballet. “Mimesis,” however, “means not only to imitate but also to make oneself similar to,” Brandstetter observes. “Pavlova’s swan is not an imitation of the animal. It is a second-degree mimesis, a reference to the swan aesthetic in the classical ballet of the nineteenth century; it is a replica, a poetic condensation into a solo” (Brandstetter, “Dancing the Animal,” 7). But this notion of mimicry in the context of colonization “represents an ironic compromise,” even a “sly civility” as postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha puts it. I find the notion of mimicry a useful way to analyze Krishnan’s humanization of the animal-like demoness Surpranaka.30

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In Owning Shadows, Surpranaka’s externalized lust evokes Sita’s internalized, undemonstrated desire. Even as Sita rejects that ugly side, it is a part of her. By the same token, even the demoness feels love for Rama, however incongruous. Arshia Sattar, in a recent volume entitled, In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology, argues: “Sita and Surpranaka exemplify two types of women who appear almost universally in folklore and mythology. Sita is good, pure, light, auspicious and subordinate, whereas Surpranaka is evil, impure, dark, inauspicious and insubordinate. Although male characters can also be divided into the good and the bad, the split between women characters is far more pronounced and is always expressed in terms of sexuality.”31 However, Sita and Surpanakaha, as “rivals for the same man’s affection,” according to Sally Sutherland, “have the potential of their becoming co-wives,” ludicrous as that may seem given Sita’s usually idealized role (quoted in Sattar). However, as Sattar points out, a different set of rules apply in the forest, where demonesses, female ascetics and virtuous wives of sages (like Ahalya, turned to stone) reside. In The Ramayana, different relationships “are expressed through replication, shadowing, and mirror images.” Hence, Rama and Sita’s following of prescribed rules of social behavior are “heightened by the more realistic … even morally ambiguous paths taken by the non-human and liminal characters in the text” (Sattar, 15). Krishnan’s InDance Company strives toward radical innovation in the creation of a postmodern dance vocabulary drawn from contemporary bharatanatyam and modern dance. Krishnan’s signature style is hybrid in movement, eclectic in music, and creative in use of space and lighting. Although hybridity is a common characteristic of Contemporary Indian Dance generally, Krishnan’s work brings a unique approach and new vigor to this concept. His vision challenges stereotypes of gender, sexuality, and nation, taking Contemporary Indian Dance in exciting directions.

Ramli Ibrahim’s Contemporary Indian Dance Ramli Ibrahim’s heritage, growing up as a Muslim in Malaysia, adds an intriguing dimension to his dance background in ballet, bharatanatyam, and odissi. Ibrahim’s journey began when he discovered ballet after he won a scholarship to study engineering in Australia. In time, he performed with the Australia Dance Company and the Sydney Dance Company. He studied bharatanatyam before discovering odissi, which would become his life-long passion. Ibrahim’s world grew out of the Indian diasporic communities of Malaysia, and he has retained these allegiances, much like Krishnan in Toronto. Their locations enable these choreographers to develop in provocative directions, like the open explorations of sexuality in Krishnan’s work, or his challenge to narrow ethnic boxes that constrain minority communities’ creativity as they navigate the mainstream.

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Ibrahim has made major contributions to the movement tapestry and the ongoing dialogue that shapes Contemporary Indian Dance with his Sutra Dance Company (established in 1983) and its native Malay, Chinese, and South Asian dancers. Lalita Venkat regards Ibrahim as “a pioneer dancer and choreographer of international standing” (narthaki.com, January 2001). His contemporary dance idioms weave together classical Indian forms, indigenous Malay “performing arts genres like Makyyong and Menora, Malay martial art form of Silat,” and “cross-genre work.” For instance, in a work entitled Mukaiji Reibo, Ibrahim draws upon Sakuhashi’s meditative music in a story about a Japanese Buddhist, but adds to it a “divine flute player, Krishna himself.” In an interview with Venkat, Ibrahim remarks: We learn various forms and perform them as per our choreography. It is the critics who attempt to compartmentalize and put our style of presentation into various slots. In some items, the music may be Odissi like in ‘Pallavi’, but I have deconstructed it and given it a contemporary layering. We can define contemporary aesthetic now from an Asian point of view and not from a Euro-American stance. (narthaki.com, January 2001) Among the different dance styles that he studied, Ibrahim was attracted to odissi the most. Odissi was reconstructed in the 1950s, yet not recognized by India’s Sangeet Natak Akademi as a “classical style” until 1953.32 Odissi’s lyricism, different from bharatanatyam’s angularity, appealed to him, he told the “DanceTalk” audience in New York City.33 His temperament suits odissi, which is “subtle, and understated,” he explained. Bharatanatyam is “very Apollinian,” he remarks, “very formal. Whereas in odissi, I can abandon myself.” He delves deeply both into the tandava, strong representations in odissi, as well as the lasya, lyrical ones. He remarks, “this is not a gender issue; rather, it is a quality of movement” issue; thus, males or females can execute both types of movements. Ibrahim is more interested in how the work exists in space, its texture, and its dramatic content, as well as how the “visualization of the musical composition” develops. “Dance,” he claims, “is visual music.” Ibrahim aims to convey rasa to his audiences. “There is no concept in the universe” he notes, “that cannot be shown in rasa.” Ibrahim believes that the dance he creates nurtures spirituality not religiosity, and it does not matter if one is Hindu or Muslim. Ibrahim’s notion of spirituality is not restricted to a temple or mosque; anyone can realize it, even in the act of cooking or gardening. And so it is with dance. The dancer, Ibrahim argues, must feel “a transformation in her heart,” so that he or she “adds color to the puja [religious ceremony].” He adds, in Ram Gopal’s words, “wherever one dances is a temple.” Ibrahim has created over 40 dance pieces using traditional and contemporary idioms. He “has always envisioned his creativity as a total experience,

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one that transcends national boundaries” (narthaki.com, January 2001). Described as a “nationalist” who cares as deeply about Malaysian traditional arts as he does about Indian classical dance forms, Ibrahim is also recognized as an “internationalist” for the choreographic language that gives his own creative stamp and delivers work with statuesque dancers in innovative uses of stage space. As a kind of cultural ambassador, it was fitting that Ibrahim received the Fulbright Distinguished Artists Award 1999. He is also credited with making “classical Indian dance trendy.”34 His choreography in Spellbound with 22 dancers and “fabulous sets and lighting and musicians from Orissa is so complex and beautiful [that] it keeps you on edge all the time.” Ibrahim has wielded a major influence on the performance scene in Malaysia. He has organized several key festivals: the Sutra Festival, the Alarippu to Moksha Festival, and the Under the Stars series. These give a platform for experimentation to both established and emerging artists. The Apostrophe commentator’s evaluation echoes many others who credit Ibrahim for transforming odissi into “a contextual dance drama … unique, even cutting-edge,” creating “a new identity for Odissi, making it more visual and accessible than in its home state” (24 February 2005). Ibrahim’s contemporary impulse is balanced with respect for tradition. Ironically, this sparked a controversy that erupted in Chennai in September 2005, when Sutra Dance Company’s presentation of Spellbound was criticized for the female dancers’ costumes. Ibrahim had correctly imitated the traditional temple costume of the maharis and devadasis who wear their kanchelas (sari blouse) without the covering of an odhani (fabric covering the breasts). In doing so, he followed documented instructions of palm-leaf manuscripts and other visual evidence introduced to him by prime odissi dancer Indrani Rehman. Perhaps the fact that Ibrahim’s dancers were mostly Chinese and Malay, and not South Asian subjected him to critics who had a field-day critiquing the “vulgarity” of the female costumes, not decently covering the torso with an odhani. Ibrahim’s passionate defense appeared on narthaki.com.35 It is ironic that the complaining critics in this costume war considered themselves staunch traditionalists, but were tellingly ignorant of their own traditions. In conclusion, Anita Ratnam, Hari Krishnan, and Ramli Ibrahim have pushed the language of Contemporary Indian Dance further than the masters of traditional dance and emerging artists discussed in Chapter 3. Their transnational collaborations across disciplines and geographies foster innovations in movement, sound, and multi-media. Each of them has worked successfully across national boundaries and borders of ethnicity, religion, genres of dance and theatre, and of indigenous and folk. Their formal achievements are as seminal as their political, gender, and intercultural goals – in Ratnam’s linking of pan-Asian goddess lore to contemporary urban feminism in India; in Krishnan’s overt challenging of gender, national, and

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cultural stereotypes; and in Ibrahim’s evocations of the intercultural in showcasing Contemporary Indian Dance with Malay folk, Western ballet, and modern dance movements. In the following two chapters, I analyze diasporic Indian and South Asian artists’ creative choreography in North America and Britain. Many second-generation artists enrich Contemporary Indian Dance idioms via hybrid forms and cutting-edge themes with overt feminist, progressive, and intercultural aims unfolding in a variety of directions. Such creative endeavors remind us that dance and the expressive arts play a significant role in awakening audiences’ spirits and social conscience, and in imagining new pathways to a more just future for humanity.

5 Dancing in the Diaspora Part I: North America

Theories of diaspora and hybridity both emphasize the importance of culture in the formation of national and multicultural identities, and they argue that culture has the potential to bring about social and political transformations … Just as individuals negotiate their position within complex forms of hierarchies, so dancers and choreographers negotiate their position within complex interpretative frameworks and aesthetic hierarchies. Ramsay Burt1 The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have witnessed more people moving from their places of origin into new adopted homes than at any other time in history. Relocations may be necessitated for survival, as in the case of refugees displaced by wars or political exiles, or for other reasons such as intellectual sustenance for artists, or a quality of life available in certain regions versus others. In this chapter, I analyze contemporary choreography of second-generation artists of Indian, part-Indian, South Asian, and other ethnicities living in North America, whose creative works have been path-breaking, even at times, paradigm-shifting in Contemporary Indian Dance. Relocated peoples constitute diasporic communities linked by national, regional, religious, artistic, and professional commonalities. Robin Cohen, in Global Diasporas, analyzes how communities bond around common allegiances such as religion, language, cultural expressions, and indigenous festivals among other factors.2 At times, immigrants’ engagement with traditions or social norms is regressive when these are regarded as fixed and timeless rather than dynamic and changing, especially within new geographies. Clinging to an imagined past and ahistorical notions of cultural tradition, especially by first-generation immigrants, often lead to more severe patriarchal controls in the diaspora than in the homeland.3 The scholarly challenge of what Susan Leigh Foster calls “reading dancing” necessitates an additional contextual sensitivity to the ethnicities, national, 154

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religious, linguistic, and political allegiances within mainstream cultures for diaspora artists. Although the latter are adept at negotiating borders, such as those demarcated by narrow “ethnic” boxes into which their work is placed, or other boundaries of religion, language, or nationality, transcending such politics on the ground is different for them than for their firstgeneration parents from India or Bangladesh. Dancer and scholar Uttara Asha Coorlawala discusses how migrations influence dancing bodies: As historically accumulated constructs of body, aesthetics, and dance migrate across intra-cultural geo-cultural divides, their meanings and values necessarily transform in the negotiation with changed contexts and intertexts. Manifestations of difference keep transforming, within an ongoing dialectic of identity and difference.4 Geographical locations and relocations (by choice or necessity) provide access to learning different movement techniques that inspire hybrid dance creations. Geographical locations also play a prominent role in exploring contemporary themes – ethnicity, gender and sexuality, physical and mental health.5 In situating diaspora dancers, both historical and geographical factors are significant. I rely on Edward Soja’s book Postmodern Geography, which argues effectively for the primacy of geography along with history in various fields. I bring Soja’s insights on space into dance – for instance, transnational dancers negotiating funding opportunities, or the availability of technological and multi-media facilities; or the traveling bharatanatyam solo “expert” from India who is increasingly sought after in the global North where the exchange of artistic knowledge is assuming increasingly troubling connotations. “Authentic” artists from India are enjoined to teach “items” to recipients who may not have mastered the basic technique. Abhinaya becomes a commodity sold separately from the bharatanatyam repertoire. Such consumption of art, where items are bought and then resold (for many years) to students in the diaspora, raises issues of artistic accountability and social justice. As I ponder this connection between space (where such transactions are taking place) and justice, Edward Soja’s recent book, entitled Seeking Spatial Justice, is most illuminating. “‘Spatiality’ of justice,” he remarks, “is an integral and formative component of justice itself, a vital part of how justice and injustice are socially constructed and evolve over time.”6 I take up somewhat provocatively, Soja’s “idea that justice, however it might be defined, has a consequential geography” in my discussion of Los Angeles-based Shyamala Moorty’s danced and theatrical representation in Carrie’s Web that explores the injustice of domestic violence, its private and public spaces, and how it is a troubling part of social pressures on immigrant communities. Although notions of home and belonging may not be as conflictual for the second-generation as for the first who had left a homeland and relocated

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elsewhere, nonetheless, being part of a diaspora has its own challenging dimensions, such as the hyphenated (ethnic/national) category of IndianAmerican for example, into which second-generation artists are placed. The latter consider North America, where they were born, as their home in ways that their parents, relocated from India or Pakistan, may not. However, “belonging” within North America, whether as hybrid artists for the youth or as professionals for their parents, involves continuing prejudices of ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality within mainstream cultures. Homi Bhabha conceptualizes the hybrid condition as existing in a “liminal or in-between space [where] the cutting-edge of translation and negotiation occurs.” He further regards this as an empowered liminal space “of intervention emerging in the cultural interstices that introduces creative invention into existence” – useful articulations to analyze diaspora artists.7 The notion of the liminal has a prominent antecedent in Victor Turner’s discussion of the liminal spaces in ritual and rites of passage that Turner himself acknowledges getting from Arnold van Gennep.8 Turner’s explanation that “all rites of passage or ‘transition’ are made in three phases: separation, margin (or limen, signifying ‘threshold’ in Latin), and aggregation” are resonant for artists in the diaspora who are marginal to mainstream populations and remain on “the threshold” until a time when their work may be incorporated into dominant culture’s own explorations of movement or other arts. Before such “reaggregation,” they may remain in liminal spaces where as “threshold people,” to use Turner’s phrase, they “elude or slip through the network of classification that normally locates states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention. Their ambiguous attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols” (“Liminality and Communitas,” 359). Individuals in society and artists as part of society experience “alternating exposure to structure and communitas and to states and transitions.” For dancers the notion of belonging to a diasporic group or to a mainstream community fluctuates; they may get caught at times in liminal spaces when they are “betwixt and between.” Turner’s evocative theorization is played out in the life and work of many of the artists discussed below. For diaspora artists who work across cultures without being tied to specific forms, Patrice Pavis’s notion of the “transcultural” is useful, notes Royona Mitra. For Pavis, this leads to discovering “universality.” However, in reality, even working across and beyond one’s own specific culture, one can get reinscribed into its norms when they get more rigid in the diaspora, as when immigrants extol their cultures uncritically – this is troubling even though it is sometimes justified in the face of systemic racism in mainstream cultures. In the arts, immigrants in audiences may cling to traditional and familiar expressions rather than supporting innovations. For artists, even as they transform received traditions, whether in dance or gender norms, a negotiation between past and present is significant and ties to the past are carefully

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reconsidered, resulting in new articulation. Several of the artists discussed below successfully bridge past and present in dance vocabularies. As diaspora artists work with tradition and innovation, they need to “translate” their practices for audiences. “Cultural translation” – a phrase that I first heard from the late Indian-American poet Agha Shahid Ali – in the production and consumption of dance works presents a major challenge in communicating artistic work; at best to sympathetic, even if not highly knowledgeable onlookers, and at worst, across limited notions of ethnocentrism, religious nationalism, and ethnic nationalism.9 Cultural translation is also needed within the same ethnic group divided by generation, class, education, and geography; after all, ethnic groups are not as homogenous as the mainstream usually characterizes them. Coorlawala notes some of the important factors that lie behind the practice, innovation, and patronage of classical Indian dance among South Asian diasporic groups, such as the aesthetic parameters, financial constraints, and communal realities faced by immigrant populations.10 She comments further that “traditional and nontraditional Indian dance forms have been constantly evolving within India since Independence, and also beyond India, as immigrants make this art form an accepted part” of their local immigrant communities. Both Coorlawala and Ananya Chatterjea have played key roles as mentors to second-generation US-based dancers, encouraging them to choreograph new work drawing upon autobiographical experiences and everyday life that speaks to feminist or political themes.11 Many artists discussed in this chapter embrace hybridity as a goal in their choreography. Although Bhabha is evoked most commonly in discussing hybridity, I find Caribbean theorist of metissage and creolization, Kamau Braithwaite’s discussion of the mixing of races (Africans with European colonizers) to be more useful than Bhabha’s since it is grounded historically. Braithwaite analyzes domination by the lighter-skinned over the darker populations in postcolonial times that continue the British colonial legacy of unequal power hierarchies by color. Braithwaite articulates creolization as “one’s adaptation to a new environment through the loss of parts of oneself and the gain of parts of the Other.”12 Dancers may gain and lose by borrowing and creating a metissage from different movement vocabularies via layered choreography or by parodying cultural stereotypes both within ethnic communities and across mainstream and marginal groups. Contemporary diasporic communities of performing artists of Indian, part-Indian, or South Asian origin belong as second-generation to parents who migrated from India to Britain, Canada, and the United States at different times in the twentieth century depending on local legislations. Some among these youth, now in their twenties and thirties born and raised in the West, have chosen careers as professional artists unlike their immigrant parents who followed traditional careers as doctors or teachers. In this chapter, I analyze the creative choreography of this critical mass of artists such

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as the Post Natyam Collective (originating in Los Angeles), Parijat Desai (New York), Sheetal Gandhi (Los Angeles), Natasha Bakht (Ottawa, Canada) among others, and Britain-based Akram Khan, Mavin Khoo (London) among others in Chapter 6. In general, venues and audiences for diaspora artists are mainly on the fringe, though established artists like Akram Khan perform in mainstream venues. Among the avenues for developing new work, performing artists attend choreography workshops or present their work in dance festivals. I discuss both in this chapter. Workshops where established contemporary artists mentor emerging artists promote contemporary work in small group settings such as UK-based Akademi’s “Unlocking Creativity,” or Dance Intense’s workshops held in Kolkata, Birmingham, and Toronto, and most recently the Gati Forum’s Summer Residences in New Delhi. Festivals work differently from workshops since the emphasis is on showing rather than developing new work. Festivals can create unique opportunities as well as challenges; for instance, artists need to fit the festival’s agenda/s, they have to showcase their work to diverse audiences who may at times travel across borders and who may or may not be sympathetic to edgy, even risky work. However, overall, performing artists can benefit by being visible and networking with other like-minded artists. This may lead to future collaborations interculturally and transnationally. I discuss the decade-long Artwallah Festival of South Asian Diaspora Arts in Los Angeles, Erasing Borders for the past two to three years, and Engendered Rituals in New York City. Previously, New York’s Diasporadics Festival and Toronto’s Desh-Pradesh (1990s) provided space for creative dance and visual art. How do diaspora artists survive as professional artists? The US government has dismal funding for the arts hence dancers work as teachers and have different day jobs. At times, funding agencies are more eager, in a kind of reverse colonization, to sponsor traditional dancers from India, regarded problematically as “authentic” rather than supporting their own local artists of South Asian origin based in London or Los Angeles. And, although Arts Councils in Canada (as in Britain) do provide funding that facilitates creative work for local artists, they often use limiting criteria that fit artists into narrow ethnic boxes. In London, artists face pressure to produce “contemporary work” and bharatanatyam-trained British-Indians who innovate from within the tradition are told sometimes to study “contemporary dance” in order to receive state funding.13 Such prescriptions are detrimental to artistic work. In general, funding for artists, whether working from within traditional dance, or embracing contemporary forms, remains a fraught arena.

Innovations in form Diaspora-based contemporary Indian and South Asian artists, trained in a variety of movement vocabularies, transform the language of Contemporary

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Indian Dance – movement is accompanied by scripted text or vocalization via spoken word or song creating a layered, collage effect; body and voice create inventive movement conversations via contrapuntal rhythms where complex rhythmic syllables of Indian classical music and dance accompany movement from modern dance or contact improvisation; a wide variety of media and technology, not only lighting and visual design but also new media like the internet that the Post Natyam Collective’s current project uses to co-create “long-distance choreography.” In contemporary times, choreographers bring their multi-tasking skills of daily life into the theatre to create performances where audiences simultaneously watch movement, read text, view images, and respond to soundscapes. Innovations in form guide and frame the exploration of contemporary themes such as bold portrayals of sexuality and gender, domestic violence, and other abuses of the female body. Political issues in South Asia such as gender inequalities and communal violence also enter the choreographic landscape of diaspora artists as they draw connections among various battlegrounds in their own communities and across the globe – such as in Moorty’s piece, Rise that evokes parallels between post 9/11 hate crimes in the United States with communal violence in 2002 during the Hindu-Muslim massacres in Gujarat. Second-generation dancers cast new light on traditions, both valuing certain aspects and challenging others, such as patriarchal definitions of femininity and female sexuality. Their work explores personal identity, family, and gender dynamics, giving feminist interpretations to racial and gender inequalities. They use the gesture vocabulary of traditional padams (lyric poems) to apply feminist re-interpretations to popular songs.14 Bharatanatyam nrtta comes into play along with ballet and modern dance, jazz and yoga to convey a new overall effect. Social themes drawn from both India and the United States come into play as well – such as an anti-war peace rally held prior to the US invasion of Iraq, where dancer-choreographers Parijat Desai, Shyamala Moorty, and Sandra Chatterjee physically passed a globe to adults and children who held it lovingly and gently to evoke a world that we need to protect rather than destroy through war. The power of movement, gesture, and sharing creates tremendous collective potential, notes Parijat Desai, and generates a source of dance energy and creativity that could be tapped further (Interview with Katrak, 2003). Notable second-generation dancer-choreographers I have interviewed and whose work I have seen in Southern California – Shyamala Moorty, Sandra Chatterjee, Anjali TataHudson, and Parijat Desai – draw upon different dance vocabularies and transform traditional Indian dance forms from within, for instance, when Moorty works with what she calls “inverted bharatanatyam.” Here the basic araimandi stance with open knees in bharatanatyam is changed to knees collapsing inward, to indicate fear in a domestic violence scenario in Carrie’s Web (discussed below).15

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Another striking characteristic of this second-generation is their openness to varieties of movement styles and their spirit of collaboration that enables Contemporary Indian Dance to evolve in exciting directions. This sets them apart from first-generation teachers of traditional Indian dance who remain close to their gurus and styles.

The Post Natyam Collective When I use Bharata Natyam like other people experimenting with and within traditional forms, I am trying to make it meaningful to myself in the context of the world I experience. A lot of it has been trying to figure out my second-generation role in crossing cultural knowledge. It is my way of commenting on the world through movement, a mind-body way of knowing, rather than just the intellect. (Shyamala Moorty16) Dance interprets in movement, what music interprets in sound; the postures and the stances it attains are the poses which the sculptor models; all these the dancer imbues with a living spirit of movement in a composition of form which is both sensuous and spiritual. The body is the medium to transcend the “body” (Kapila Vatsyayan, Bharata, The Natyasastra, 112) The Post Natyam Collective began in Los Angeles in 2004 with dancer choreographers Shyamala Moorty, Sandra Chatterjee, and Anjali Tata-Hudson who connected as Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) students at the University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) World Arts and Cultures Department. More recently, in 2007–8, Cynthia Ling Lee has joined the Collective as a core member. Sangita Shresthova, their affiliated media choreographer collaborates with them to “create dances that exist between dance, film and new media.” The Collective’s unique combination of creativity with scholarly research, a “border-crossing approach to contemporary South Asian performance,” challenges the lines that divide “art-making and academic scholarship.” Even as members connect to today’s global reality, they remain attentive to “historical erasures and aesthetic constructs embedded within our traditions” (postnatyam.net). Moorty remarks: The Post Natyam Collective creates contemporary approaches to South Asian dance. While each of us is trained differently, we all have training in at least one South Asian dance form … (that) share(s) a focus on rhythm, facial expression, hand gestures, and story-telling. We make these forms relevant to our contemporary realities by investigating them through scholarship, activism, and artistic innovation. As a collective, we rotate our roles as directors, choreographers, and performers. We also

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workshop each other’s individual works and engage in small-scale local collaborations with each other. One unusual aspect of the Post Natyam Collective is that we are multinational, with members based in Kansas, Munich/New Delhi, and Los Angeles.17 Choreographers of the Collective use multiple movement forms – Indian classical, modern, and postmodern dance, as well as hula, contact improvisation, and yoga – combining them with innovations in the use of voice, script, multimedia, creative writing, and theatre tools, and collaborate with visual artists and musicians to develop their solo, duet, and ensemble choreography. Multiplicity ranks equally in the Collective’s hyphenated identities. Moorty and Chatterjee are both part Indian; Shyamala’s mother is US Caucasian, while Sandra’s is German. Moorty grew up in Northern California, Chatterjee in Germany, Tata-Hudson (whose parents are both from India) in Southern California, and Lee of Taiwanese heritage in Eastern Texas and Southern California. Each dancer began their training early, though pursuing different styles. Moorty trained in ballet before studying bharatanatyam as an undergraduate student at UCLA. Chatterjee studied Kuchipudi in Germany at a young age, later pursuing Polynesian dance (Hula and Tahitian) while an undergraduate at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. There, she absorbed the “hapa, that is, mixed way of being” in which, she notes, “oppositions meet but not in a binary way” (postnatyam.net). “What attracted me to hapa is that there was a definite space for ‘half-ness’, someone who is mixed” (email to Katrak, 14 August 2010). Tata-Hudson studied bharatanatyam as a young girl growing up in Los Angeles. Lee trained as a modern/postmodern dancer before she discovered kathak while an undergraduate at Swarthmore College (in the United States) and pursued further kathak training in India. The academic ambience at UCLA where these artists converged encouraged intercultural choreography and productive connections between creative and critical approaches to dance with faculty mentors such as David Gere, Marta Savigliano, Victoria Marks, David Rousseve and Judy Mitoma. The Collective’s creative choreography echoes Chandralekha’s focus on the human body, especially on female and male energies. They explore female sexuality and gender, bi-cultural ethnic identity, female friendship, and explorations of Indian rhythmic structures combined with contact improvisation. Their innovative movement and theme-based creations “range from the subtle emotions of contemporary abhinaya,” remarks V. R. Devika, “to unexpectedly funky transformations of classical Indian rhythms … [the Post Natyam Collective] sheds light on the notions of home, cultural hybridity, longing, and translation.”18

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Figure 27 Meet the Goddess, Post Natyam Collective (Photographer: Lillian Wu)

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When the Post Natyam Collective began in 2004 few artists worked in groups. Their impulse to work together was guided by a shared feeling to explore common concerns of hyphenated identity, gender, and sexuality via diverse movements. Initially, Moorty remarks, “we thought we actually had to do the creative work in person. So, we did a lot of duets until Meet the Goddess when we all met for a week in Los Angeles, brought together our solos, made separately though with overlapping content, and intertwined them into a group piece” (email to Katrak, 10 August 2010). They have since turned their current dispersed geographical locations to their advantage, mobilizing their creative process interactively through the internet, communicating both administratively and creatively via video posting, blogging, teleconferencing, email, and shared online documents. This “allows more interacting between all of our work,” continues Shyamala, “instead of creating isolated from each other. We are constantly influencing each other and being able to see how the work overlaps from a distance” (email to Katrak, 10 August 2010). Prior to online projects, Collective members co-presented work such as Chatterjee and Moorty’s 2 in 1 (2001), including Shyamala’s Balance of Being,

Figure 28 Cyber Chat, Post Natyam Collective (Skype telephone call photograph. Courtesy: Post Natyam Collective)

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an iconic piece where she makes one side of her body dance ballet and the other side bharatanatyam, and Sandra’s Hapa that expresses hybrid identity and belonging. Moorty and Lee co-choreographed not two not one (2010), while Moorty collaborated with Tata-Hudson to create both Hold On and Natural Music (2004). Solo work continues to feature in each collective member’s repertoire. Moorty innovatively employs a plunger for a toilet bowl in the centre of the stage in her dance and theatre piece Rise (2003), symbolically attacking human waste fuelled by religious fundamentalism. Tata-Hudson’s Jathi Revisited (2008) portrays rhythmic structures of bharatanatyam nrrta and postmodern release, while Thrillana (2008) “expands the traditional notion of space used in bharatanatyam” (postnatyam.net). The same site describes her 2007 work Time Out as “this superwoman [who] longs for a moment when [she] can stop [and step outside] the chaotic daily grind.” Cynthia’s solo tour de force in movement and text choreography, rudda (rude, huh?) (2007), plays with “‘false translations’ of traditional kathak compositions.” Here, “North Indian rhythmic dance syllables transform into nonsensical English gossip, (and) … idiosyncratic postmodern movement suddenly shifts into classical kathak” (postnatyam.net). Sandra’s Malika (2010) weaves “a garland of dances choreographed to Oliver Rajamani’s music. (A) polyglot movement language … stag(es) a multi-layered nomadic female body” (oliverrajamani.com). Sandra’s Bollywood Scratches Project (2008) builds “a structured improvisation that worked with electronic music and a video live feed” in order to play with the “digital manipulations” of participants “in a real-time way” (postnatyam.net). Another collaboration is Cynthia’s with musician Lenny Seidman to produce darshan (2009), “a site-specific installation and performance (that) explores ways to restage the encounter between performer and audience” (postnatyam.net). Post Natyam initiated its collective process of “long-distance choreography” in 2008 such that each member gives an assignment to the other collective members who must respond within a month by uploading digital recordings of their choreography or other media. Feedback questions require responses within a week. Members agree that this method, described as “Documentation of and Reflections on the Creative Process behind our latest Collaborative Project” on the collective’s blog has given their work “clarity and direction” (http://postnatyam.blogspot.com). During an initial brainstorming session, the group discovered that their different interests revealed an overlapping concern about the history and legacy of the “courtesan” on the Indian subcontinent. This inspired them to explore sensuality in the female body and its connections politically to contemporary South Asian women’s stories, where the female body is on the line, figuratively and literally, in ways ranging from exotification to violent encounters, sexual trafficking, and other abuses. For example, Shyamala’s solo dance and theatre piece, Carrie’s Web (2009) draws from

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domestic violence testimonies in the South Asian American community. The Collective’s current collaborative project Suhoh! Tell Me, Sister aims to coalesce contemporary stories into the historical figure of the “courtesan.” Each member of the Collective has the skill and experience to undertake the topics of courtesans and sensuality because they have probed multiple dimensions of the female body, sensuality, and sexuality in previous dance creations. Meet the Goddess, choreographed collectively in 2006 (with the exception of Cynthia Lee who joined later) won the attention of Anita Ratnam and Ranvir Shah, the prescient presenters of Chennai’s The Other Festival, who have provided a platform to innovative dance and theatre artists for over a decade. Trace (2009), choreographed online by the Collective, combines movement performed with local collaborators with artwork and installation. Cynthia’s academic article, “The erotic trace/erasure of the courtesan in kathak dance and thumri music,” has provided the research for her artbook entitled Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine (2009), in which she explores “the form’s … troubled eroticism by combining poetic text and photographic image” (http://postnatyam.blogspot.com). Cynthia’s “alternate way of investigating” issues, incorporates writing with performance, and poetry with creative movement. Other creative choreography on the female body that demonstrates the Collective’s skill in undertaking their current collaborative project includes Anjali Tata-Hudson’s one-woman work-in-progress Womb Stories that explores intimate arenas of the female body “in relation to [her] recent experiences with conception, pregnancy, miscarriage, labor, childbirth and mothering,” and “how these issues intersect, collide, and harmonize with being a dance artist” (email to Katrak, 10 August 2010). Chatterjee’s choreography in Lajja (2005), Waiting for Rasika (2007), and Echo (forthcoming) reflects upon overlapping concerns about where “female identity is fragmented via movement and visual art,” as well as the female body’s conflicting feelings of shame and desire (postnatyam.net). Shyamala’s choreography in Sensitize (2003) probes female desire and pleasure. Such choreographies are praised as “women-centric themes ranging from sensuality and shame to freedom.”19 Among collective members, Moorty most adeptly fosters creative alliances in the Los Angeles artistic community. For example, she has collaborated with the multi-ethnic and community-based TeAda TheatreWorks and the South Asian Network (SAN), a non-profit community organization that addresses health, literacy, immigration, and violence facing South Asians. TeAda has partnered with Post Natyam as a producer for Sunoh! Tell Me Sister, slated to premiere in Spring 2011. The Collective has invited Toronto-based Contemporary Indian Dancer, Hari Krishnan to be the director. The work of defining “courtesans” for their current online collaboration to produce Sunoh! Tell Me Sister exemplifies the kind of on-going discussion that this method creates. Recognizing the word’s problematic connotations and its generalized usage, they have settled for the time being on the following: “the

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Figure 29 Sunoh! Tell me Sister!, Post Natyam Collective (Photograph courtesy of Post Natyam Collective)

devadasis,” notes Cynthia “were South Indian temple dancers who were involved in systems of sexual and economic patronage” as well as “the high class tawaifs and baijis of North India and Pakistan, and … modern-day sex workers” (http://postnatyam.blogspot.com). In addition to their important work in preserving art forms, Lee points out that “we are interested … in how the stories of the courtesans’ lived realities might explode the poetic surface of what we’ve learned as classical dancers” (postnatyam blog). In May 2010, Moorty and Lee presented Post Natyam Unveiled reflecting upon the ongoing creative process behind Sunoh! Tell Me, Sister. Collective members introduced themselves virtually: Sandra from Germany and Anjali from Kansas via “Cyber Chat, Cyber Spat.” The process of choreographing online, comments Cynthia requires “a technique of ‘translating’ each other’s material, so that choreography became an ongoing series of [layered] transformation instead of the co-creation of a single product” (postnatyam blog). Cynthia illustrates this effect by means of a thumri (lyrical love song) from which she erased phrases, in an effort to explore gaps and undertake “erasures” especially of “oral history” in general and that of courtesans in particular. Cynthia then “riffed off of a single word in (her) poem, ‘wrist’, that inspired Kansas-based Anjali to translate the text into a dance-for-camera piece … (where) Anjali’s piece used the camera to zoom in on her hands.” In

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the lecture-demonstration, text appears: “one child bride” and later “a widow in white.” In live performance, Shyamala projects Anjali’s video on to her body in response to an assignment given to her “to depict the real-life story of a child widow who escaped familial abuse of her in-laws by becoming a courtesan” (postnatyam blog). Video clips of Post Natyam Unveiled can be viewed online. Moorty’s back, onto which Tata-Hudson’s hands have been projected, transforms the plain whiteness of the widow’s sari, and captures an active rather than stereotypically defeated widow’s body. White can represent the color of a bridal dress; here, marriage becomes a widow’s burden. An audience member responded to this moment, saying, “the combination of the video with the hands and the movements of the body were like trying to release that bondage … I just loved how dynamic it was to see, first of all, this projection which is something coming from outside onto your body” (postnatyam blog). A video of Lee’s fingers marking furrows in wet sand evokes sensual images. As the piece ends the widow sheds her white sari and transforms into a femme fatale clad in a red petticoat and dark green blouse transforming into her new incarnation as a courtesan. The Post Natyam Collective’s success is rooted in negotiating space – physical distance as well as allowing enough space for diverse viewpoints. Each member remains rooted in the individual dance form/s in which she has trained and takes on labor for the Collective as an autonomous artist. They share what each has learned from traveling through their different avenues. For instance, Shyamala and Sandra both have worked in Dance Intense in Birmingham, Shyamala also in Toronto and Cynthia in Kolkata; Anjali worked with prominent choreographer David Rousseve on Saudade (a Portuguese word that refers to a longing for someone dear) that toured across the United States. Anjali performed with Southern California-based Viji Prakash’s bharatanatyam troupe in several traditional and experimental productions. In an interview with me, Anjali observed that for most students, arangetram marks the “end rather than a beginning” of their involvement with dance. She played the role of the Nutcracker in Prakash’s remake of the Christmas classic in 1993.20 To assert this piece’s universality, the Introduction declares that this is the “story of any girl’s fantasy growing up anywhere in the world.” More challenging than the story was the experiment in “translating The Nutcracker for an Indian audience/dance style.” The dance itself “looked” traditional, although costumes and dramatic effects for nearly 50 dancers looked impressively innovative. Prakash’s choreography blended a variety of Indian classical and folk traditions like Punjabi bhangara and Gujarati garba, and placed it alongside the orientalized depictions of Middle East dancers so familiar to the original Nutcracker. Tata-Hudson choreographed Empty Prayers as part of her MFA thesis production at UCLA, and performed it at Artwallah 2003; the piece presents an

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evocative satire of the commercialization of Indian dance, religion, and yoga in the diaspora. The piece portrays the competitive atmosphere that pervades even a yoga class. Dancers use the prayer mudra, the gesture of both hands joined, throughout the piece at times unreverentially when the dancers raise their feet in the audiences’ face. Such a move comes across as a parody of prayer, where feet should never be displayed in the face of a deity or audience. Anjali’s choreography questions the performance of rituals as empty acts without meaning. The piece also acknowledges that a sense of devotion is personal and can be expressed without prescribed externalized rituals. Tata-Hudson has described how she created Empty Prayers by building emotional content and intention from one movement phrase from bharatanatyam – prayer mudra. She also worked with improvisation and yoga poses. Much of her movement vocabulary demonstrates a solid connection to the earth and uses space to indicate a kind of reaching out for a community, often with arms extended diagonally, while simultaneously evoking a sense of being isolated. The dancers seem stuck in an “empty prayer” mode. Then, as the music’s rhythm changes, they appear to break out of following blind ritual movements. At times, the movement unfolds in an eerie and effective silence with only the sound of hands clapping or the feet stamping, as the body moves jerkily, and hands move in figure eight formations, rising into a “V” form then falling into a prayer position. As their arms extend, the dancers appear to reach out to other human beings; then, as their hands come together in prayer mudra, they depict the individual with her own internalized sense of prayer and bhakti. The choreography uses a series of intense moves, from flat back on the ground to jumps and turns, always returning, as if punctuating the movement with the prayer mudra. Chatterjee’s choreography includes collaborations she undertook in Germany, India, and the United States. She recognizes the constraints placed on the classical Indian dance style kuchipudi caused by bharatanatyam’s increasing appropriation of its vocabulary (Interview with Katrak, February 2003). Certain hip movements in kuchipudi are judged “vulgar”; religiosity problematically becomes dominant and literalized in kuchipudi renditions in the diaspora. Although Sandra is committed to conveying spirituality via physical movements, she also remains resolved to express uncensored femininity. Chatterjee and Moorty’s experimentation with representing female sexuality and sensuality evokes a revision of sringara rasa (love), particularly in representing its erotic aspects. Chatterjee’s piece Shivers portrays the usually hidden arena of pleasure experienced by the female body. As the Program Notes state: Shivers of pleasure experienced in the female body form the landscape of Sandra’s imagined space of femininity, in which the space of femaleness is not defined in opposition to maleness. The text of the poem, which

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is part of the piece, reflects the problematic complexity of this sensuous imagined space when presented on stage. How is this (utopian) space of feminine pleasures transformed by the encounter with male desire? The entire piece unfolds with Sandra on the floor, presenting a captivating and bold representation of female sensuality and pleasure. Moorty’s Sensitize also asserts “the centrality of the female body, allowing the existence of pleasure in the female body, [and] the communication of pleasure and sensuality through the female body” through dance. Further, she renders the female with full agency empowered to initiate sexual play and lead to physical union. Shyamala pursues this idea further, seeking to portray the female body in ecstasy via innovative choreography using two bharatanatyam gestures – shikharam (representing the male) and karthakamukha (the female). She begins with a shikharam that moves around the body as if it is touching, feeling her female body. The karthakamukha moves towards the shikharam as if the female body has become aroused and responsive to the male touch. The two seem to dance separately, each expressing her/his individual desire/s. As they come together, the gestures circle each other as Shyamala’s hips sway evocatively as if building towards physical union. The circling gestures and the spreading legs evoke a sexual image. In an unpublished co-written paper, Moorty and Chatterjee theorize the implications of representing sex via dance, something that South Asians are not used to seeing in dance. “It seems to me,” remarks Chatterjee, “that in this piece, the hands and the body narrate the same encounter from two different viewpoints: the hands, to me, act as a narrator.” The piece focuses on the female dancer’s own desire. Rather than the famous saying in the Abhinaya Darpana which says, “where the hands go, the eyes follow, where the eyes go, the mind follows, where the mind goes, there is emotion; where there is emotion, rasa is born,” Chatterjee reverses the idea to suggest that in Sensitize, “rasa is born where the mind follows the body” (Essay on Sensitive, courtesy of the dancers). Moorty herself observes that, at the outset of a piece, she feels that her “body is split in two. A dialogue between two halves of myself.” The split enacts the choreography’s inspiration in Shiva iconography as Ardhanareshwara, half-male and half-female. Chandralekha’s choreographic expression of male and female energies and the balancing achieved between them by tapping into the female in the male and vice versa comes to mind. “Later,” Moorty remarks, “when my hands unite, the more female side comes out.” Shyamala furthermore notes that she is more acutely aware of the audience in Sensitize than in any of her other work partly because she is “transgressing the norms (she) was taught.” Sensitize raises a spectrum of audience responses: Is the female dancer, as she embodies female desire and pleasure again, an object that arouses the male viewer? Moorty believes, as noted in the co-written paper, that rather than allow herself to be objectified in a sexual encounter, she remains the

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subject putting forth her desire. Of course, this kind of sexuality differs greatly from the usual representation in classical dance, where a chaste body like Sita’s is extolled over lustful figures like Surpranaka in The Ramayana, who is punished by disfigurement when her nose is cut off. She literally loses face for her lust over Rama. Moorty and Chatterjee intelligently raise the question: even if we celebrate female desire will we always fulfill it? “Am I just setting myself up for disappointment?” Moorty asks. “Sometimes we tend towards utopian representations just to make space for alternate realities.” Shyamala also questioned whether she wanted to use different gestures to convey both male and female, but in the end decided to rely on the culturally specific vocabulary of bharatanatyam mudras. She was inspired by the dramatic work, Yoni ki Baat, where South Asian women write “original, culturally specific ‘Vagina Monologues,’” and the open forum for women to talk about their bodies without shame. Some viewers interpreted Sensitize not as dealing with female sexual desire, but rather evoking meditation and transcendence akin to bhakti that is expressed passionately in Indian traditional arts such as the stories of the lovers Radha and Krishna. But interpreters who favor the spiritual over the sexual – as much community insiders as others – fall, perhaps subconsciously, into stereotypes of purity and chastity of the mystical, mythical East rather than facing the gritty reality of sex. They would rather hold on to the stereotypes of the virtuous and chaste female body where sexuality is invisible. And, of course, proper South Asian women would never depict sexuality in public. A significant foremother of the Collective is the late Chandralekha – especially in her use of the human body. Working from within Indian aesthetics and philosophy, the choreographers take the exploration of the body in postmodern directions, deconstructing it, subverting its gaze, questioning its stereotypes of femininity and restrictive social codes, and openly, though subtly, exploring female desire and pleasure. Their work as a collective, their use of new media to enable work across geographical distances and their collaborative spirit create the wave of the future and can serve as models for other twenty-first-century artists. In another co-written piece entitled, “BiDentities, Not Binaries: Using Choreography and Writing to Investigate Bi-Cultural Experiences,” Moorty and Chatterjee discuss “notions of representation and agency.” They comment: “Tracing our two individual stories through writing and choreography, we will problematize our experiences of being half Indian dancers in the West. We attempt to evade the dangers of being split into binary categories ‘East’ and ‘West’ and rather set out to discover what Guillermo Gomez-Pena calls a ‘border semiotics.’”21 The paper is divided into two parts – each artist recreates her personal experience of performances in multicultural venues with varied audience

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expectations and stereotypical responses. Chatterjee describes her experience performing for a promotional event organized by Air India and the Indian Board of Tourism encouraging Germans to visit India. She notes that since she “looks” Indian, and can perform what is recognized as “authentic” Indian dance, she was hired basically to display the culture “as a commodity … With my appearance, I can sell the illusion of the exotic Indian temple dancer, at least almost.” She critiques the somewhat automatic impulse by audiences whenever they see Indian dance, toward a form of exoticism that fetishizes what defines an Indian woman. She argues that whenever she assumes the confident persona that may interfere with stereotypes of docile Indian women with downcast eyes, she places herself “at risk of loosing [her] job, that is, not being hired again.” In her section, Moorty recreates a memory from the age of 13, when she was getting ready to perform ballet for a group of diplomats in the Monterey Double Tree Hotel. Her ballet teacher had “choreographed” some moves from Indian classical dance, including neck movement, arms movements in spirals, “covering and revealing face[s] with veils,” and using mudras such as the prayer position. Shyamala the adult reflects that such images harked back to the Orientalist representations of La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) first staged in 1877 in Russia by Marius Petipa, and “filled with near naked, leaping savages; chaste women with bare stomachs and scarves dripping from their arms; various royalty; a golden dancing god; and an evil Brahmin.” She observes: “Just like Petipa, my ballet teacher called on her imagination mediated by her memory of colonial India and the technique of ballet to create an ‘orientalist’ vision of India and Indianness.” The Orient gets fused into Asia, the Middle East, and “everything the West is not,” evoking Edward Said’s influential book, Orientalism. Moorty questions: How is it that, during performance, “hers was the authenticating face” because, like Sandra, she “looks” Indian? Beyond that, what did it mean to her “as a half-Indian ballet dancer representing [Indian] culture through a Russian woman’s imagining of Indian dance?” Writing as an adult about the dance practice that “informs [her] bodily experience,” Shyamala realizes now that in ballet the training emphasizes the feminine rather than the female, the ethereal rather than the divine. These contrasts became starkly apparent when she encountered bharatanatyam. Initially, she hated the dance form’s stomping and the sharp, exact movements that contrasted so much with ballet’s floating and gliding. “The technique of Bharata Natyam, except for similar placements of the limbs, seemed opposite to the technique of ballet. My body-mind, trained into the ‘docility’ of ballet, was now challenged in all my notions of femininity and dance.” Moorty describes feeling “caught between the two forms, trying to perfect each so I could represent each cultural form correctly – for I didn’t want to offend anyone by doing it wrong. As I performed more Bharata Natyam, my

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ballet technique started to fall apart. I could no longer extend, leap, float with the soft grace I had once so adored. In between the two, one diminishing and one building … I had lost myself. There was no space left for me to express myself in either form; rather, I was floundering to be the perfect model of each technically.” Initially, Shyamala felt “dedicated” to each form “in their imagined perfection, petrified of doing them disservice,” and following the “static and rigid” movement regimes of each form. She discovered that both traditions had problematic notions of the female body. Ballet etherealizes the body while virtually denying its materiality, always pushing it to go beyond its body perimeter, as in leaps. Bharatanatyam, “was used,” remarks Shyamala to perpetuate traditionalism and a fixed vision of Indian culture. How did I embody these two [ballet’s and bharatanatyam’s] differing and problematic ideas of women?” Moorty and Chatterjee comment on “developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity,” inspired by feminist theorists of color such as Gloria Anzaldua who discusses the “new mestiza” who “copes by … learning to juggle cultures [with] a plural personality, operat(ing) in a pluralistic mode.” In concluding their essay, “BiDentities,” Moorty and Chatterjee remark that “as choreographers [they] express [their] need and desire to go beyond Orientalist or nationalist notions of Indianness and represent [themselves] as individuals (who happen to be half Indian). Individual choices, here should not be interpreted as individualistic self-expression, but as dissenting voices re-emphasizing heterogeneity over homogeneity, asserting the freedom to articulate alternative visions over pressures to represent an entire culture.” Both artists embrace a broad and wide-ranging delineation of “Indianness” as heterogeneous, diverse, and dynamic rather than monolithic and fixed. The issues about dual identities and allegiances to different dance forms raised in the essay are expressed in their choreography in Balance of Being danced by Moorty, and Hapa, by Chatterjee. Shyamala graphically represents her iconic choreography of a striking bodily conflict – a struggle between her practice of ballet and bharatanatyam. The right leg and foot both wear tights, the right foot a ballet slipper, while the left leg has tights down to the ankles and a bare foot as in bharatanatyam. Shyamala wears a black, knee-length dress with a red scarf draped over her left shoulder. On the stage, the dancer stands astride a dividing vertical line of red and white flowers separating the two sides of the body that performs the dance. The music composed by Jonathan Marmor begins with the sound of a drone-type instrument, common in Indian musical performance, followed by a slow alap-type sound of the sitar. The left hand in shikharam meets the palm of the right; then, the fingers of both hands interlock and rise upwards into prayer mudra. As they do, the joined hands stop between the eyes, which glance from right to left with the neck movement distinctive in bharatanatyam yet also evocative of the internal struggle between ballet and bharatanatyam. The two hands then open to the side; one palm faces

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Figure 30 Balance of Being, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: David Flores)

up and the other down as the head looks from left to right, registering a kind of anxiety and confusion. A gentle piano strain picks up. The dancer remains rooted to one spot compelling the viewers to concentrate on small movements, from foot flexes (as in bharatanatyam) to pointing (as in ballet). Still not moving from the spot, the dancer begins to tentatively sway back and forth. Suddenly, she strikes a distinctive bharatanatyam stamp, breaking the line of flowers and moving outside the line, before returning to the line with ballet movement. In stillness now, the hands gesture between a standing Shiva Nataraj with hands diagonally across, moving to one hand floating up in ballet’s fourth position and back to Shiva. Then, the body pirouettes with one foot flexed, as though leaving bharatanatyam behind for a moment. The two styles of movements, once distinct, begin to integrate. The feet turn balletic underneath bharatanatyam hand gestures. The hands then move back and forth from balletic gentle fingers to the firm pal (hand-gesture) with fingers held together in bahratanatyam’s patakam, creating a kind of flow for a brief time. Moving around the stage, the dancer somehow keeps both vocabularies in view for the audience. As she returns

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to the middle line, Shyamala picks up some flowers and bathes her face with them. Once again, the two “conflicting sides” grow more frenetic. The dance concludes with a series of pirouettes as if circumventing rather than integrating, bodily, the two different dance traditions. The overall effect of Balance of Being is created by the body’s shift between ballet points, arabesques, pirouettes, and bharatanatyam grounded into the earth with stamps while the hand creates mudras using alapadma, shikharam, and hamsasya. The contrast between leaping ballet and earthy bharatanatyam come together in intricate choreography as Shyamala executes each style with incredible grace (a hallmark of this artist), intensity, and passion. Through gesture, movement, and music this solo body conveys two different dance styles and cultures. For the dancer this struggle is also part of a larger cultural issue of belonging. For some performances Shyamala includes text as voiceover: “My father migrated (from India) to the US with only $26. My mother hitchhiked all the way from Colorado to California where they met. She used to dream that they were paving the path to peace between East and West” (personal communication). Shyamala’s choreographic process, she notes, strives to bring together the male and female, half-him and half-her, half-Nataraj and half-ballet. This creates an interesting reversal from the usual identification of the East as feminine (signifying instinct, emotion, and weakness) and West as male (signifying reason, intellect, and strength). This piece depicts the East as the male Shiva, represented via the lingam (phallus), and the West as female through ballet. In her interview with me, Moorty discussed her own evolution as she tried to fit into an Indian community – at times, feeling like she is “playing a part” or faking it because she looks the part and can more easily fit in. She wants instead to take advantage of her “privilege of in-betweenness” rather than allow herself to be restrained by her Indian appearance. Intercultural choreography lies at the heart of her choreographic explorations. The concept of “inter,” she notes, “can include negotiations and translations between cultures that is inherent to our work.” Shyamala agrees with Rustom Bharucha, in his discovery of “critical and cultural affinities [that are] to the tensions of the ‘inter’[cultural] – ‘the cutting edge [as per Homi Bhabha] of translation and negotiation, the in-between space” (“Bi-Dentities”). In The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking Through Theatre in an Age of Globalization, Bharucha’s comment that it is “not the essential meaning of cultural terms [that matters], but [rather] how meanings mutate and metabolize in the course of their transportation, translation, and specific uses in other cultures” that resonates in the work of several second-generation dancerchoreographers who “translate” movements and cultures to create new work. The process of creating movement involves writing, discussion, making frameworks, and exploring intentions as they devise movements. This contemporary method of work requires the choreographers to invest much

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thought and intellectual probing into each movement. This results in a remarkable logic and thought that stands behind the choreography, different from Indian traditional dance grammar passed down through generations from teacher to student. As they create autobiographical work, Moorty and Chetterjee draw broader progressive issues into their choreography, issues that pertain to race and gender discriminations even within the family as in Like Mother, Like Daughter? Standing fully facing the audience, each dancer portrays herself as a daughter; turning her back to the audience, she reveals a mask that portrays her mother’s face. Over the mothers’ voice/s the audience hears the overlay of questions and responses by the daughters. Sandra’s German mother speaks: “My daughter, the Indian dancer.” The white German community responds: “What a dark child.” Shyamala’s mother’s voice admonishes: “Don’t eat with your fingers.” Both bi-racial dancers felt while growing up that they were not accepted completely by one or other of their parents’ cultures. As Sandra notes, “In Germany, I look like my mother and in India, I look like my father.” Moorty’s two dance-cum-theatre pieces, Rise (2003) and Carrie’s Web (2009), resemble Anita Ratnam’s choreography in her use of script, movement, props, a theatre director, and innovative uses of stage space. Moorty effectively embodies different characters, much like a bharatanatyam soloist who takes on different roles and evokes rasas. Indeed, Moorty’s acting consciously includes her abhinaya training. Further, Moorty aims to both entertain and educate her audience in the tradition of Brechtian political theater. In Rise, she “transforms into a fierce household goddess, wielding a plunger as her only weapon against riots, religious fundamentalism, and the breakdown of the toilet. Moorty navigates an intense journey through the maze of complex relations between Hindus and Muslims, highlighting the mental filth and human waste of the 2002 ‘riots’ in Gujarat, India” (Publicity material). The piece opens with the dancer leaning over a blocked toilet bowl as she pulls out wet pieces of dirty cloth, and a doll that triggers the story of a young terrified girl looking for her father during the chaos of the Gujarat communal killings. As she talks to her doll, symbolically named Ganga (after the river Ganges sacred to Hindus), to comfort herself, she discovers the brutalized dead body of her father. Many such horror stories were part of that fateful history. Rise evokes parallel histories of violence elsewhere in the world as well as in Moorty’s American audiences’ own backyard. The piece was performed in the uneasy political climate of post 9/11 with the then President Bush’s pre-emptive strike on Iraq, his imposition of the Patriot Act curtailing civil rights, and imprisoning supposed “terrorists” without due process. In today’s local-global dynamic, courageous citizens play a significant role in speaking out for justice and fairness.22 The Gujarat horrors were rooted in religious fundamentalism, as racially motivated hate crimes killed innocent

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South Asians in the 9/11 aftermath. What recompense can be offered to the family of the innocent Pakistani man who was imprisoned only because he was a Muslim, and who died of a heart attack while in prison?23 There is no State accountability for such tragic loss of lives. Moorty’s Carrie’s Web: solo contemporary choreography using abhinaya and navarasas Because I grappled with being more than one thing and having more than one reality, the idea of examining the two sides of something became very intriguing to me. I began to question the idea of purity and marked that space of in-betweenness as the place I produced my work. (Shyamala Moorty24) The in-between spaces between bharatanatyam’s abhinaya and modern/ postmodern dance translate effectively in Carrie’s Web (2009). Just as successfully, Moorty conveys the many sites of interplay that lie between dance and theatrical role-playing through her choreography. Moorty uniquely uses humor to raise awareness about a deadly serious subject – domestic violence, generally invisible within the South Asian American community. This use of light touch for serious purpose recalls Hari Krishnan’s choreography in Bollywood Hopscotch, which pairs the melodramatic posing of Bollywood heroes and heroines to increasing speed and affectation in today’s bahratanatyam performances. The style of Carrie’s Web “defies categorization,” notes Nirmala Nataraj who describes it as “postmodern dance, diaspora dance theatre or just a darn good show” (India Currents, August 2009). Moorty distinguishes her dance-cum-theatre genre from dance theatre that uses dance to tell a story without words. Rather, she uses the integral linking of dance and theatre in Indian aesthetics to intermingle the two, to allow one to flow into the other, or to sometimes deliberately separate the two. Moorty reinvents nrtta, creating what she calls evocatively “inverted bharatanatyam” in which bharatanatyam’s araimandi (plié) position with open knees is changed to turning the knees inwards, causing them to knock as if in fear, and evoking a body collapsing after physical or verbal blows during domestic violence. Moorty also transforms abhinaya that portrays emotions by having postmodern breaks in movement along with depicting the primal emotion of fear that often leads to violence. Moorty interweaves her expressive abhinaya with verbal story-telling and dialogue among imagined characters on stage. Her syncretic interplay of nrtta, abhinaya, and words raises the emotion-thought dialectic (discussed in the Introduction) that both moves the audiences’ feelings even as it engages its thinking, raising awareness in Brechtian mode towards social change. Moorty’s journey to Carrie’s Web was facilitated by her selection with other artists in Los Angeles’ TeAda Theatre Works that had received a grant to link

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Figure 31 Carrie’s Web, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: Jen Cleary)

performing artists with community health organizations in Los Angeles as part of an alternative approach to working with the community on social issues. Shyamala worked with NISWA, an organization (since 1996, with a helpline since 1991) for Muslim women and youth that help survivors of domestic violence. Once a month for nine months Moorty met with NISWA members in a library inside a mosque. There, she used yoga and performance-related exercises to elicit memories and encourage participants to speak about repressed violent experiences. Moorty used oral testimony gathered from another community organization SAN (South Asian Network), its staff, and support group for survivors of domestic violence. Moorty then worked with theatre director D’Lo, a Sri-Lankan American transgendered artist whose skillful staging contributed to the successful production of Carrie’s Web at TeAda theatre company’s “Healing Aloud” series. The set design with two sheets hanging on stage right for aerial work and use of space augment the piece’s affect. The character Carrie jumps into the hanging sheets, twirls around in them, and hangs from them with deliberately jerky movements.

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Moorty plays two roles on stage – Carrie, a delightful spider that loves high-heels, based on “the assertive, independent and headstrong main character from Sex and the City, a popular cable TV show that catalyzed a more candid dialogue of women’s issues and relationships.”25 Moorty told me that rather than making Carrie South Asian, she wanted to “Other the West … play with the notion of the other … In one sense, the spider recreates the typical idea of the other which creates fear or tendencies to dehumanize the other” (Interview with Katrak). Shyamala “puts a twist” on this notion by making Carrie a likeable and fun character. The other character is Artesia, a South Asian teenager whose parents named her after the “Little India” area in Artesia, Los Angeles, and whose private world unfolds in conversations with her close friend Monica on a Bluetooth cell phone, covering the ear evoking a contemporary manifestation of the traditional ear jewelry in traditional bharatanatyam that was intended to protect the dancer’s ears from the vibrations created by the musical ensemble on stage. In Carrie’s Web, the covering of the ear works ironically in that Artesia tries to drown out the sounds of domestic violence taking place in another part of the house. She also does so by raising the TV volume. Artesia complains to her friend that she is not allowed to date, that her parents will probably arrange her marriage, that they did not allow her to watch sex education videos in high school, and that her life is sexless even though she avidly watches Sex in the City. Artesia’s life falls somewhere in between her parents’ conservative values and Carrie’s world. Carrie, as a spider, is puzzled as to why humans, who are so much bigger than spiders, are afraid of them. “Why are they afraid of us little old things? Is that why I’ve seen the father human swatting and smashing the mother human? Is he afraid?” (original emphasis) At another point, Carrie comments on the violence: “I would never let a man beat me like that. In the spider world, if he acts up, we just eat him. Humans have so much to learn.” Moorty’s intention in this piece is to explore human fear, where it comes from, how humans deal with it, why at times they express their fears via violence, and why at other times the fear silences them (like the invisible mother in this piece). The work raises parallels between human fear of spiders and human fear of violence, and suggests avenues of resistance. Carrie urges her compatriots “to take pride in (their) spider body,” which calls to mind the victims of violence who need to heal and reconnect with their bruised bodies and souls, and resurrect their beaten self-esteem. Carrie’s call to spiders “all over the house” to go on a hunger strike models the voice that victims of violence must gain in order to resist oppression and fight back. Moorty conveys these serious themes and tones by couching a serious message about victims hiding bruises, or calling help lines to escape dangerous domestic situations, in an empowering tone, as Carrie mobilizes spiders with tactics like organizing local protests and calling on others to email her at sexyweaver.com and also get “beauty tips.”

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Along with the spoken script, Moorty choreographs three solo dances in Carrie’s Web where she expresses emotions as much through nrtta – “inverted bharatanatyam” – as through abhinaya, expressing fear, cowering as if protecting her body from attack. The first of these dances depicts Artesia as a young girl afraid of spiders who screams audibly for help from her father, the perpetrator of violence on the mother. Later in the same dance, she plays her mother with a wide-open mouth in a silent scream as if she is being hit. The mother’s fear is made palpable by Moorty’s fists covering her face as if protecting it. Then, she dramatizes a spider moving towards her face via creeping fingers; the audience imagines it landing on the face like a physical blow. The movements then embody anger as if one enraged person is dragging a weaker one against her will. The audience senses escalating anger as the girl out of fear squashes the spider. Such violence parallels the domestic violence in the home, though it is never seen on stage (as if following the ancient Sanskrit drama tradition of not showing graphic violence on stage). During the second dance Artesia grows so frustrated with her domestic situation that she fantasizes about being a male who stands up to her father. As she strikes out at him, however, she also hurts herself. The movement changes from open araimandi, with arms stretched out wide to the side and fists clenched strong, to the reaction at being hit, breaking like a puppet on a string and falling forward, hanging like a rag doll. With a moving tat tit me tu, she reassumes her position of strength, stretches her arms to the side with clenched fists to show her muscles, only to be hit again and collapsing. The pattern repeats: hitting and falling, hitting again, and fighting back until the body collapses. During my interview with her, Shyamala told me that she is “interested in internalized hatred, how we beat up on ourselves on the inside, turning our own anger in onto ourselves instead of out onto the outside world.” The final anger/rage dance also includes spoken words about Artesia’s mother. The daughter is furious at her mother’s silence, even in the face of the father’s threat to arrange her marriage. A layered depiction of emotions follows: fear and frustration, love for her mother, courage and self-assertion. The rage feels raw and urgent. The repeated gesture of two fingers on the mouth as if indicating the silence that victims of domestic violence often embrace (out of fear and shame). Fingers to the mouth move to alapadma that rests in front of the womb evoking mothering as well as carrying and caring for the daughter. Moorty believes that the arts “are a valuable tool in any community work” and can enable people to open up and talk about their problems. Art can lead to transformation and raise awareness of injustice. Carrie’s Web (like the earlier Rise) demonstrates Moorty’s effective combination of aesthetics and politics. Indeed, her artistry communicates her activist ideas uniquely to diverse audiences. “For me,” notes Shyamala, “the arts are about engaging

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with real people and their issues. A performance can be beautiful for beauty’s sake, but I’m not always inspired to merely create beautiful art. I’m more driven to make work that can help the world.”26 As one survivor of domestic violence tells her: “Please accept my sincere praise … in handling such a strong and sensitive subject and for your efforts in instilling a sense of self in women.”27 Moorty hopes that her work will “begin dialogues.” Artesia asks, “What’s up with South Asians? Can’t tell the truth?” This is the question that Moorty addresses through dance and words, leading her audience at such moments to that special kind of healing that art can accomplish. Carrie’s Web demonstrates the power of language and movement in assisting survivors of violence. Moorty’s use of testimonies illuminates how stories can be transformed into art. Her use of movement to evoke violence and resistance to it evokes dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones’s movement work in his deeply moving Still/Here, about his partner’s suffering and death from AIDS. Dance and movement can bear witness and create opportunities for healing in a special way. Halfway across the world from Moorty’s base in Los Angeles, Kolkata Sanved, in India, a non-profit group uses movement and dance therapy as healing techniques for survivors of violence. “Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is growing internationally,” notes Sohini Chakraborty, founder and director of Kolkata Sanved, “as an alternative and creative approach to counseling, psychosocial rehabilitation, self-expression, and empowerment. Without any dialogue, movement serves as a means for inspiring people to open up and share their stories and embody their true emotions.”28 A “participatory learning” process is used wherein “creativity is more important than technique and empathy is more necessary than sympathy. It explores what the body can do rather than stressing what it cannot do, and perhaps most importantly, employs a non-judgmental attitude with a promise of confidentiality and trust.” The goal is to encourage the victims of violence to “reclaim their bodies and cultivate positive self-perceptions” (“Dance as Healing: Kolkata Sanved,” 63). Kolkata Sanved deals with women who have been trafficked and the prison-like situations in which they live, alienated from their bodies and suffering a totally negative attitude toward life. Trained dance therapists, attempt to convince these victims of violence to release their anger and shame and build self-esteem. Kolkata Sanved uses bharatanatyam to this end using “hand gestures as tools for storytelling, and facial expressions (as) the keys to revealing emotions.” This NGO also works with children who survive the high-stress conditions of living and working on India’s railway platforms and to heal the repressed anger this creates. “The children learn to relax their bodies and slowly break down the emotional walls that have kept back their feelings of peace and joy that they are entitled to as children.” Survivors of trauma rooted in violence, abandonment, and sex trafficking often “disassociate from their bodies as a means of separating

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themselves from trauma” (Chakraborty, “Dance as Healing: Kolkata Sanved,” 65, 66). Movement provides them with an opportunity to grasp the origins of their traumas, to gain the ability to talk about them, to reconnect with their bodies and to revive a healthy mind-body continuum. Survivors find Sanved’s public performances to be highly positive since the abused “are able to speak to civil society.”29 These are not professional stage performances; rather, as Chakravorty notes, “we are removing dance from the limits of performance and helping it to re-emerge as a unique process of therapy, education, psycho-social rehabilitation – especially well-suited to these populations who are most often silenced” (“Dance as Healing: Kolkata Sanved,” 67). Sanved has worked with 1500 children and youth and reached over 3000 people through performances and workshops. “Since 2006, Kolkata Sanved has spun countless success stories of wide-eyed children spilling their biggest secrets and dreams on the dance floor; of women discovering their strength to scream through their first rhythmic steps” (68). Sanved regards dance “as a language of strength, resistance, liberation, and change” (69).

Parijat Desai In my work, I try to show that you need not sacrifice discipline and technique in developing new things. Tradition does not die because we try to express something contemporary or relevant to a newer generation. That drive to innovate helps the tradition to live. (Parijat Desai30) Indian-American Parijat Desai’s journey as a dancer began with bharatanatyam from the age of five. However, it was not until she began to study jazz dance at age 16 that she realized that she “loved movement, rhythm, and theater in a way that extended beyond a particular technique or culture.”31 Desai creatively bridges movements from bharatanatyam, yoga, jazz, modern dance, and martial arts with her study of the histories of colonization and global interconnections. Hence, “it is helpful for both the dancer and choreographer to have an understanding of how their experimentation fits into a long global history of dance innovation,” she remarked during my interview with her. Although a bharatanatyam-trained body gives a dancer “many skills,” notes Desai, “Indian classical dance alone does not prepare a dancer to do contemporary or modern dance movements. These arenas of dance involve very different approaches to the body and to movement … greater flexibility (in modern dance) … and learn(ing) how to move more fluidly. Sometimes that means going counter to what her first technique demands and unlearning habits … yoga, tai-chi, ballet, Indonesian dance, even swimming expand a dancer’s capacity to move more fluidly or organically” (narthaki.com 30 October 2004).

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Desai’s choreography is inspired by emotive musical genres like Hindustani thumris or “crossover UK Asian electronica.” At other times, she continues in the same interview on narthaki.com, “a movement language starts to emerge” from an idea or event in a way that raises “questions about movement itself, or philosophical or political questions (e.g., what does it mean to be a warrior? What is the nature of archetypal Indian womanhood?). Text may add layers to the idea exploration. I’ve used Indian folklore, spiritual literature, lyrics, and political writings as part of what shapes the choreography.” Desai tunes into the concept of a “spiritual warrior” and “how through martial arts one can work things out internally, how to handle aggression in the world. I am interested in physicalizing that exploration in movement; in diffusing energies and deflecting anger” (Interview with Katrak). Her distinction between “traditional expression of religious ritual versus spirituality expressed in a contemporary idiom” in dance echoes Anita Ratnam’s dance where a broad-based spirituality connects humanity without evoking any particular religion (Chapter 4). Desai connects to spiritual traditions from India and Africa just as Ratnam does to India, China, and Tibet. “My cultural identity is inherently hybrid,” notes Desai. “Identity is like a sub-text – it is not necessarily the context of the piece. Each piece has its own focus. But the fact that the vocabulary is mixed is the expression of mixed identity.”32 For Desai, this kind of hybridity entails mixing Indian and Western dance forms as well as varied traditions from the Indian subcontinent, such as a Tamil folk-tale and Gujarati folk music which, when mixed, can create something totally new. Desai explained (during my interview) that “making art that is hybrid is not new, but our awareness of syncretism” has changed. The exploration of this phenomenon, she believes, “has to go deeper than questions of ethnicity.” Indeed, she “resist(s) labels.” In her aim to make her art “relevant and accessible” she challenges the language barrier of traditional padams, lyric poems in Tamil or Telugu, by using abhinaya and non-bharatanatyam movement to dance to a popular English song like Roberta Black’s “Killing Me Softly.” The audience recognizes the song and responds with pleasure, even rasa, as Parijat ironically interprets the romantic words, displaying a strong agency that resists stereotypical female longing. She combines everyday expressions with the hand gestures of bharatanatyam (hamsasya/ alapadma) to create a kind of hang-dog street walk, along with the assertiveness of a confident, self-possessed woman telling someone off rather than the coy heroine of traditional padams. Desai’s dance combines research and activism similar to the Post Natyam Collective members with whom Desai overlapped at UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures Department. For her MFA concert, Desai “created a new hybrid choreographic form.”33 She established the Parijat Desai Dance Company (PDDC) in 2000, in order to work “at the intersections between movement

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techniques … evolv(ing) a South Asian American aesthetic while exploring themes of spirituality, struggle, and transformation” (parijatdesai.org). Desai aims to express “a distinctively South Asian American perspective but also communicate ideas across ethnicity and language.” Although Desai works with her dancers differently than the Post Natyam Collective, she recognizes the need for “a constant balancing act between directing the process according to an evolving vision, and facilitating that creation in an inclusive way.”34 PDDC has performed in Los Angeles at prestigious venues such as the Getty Center, Skirball Cultural Center, and Highways Performance Space. The company relocated to New York City and has performed there at MaMa Theater and the Queens Museum of Art as well as at the Desh Pradesh festival in Toronto. PDDC has also performed in India at the Bangalore Biennial and Chennai’s The Other Festival. Desai, like Moorty, believes in using dance to raise social awareness and has used dance to help raise funds for immigrant services, earthquake relief (2001), and communal violence victims (2002). Desai has received a number of prestigious awards, including the Lester Horton Dance Award for Individual Performance (1999), the Durfee Foundation Artist Fellowship (2001), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Fund (2010), and the New York Foundation for the Arts BUILD Grant (2008). She has performed in David Rousseve’s Bittersweet (2005), collaborated with Lynn Dally Jazz Tap Ensemble in Rhythm-a-ning (2001), and apprenticed with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (1998). In 2006, Desai created Migritude, written by Kenyan-Indian poet Shailja Patel, commissioned by the National Performance Network. She taught intercultural choreography at UCLA in 2005 and was an artist in residence at Stanford University in 2009. I witnessed Parijat’s elegiac choreography in The Wall (performed at Artwallah 2003 in Los Angeles), based on a folk story, “Tell it to the Walls” by A. K. Ramanujan. The story describes a widow’s silent suffering which grows so immense that it makes her body physically heavier and heavier, until she needs somehow literally to get out of her body. Aniruddhan Vasudevan’s essay, “Text in Transit – Word to Image,” explores Desai’s transformation of the written story into performance. In the original story the woman becomes “’fatter and fatter’ as sorrow accumulates within her.”35 Desai changes this to make the woman’s emotional trauma “heavier and heavier.” She represents the “wall” by a group of silent women who listen to the woman’s story because no one else will. Gradually, the women/wall takes on her sorrow; they crumble, leaving the woman strong, standing upright. Desai used a long shimmering blue sari that she wrapped and unwrapped around her body with great effect, traveling the length and breadth of the stage using space most imaginatively. She gripped the audience as much with Medha Yodh’s powerful voiceover of the heart-rending poem as by her incredible technique, economy of movement, and highly expressive face.

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Figure 32 The Wall, Parijat Desai (Photographer: Rose Eichenbaum)

Desai’s choreography in Quiet/Fire, The Waste Land Project, and Songs to Live For is stunning for its blend of martial arts movements and its depiction of the role of a warrior. Quiet Fire “combines intense disciple with austerity.”36 Desai collaborated in Quiet/Fire with composer-percussionist Kenny Endo, “matching thematic relevance with technical sophistication.”37 Dancer Rajika Puri connected warrior resonances to “Desai’s investigation of philosophical and ethical ideas embedded in The Bhagvad Gita … the dilemma of prince Arjuna (whether to fight or not) that lies at the heart of this ancient text.”38 In The Waste Land Project (2007), T. S. Eliot’s recitation is interwoven with sounds of guitar, blues and funk, raindrops and soft ankle bells. What was “new about Desai’s blending” of bharatanatyam with “Western modern and jazz dance,” remarks Jennifer Dunning, “was its departure from the usual look of ritual. And she has found the perfect interpreters in [five] dancers, whose seamless blending of the new and old was filled with funny and touching nuances of personality.”39 In Songs to Live For (2010) Desai layers thumris, love songs in Hindustani classical vocal style, khayals (thoughts) rendered in song, and images of Indian Mughal courts with Indian classical dance gestures and postmodern dance. Like Post Natyam, Desai’s inventive choreography brings together Indian and Western dance vocabularies, aesthetics, and cultures, and conveys them using music and visual art. This distinguishes her as a significant part of the critical mass of second-generation artists in North America.

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Sheetal Gandhi Indian culture is becoming more mainstream. Second-generation IndianAmericans are moving into the world of theater and dance and media. You’re seeing people in jobs you haven’t seen before … I incorporate Indian culture into some of the dances I choreograph, but not in every case. It’s not like it’s a stamp I have to mark all my dances with. I like to experiment with many different styles. (Sheetal Gandhi)40 Sheetal Gandhi’s creative choreography in Contemporary Indian Dance combines kathak, ballet, modern, and postmodern dance with theatre and vocalization. Gandhi had played a leading role with her own original choreography as Oceane, Goddess of Water in Cirque de Soleil’s Dralion (1999– 2001), performing ten shows a week and traveling extensively. Another highlight of her career – she danced in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Broadway show Bombay Dreams. She has presented her solo and group work in theatres and festivals across the United States and beyond. Growing up in Northern California, Gandhi trained in multiple movement vocabularies (she is now also a Pilates teacher). She studied kathak in Ahemadabad at Kumudini Lakhia’s Kadamb School. Gandhi is as interested in “tradition” as in the breaking of it, and embraces an aesthetic and choreographic ”border crossing” impulse like many of her Indian-American peers. A hallmark of Gandhi’s multidisciplinary skills lies in combining her technical virtuosity in movement with profound affect and feeling. “Her first concern as an artist,” as noted on her website, “is to create work that stirs deep within the human experience” (sheetalgandhi.com). Gandhi, like Natasha Bakht, and Astad Deboo before them, combines incredible virtuosity and rigor in abstract dance along with communicating rasa. Gandhi also differs from them in her thematic evocations of female subjectivity and feminism in her creative choreography as in bahu-beti-biwi (discussed below) and her use of voice, and theatre tools. In a deeply moving piece written for her father, Lullaby Goodbye (2003), Gandhi and three dancers in long white garb convey grief and mourning, and the trials of coping that face those beset by the sudden, untimely death of a loved one. Sultan Khan’s songs, her father’s favorites, create an elegiac mood. In a final movement sequence, Gandhi’s back is on the back of another dancer as she rests her feet on another dancer evoking a baby being put to sleep with a lullaby, as well as a dead body being carried in a coffin as if bringing together the different stages of human life from childhood, to old age, to death. Gandhi uses the technique of weight-bearing found in contact improvisation to communicate loss. Another noteworthy feature of Sheetal Gandhi’s dance is her connection with African percussion and dance, which has been a part of her repertoire

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ever since she spent a year as an exchange student in Ghana. She traveled with the Novisi Cultural Troupe, performing at different venues, ranging from a chief ’s funeral to an occasion at the American Embassy. This added a further nuance to her dance as she translated her “strengths and professional successes from an African village to the subway platform to the Broadway stage to create work that blurs cultural and disciplinary boundaries, promoting intercultural understanding through artistic excellence” (sheetalgandhi.com). Gandhi’s choreography in bahu-beti-biwi (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife), an innovative palimpsest of text, voice, and movement, is a landmark contribution to the language of Contemporary Indian Dance. The piece is remarkable for its representation of the themes of female oppression and resistance. With poignancy and dark humor, Gandhi explores the limited roles for women in traditional Indian society. The three-word title beginning with bahu (daughter-in-law) subtly asserts that a woman’s marital identity as given by her husband’s family is more significant than her subjectivity as daughter or wife. In Gandhi’s ironic rendition, a dominated daughterin-law fights back. She declares, “I will grind, grind, red chilies fine” inside her kitchen-realm and fling them into her father-in-law’s eyes, temporarily blinding the patriarch so that he cannot force her to cover her head. As she repeats the words in a determined tone, her face is covered as the red color

Figure 33 Sheetal Gandhi, bahu-biwi-beti (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife) (Photographer: Cedar Bough T. Saeji)

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of the chillies flies over her head. The words along with the dramatic effect of the red color against the black cloth covering her face are powerful. The soundscape is rich and evocative. Gandhi overlays moving vocalization in both English and her mother tongue, uses Gujarati with tonal shifts, spoken and sung, sad and humorous, expressing loss and love. North Indian folk songs intertwine artfully with English phrases and kathak bols (rhythmic syllables) – a technique also used superbly by the Post Natyam Collective’s Cynthia Ling Lee in her piece rudda (rude, huh?). Gandhi intones: “Ha… Na… ta ki ta dhin” where the bols keep rhythm as well as narrate girlhood stories: “rolling rotis with my aunty, rolling 100 rotis” (similar to tortillas). Gandhi combines story-telling with movement bringing different characters to life – an aunt, a grandmother who exhorts her granddaughter not to dress like a beggar with torn clothes. Their values as tradition-minded Indians collide with those of their visiting American-bred teenagers. Gandhi portrays a beti (daughter) asking her mother: “Why can’t I wear a tank top … in India? Why can’t my brother wear short shorts … in India? They call him chaddiwalla, underwear boy.” Why, a daughter wonders, did her father marry her off “so young… What was [her] mistake?” Gandhi translates this lament into English as a wailing song intoned in a religious choral style. In this way, she warns of the serious traps of tradition that stifle women under patriarchal regimes. In this polyvocal and interdisciplinary piece, dance, theatre and voice (spoken and sung) come together in the best tradition of Indian aesthetics. Gandhi paces voice and silence, movement and music exquisitely. Bahubiwi-beti plays out and resists “proper” female roles by bringing together Indian cultural norms of arranged marriage, generational gaps, and hybrid cultural identities of multiply located people.

Extensions of tradition in the diaspora Traditional Indian dance teachers who run successful bharatanatyam and kathak schools in the diaspora perform a significant service in imparting this art to second-generation youth. I note selected figures in Southern California (my base) – three unique mother-daughter teams – Bharatanatyam dancer/teachers Viji Prakash and daughter Mythili Prakash, who is now a performing artist in her own right; Ramaa Bharadvaj and daughter Swetha Bharadvaj; and kathak dancer/teacher, Anjani Ambegaonkar and daughter Amrapali Ambegaonkar. Other bharatanatyam dancer/teachers include Ramya Harishankar (Irvine, California),41 Mythili Kumar (Northern California), Rathna Kumar (Houston, Texas), Hema and Kritika Rajagopalan (Chicago), and Chitresh Das (Northern California). These teachers, trained in India, migrated to the United States (some through marriage) in the 1960s and 1970s. As masters of traditional Indian dance, they are inventive in teaching the styles along with Indian mythology to American-born youngsters used to

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a fast-paced life of megaplexes and malls, ipods and internet-enabled social networks. These teachers, over the years, have created many theme-based solo, group, and dance drama choreographies enacted by their students.42 In Canada, the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company teaches bharatanatyam. Its forward-looking vision was showcased when students from this company were trained in a revival work of one of Chandralekha’s choreographies – a segment from Sri, called Shakti (discussed in Chapter 1). The integration of different ethnicities into mainstream populations in North America (as also in Britain) is a complex and multifarious process with different political and legal dimensions in each nation. The United States has a history of state controls over the inclusion and exclusion of Asians from the late nineteenth century onwards.43 Only after the 1965 landmark legislation were vast numbers of South and Southeast Asians allowed to enter the United States. And it is the children born of the post-1965 immigrants who, as US citizens, study traditional Indian dance and create innovative contemporary dance. Where does dance – along with visual art, films, social activism, practice of religions – belong in the expression of South Asian diasporic identity? How do second-generation dancers negotiate their Indian-Americanness along with their gender, class, religion, and other affiliations? Sandhya Shukla’s essay, “Locations for South Asian Diasporas,” analyzes “the cultural consequences of migrations from the Indian subcontinent” and how “multiple formations of nationality take place in diasporic culture.”44 Shukla’s study adds importantly to studies of community formations in terms of how “gender, sexuality, and generation might profoundly fissure South Asian and other diasporas.” More studies of second-generation youth and their participation in native and hybrid forms of culture created in the diaspora are necessary, following useful scholarship by Sunaina Maira, and Rajini Srikanth among others.45 Current studies of South Asian American cultural forms focus on literary or film/visual media, whereas there remains a dearth of scholarly work on Indian dance, and on the impact of South Asian American popular culture on dancers of Indian, bi- or multi-racial origins. Bharatanatyam is one of the most popular forms embraced by secondgeneration students in the US diaspora.46 Few among them wish to be professional dancers; rather, dance is an extra-curricular activity that imparts physical technique and knowledge of Indian mythology and religion. Indeed, in the diasporic melting-pot of South Asian Americans (with different ethnicities, languages, religions), bharatanatyam that depicts mainly Hindu mythology and religious deities is also studied by some Muslim students from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. First-generation teachers innovating from within the traditional grammar and idiom of traditional Indian dance style into “extensions of tradition” use dramatis personae for dance-dramas, making them accessible to audiences

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with minimal knowledge of Indian mythology. The loss in the adaptations that use multiple characters, including actors performing the gods on stage, is that the quality of bhakti, foundational in traditional bharatanatyam and conveyed by the solo female dancer, is portrayed literally. Rather than the suggestive communication of bhakti as a profound personal feeling contained in and conveyed by the body of a single dancer, dancing-actors now embody and dramatize the gods. Group choreography rather than solo dance is favored for its entertainment value that makes it better equipped to compete with Bollywood dance. A majority insider audience patronizes Indian classical dance, even when presented in regional-mainstream theatres, such as the Torrance Performing Arts Centre in Southern California. Cultural insularity, though rooted in the difficulty of making an ancient tradition accessible to an audience unfamiliar with its movement vocabulary and epic stories, needs to be challenged. Although the spectacular elements of the performance, the sheer joy of watching intricate foot and rhythmic patterns do communicate aesthetic pleasure, the overall aura of the “unfamiliar” clings in the very folds of bright silk saris, in the hair adorned with flowers, the glittering jewelry and ankle bells. Hence, the South Asian community’s “chosen marginality” is fostered at times by religious and nationalist stereotypes that are regressive. Fixed notions of culture and nation when they find a cozy habitation in the very body of a traditional dance style such as bharatanatyam must be confronted. Diasporic audiences need to critique narrow versions of nationalism and not hide behind “respect” for ethnic cultural forms, or escape into sentimental memories of a homeland. In the weekly classes, for which the parents are willing to drive over 50 miles, and in the yearly performances, the affect and ambience of home is recreated via the fragrance of flowers, and the familiar chai and samosas that quench more than physical thirst! Although certain identifications such as language and food are nurturing for the diasporic community, it becomes problematic when these shared joys for insider community members lead to what I have called elsewhere “a chosen insularity.”47 Popularizing the style and making it more accessible is one avenue used by diaspora-based teachers of traditional Indian dance. Another avenue is using the traditional form to present contemporary themes, as in Ramaa Bharadvaj’s fine choreography of The Panchatantra (folk-tales) using classical bharatanatyam dance movements along with modern dance to evoke a contemporary ecological theme; Ramya Harishankar’s Celluloid Classics projecting (on screen) segments of classical Indian dance in popular Hindi cinema and re-rendering the stories and movements by contemporary second-generation dancers; Anjani Ambegaonkar’s Ma-Betiya (Mothers and Daughters); and Viji Prakash’s many innovative dance-dramas rooted in bharatanatyam such as The Mahabharata, Shyama (based on a Rabindranath Tagore story), and Prince to Buddha among others. Viji’s creativity is broad ranging and

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inclusive in her pan-Indian scope, welcoming students of diverse religions and including their particular music and religious chants in her choreography. For two Muslim students’ arangetrams, Viji choreographed to the music of “Allah Hoo” by Nusret Fateh Ali Khan; and for a Zoroastrian student’s arangetram, Viji included chanted Avesta prayers, and depicted the life of the prophet Zarathushtra in the varnum. Mythili Prakash, Viji’s daughter trained by her since a young age, is now a renowned performing artist who has won prestigious awards such as the Yuva Kala Bharati by Bharat Kalachar in Chennai for her high artistry at a young age. Mythili, as a young adult, decided recently to live in Chennai after growing up in Los Angeles and graduating from University of California, Berkeley in 2004. In 2006, she made a conscious career choice to pursue dance and to live in Chennai, the heartland of bharatanatyam. She is one of the most prominent artists to have undertaken a successful return migration to India while her parents remain in Los Angeles. Indeed, Viji feels a deep commitment to serving the diasporic community. Mythili works from within the bharatanatyam tradition to create new works. She remarks that, although “contemporary dance is gaining popularity today” and although she “admire(s) the beauty, creativity, and uniqueness of this new genre of dance, [she] feels that it is extremely important to preserve the traditional, which is unparalleled in its depth, richness, grandeur, and spirituality … the word ‘traditional by no means should imply stagnation … The art form is constantly evolving through time.”48 Mythili aims to make the traditional relevant for today’s world. For instance, in Stree Katha she interprets the stories of three female figures of The Ramayana usually remembered for certain attributes, such as Kaikeyi’s cunning and powerhungry nature, or the demoness Surpranaka’s lust and greed, and finally Sita’s chastity and virtue. Mythili probes their psychological motivations and the social contexts for their actions and evokes parallels with gender roles in modern society. In this work, Mythili experiments with using musical syllables rather than lyrics to portray emotions; a strategy that made the audience pay attention to her incredibly mobile face in expressing emotions and not be lulled into meaning-making via familiar lyrics. Mythili’s dance at Los Angeles’ prestigious World Festival of Sacred Music in September 2009 in Salam Yatra: A Journey of Peace through the Music and Dance of the Middle East and India with A. J. Racy was memorable. Racy is a musician in the classical Ottoman Sufi tradition playing on the oud and buzuq (lutes) and slamiyyah (Egyptian reed-flute) while Aditya Prakash (Mythili’s brother), a soulful vocalist in the Carnatic tradition, accompanied Mythili’s dance. The musical traditions and Mythili’s creative bharatanatyam created a synergy of the principles of divine love and unity from Islamic mysticism and Hinduism. Mythili and Amrapali Ambegaonkar, another talented second-generation kathak artist, were selected to showcase bharatanatyam and kathak on the

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Figure 34 Mythili Prakash, Stree Katha (Photographer: Rupesh Kotecha)

American television network, NBC’s “Superstars of Dance.” Although this gave wide exposure to Indian traditional dance, the agenda of consuming difference without much knowledge was inevitable. As happens on TV shows, the crowd shouted excitedly at the speed of the footwork as if at a sports event. Although Mythili accepted this opportunity as “a challenge because I only had a minute and a half to perform,” she thought that “it was a great experience and I was happy to present bharatanatyam to such a wide audience.”49 Amrapali’s mother Anjani Ambegaonkar is her guru in kathak’s Jaipur gharana. Amrapali once remarked: “I have come to terms with the fact that I was brought into this family on this earth because I have a purpose to serve … hopefully to continue the tradition that is being passed on to me … It’s my shadow, it’s my gift, it’s my faith.”50 Other diaspora artists include Kritika Rajagopalan and Natya Dance Theatre Company based in Chicago. An innovative work, Love Beyond Reach, combined bharatanatyam and kathak. This method of placing two traditional styles side by side in performance is a method often used by artists who remain grounded in traditional dance. A fine example of “extending tradition” is in a co-created piece, Jwala: The Flame by bharatanatyam dancer Ramaa Bharadvaj and her daughter Swetha. Jwala encapsulates in movement the immigrant theme and the generational issues of cultural identity and belonging for both mother and

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daughter. Apart from Indian-Americans, many other immigrant communities connect with issues of cultural and generational conflicts. For this reason, Jwala was selected for the Dorothy Chandler (a mainstream auditorium in Los Angeles) Christmas program seen by a vast audience with simulcast on the American PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) television station. Lady Liberty and her flame as a beckoning icon to bring the “tired and the hungry” to this “promised land” begins Jwala. Ramaa’s voice-over declares that she is carrying “the flame of her culture” to this new land. The daughter is “yearning to break freely” even as she has mastered the traditional style rigorously from her mother as guru. The two dancers enter the stage tied symbolically together by a scarf at the waist. The mother leads and for a while, the nrtta unfolds within that tightly tied circle with the dancers moving in sync without conflict. Gradually, Swetha gets out of the bond/bondage to her mother, still holding the scarf with her hand as if afraid to separate completely. She circles in and out with the scarf until she drops the scarf, and circles out on her own, as if asserting her autonomous existence. Her movements express an abandonment and freedom whereas Ramaa continues the traditionally exact nrtta dancing around the stage. Then the daughter circles in towards the mother. The mother watches her daughter dance. Each one creates her own movement, then move in unison as if falling into a synchronicity of body and mind, movement and heart with the daughter’s energetic movements as bharatanatyam jatis return to her dancing feet. They dance on their own and together as if asserting each individual artist’s autonomy in creating their own movement vocabulary and space. In a telling moment, the mother places the scarf around the daughter’s neck as if bestowing a gift on her, passing the mantle of her tradition. They dancers face each other as if watching and responding rather than the initial movement when the mother leads without looking at the daughter who is expected to follow as in traditional training where the guru is imitated without question. But after the separation and the reconnection, there is eye contact, a seeming budding of communication between the generations. Dance movements become metaphors for other conflicts that can be resolved similarly by watching, listening, and responding to the issues of each generation rather than dancing (that is, doing one’s own thing) in isolation. As the mother assumes the devi/goddess pose, the daughter dances vibrantly around her as if in worship. They dance together and end with Ramaa in a low plié in goddess pose with her palms outstretched. In a commanding gesture of strength Swetha’s foot rises to rest on her mother’s palm. Swetha’s right hand stretches above her head in the gesture of fire, symbolizing Lady Liberty’s torch of freedom plus the fire that is an important part of daily worship for Indians in the homeland and in the diaspora.

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Canada The second-generation’s innovative work in the United States echoes in the creative choreography of that same generation in Canada. Natasha Bakht is “a dancer and choreographer of Indian origin specialized in Bharata Natyam, a recently modernized form of classical Indian dance historically practiced by ancient temple dancers. In Canada she trained with the Menaka Thakkar Dance Company, performing the classical Indian repertoire in Asia, Europe, and North America” (natashabakht.com). Bakht’s work has been showcased in festivals such as the Canada Dance Festival of Ottawa and Dancing on the Edge Festival in Vancouver. For three years she trained with Shobana Jeyasingh, “celebrated for her revolutionary interpretations of contemporary Indian dance,” and has performed with her company in London (natashabakht.com). Since 1994, Bakht’s original choreography includes Dance if You Must, Appropriating Edges, White Space, and Obiter Dictum, the last of which was nominated for the 2003 Dora Mavor Moore Award in the “Best New Choreography” category. “Obiter dictum” is a legal phrase that refers to a judge’s remarks made “in passing,” and hence not authoritative. This piece with its legal inflection reflects Bakht’s unique professional profile, holding an MA in Law from New York University and teaching Common Law at the University of Ottawa. Bakht’s choreography uniquely connects the idea of marginalizing “obiter” with stories about marginalized people. “When I’m dancing or doing law,” she explains, “I am doing important public service.” Although the two professions and their modes of expression are quite “different,” each “is important for my personal fulfillment” (Interview with Bakht on her website). Although she studied dance from a young age, she did not want to be a professional dancer, and so she entered law. Nonetheless, she continues to fulfill her passion for dance, finding ways to connect both skills into complementary career paths. Bakht’s publication record in the family law field reveals a penchant to tackle the conflicts that arise from Canada’s multiculturalist state policy and its “international obligation towards women’s rights … and the legal implications of faith-based arbitration tribunals in family law, with an emphasis on Sharia’s impact on Muslim women in Ontario.”51 Bakht edited a volume of essays entitled Belonging and Banishment: Being Muslim in Canada that includes significant analysis of “things that have been thrust on Muslims, like the war on terror” and other realities, like “what it’s like to raise Muslim children or to be a scientist and Muslim.” She also addresses the media’s portrayals of Muslims as a homogenous group in a uniformly negative light, (Muslimah Media Watch, 24 November 2008). Bakht’s own essay discusses the typical, problematic representation of Islam as a faith that “always originates outside of a ‘Canadian’ identity,” and analyzes cases of state intervention in wearing veils.

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Bakht’s White Space (see the frontispiece to this volume) demonstrates virtuosic technique and bodily mastery reminiscent of earlier masters like Deboo (Chapter 2). She creates an evocative, non-literal resonance with a poem where “white space” becomes “a mortal coil, spiraling. She wanders around the bend/ And quietly cracks/ Every audible sound is not discernable/ White space a mortal coil/ Spiraling/ Of the colonial religious and political/ History … The space is barren/ Stillness at one.”52 Her costume, a beautiful fitted white ballet tutu adorned with fluffy white balls that bob at the hem makes a striking contrast to the silk sari-covered body in traditional Indian dance. Rather, the tutu evokes a “dying swan” image, but this is quickly dispelled with high kicks with flexed feet as in kalari. She traverses fluidly or abruptly with deliberate sudden jerks among movement vocabularies of bharatanatyam mudras, yoga, kalari, and modern dance. The music, composed by Alexander MacSween, provides a resonant soundscape, at times staccato and at other times lyrical, as in the sound of a heavy, monsoon-like downpour of rain to which she adds a three-dimensional surround-sound of a crowd, projecting many voices yet none singularly audible. Bakht enters the piece with her shadow behind a white screen, moving gradually in front of the screen to create a different body shadow behind her. Suddenly, one shoulder jerks forward as if shaking the body out of sleep. The feet move with similarly sharp movements as in bharatanatyam’s opening, or ballet’s first position. This follows with a namaskar, with which Indian classical dancers begin their practice routines. Instead of the stamping the feet as in traditional Indian dance, Bakht makes the feet move jerkily as if they are not yet grounded. White Space plays with the body in an intense and riveting way, as if deconstructing its different parts, bringing awareness of them from the gut (as the stomach muscles move visibly) to the shoulders, legs, feet, and arms. There is a yogic quality where the body is the vehicle to arrive at heightened mental states, at which point the body may be transcended, even if momentarily. Bakht’s deeply focused movement generates rasa among the audience while maintaining a continuous active thought process. The audience follows, tracking the dancer’s physical, emotional, and mental trajectory from one movement to another, from a delicate reminder of her own bharatanatyam training, to a simple mayura etched against the white screen, to the deep bend of the yoga mudra pose, and to the folded hands reversed and placed on the back between the shoulder blades. Certain movements repeat to create a pattern as well as a forward thrust in the choreography. Bakht ends the dance as compellingly as its entire progression, returning to prayer mudra before executing a fleeting move, when she points her right hand’s index finger (suchi mukha), as if to indicate the number one and perhaps allude to other cultural references that indicate a gesture of waiting, or pointing, or unifying as Bakht’s finger traces a semi-circle in front of her body, and leaving the layered connotations up to the audience’s

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imagination. White Space is a memorable piece executed by a sculpturesque dancer with concentration, grace, and passion. Bakht’s creative uses of yoga asanas are reminiscent of Chandralekha’s choreography in Yantra and Sharira, both of which play with the geometry of the body in triangular, circular, and linear dimensions. Ananya Chatterjea’s description of how in Chandra’s Yantra, “yogic positions are manipulated and expanded beyond their yogic dimensions,” resonates in my viewing of Bakht’s White Space choreography.53 Further, Chatterjea draws an important distinction between Indian dance and yoga, which both emphasize the body opening up, extending and stretching, whereas Western dance emphasizes the opposite, namely muscular tension. Like Chandra, Bakht is also able to extend time and space as actualized in yoga poses, stretching the time (moving with intense slowness) it takes to assume a pose, settle into it bodily, and allow it to interact with the surrounding space, all the while allowing the audience to respond to the movement in real time and space. Like Chandra, who redefines slowness in Sharira, Bakht also brings new meaning to slow and minimalist movement in White Space. In 2010, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) commissioned Bakht to choreograph a piece for the CanAsian International Dance Festival. She created a work for two dancers from Mississauga-based Lata Pada’s Sampradaya Dance Creations (Chapter 3). The inspiration for this site-specific work, Bakht notes, came “from the Gallery of Gems and Gold” at the ROM: I thought of the gems, metals, crystals, and minerals in the gem gallery as the manifestation of the Earth’s hidden treasures, and used this concept in different ways, First, I applied the concept of buried treasures as a parallel with the dancer hidden within the human body … Second, I drew on the myths and fables of several cultures where sacred and prized buried treasures are guarded by serpent-like creatures. These fierce beasts protect not only the resources of the earth, but also the symbolic wealth that these resources represent. It is only with determined effort that these beasts can be persuaded to give up the wealth that they guard. (Publicity material) Bakht’s contribution, even with few works so far, is deeply significant in contributing to the language of Contemporary Indian Dance. She is definitely one to watch with anticipation for further creative work in the future.

Workshops and dance festivals Transnationally oriented choreography workshops, mostly in the diaspora, are increasingly significant in enhancing the work of contemporary choreographers. These include Unlocking Creativity in Britain; Dance Intense held in Kolkata, Toronto, and Birmingham; and the Gati Dance Forum in

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New Delhi.54 Dance festivals play a highly significant role in showcasing new, edgy, and experimental work. Diasporadics, beginning in New York City in 1999, “brings together artists and activists interested in using arts as a vehicle for social change.”55 Diasporadics 2000 was “a two-day festival featuring dance, music, performance poetry, theater, film, and stand-up comedy” and featured Mita Ghosal’s Banarasi Babu, Sharon Lewis, a Trinidadian of South Asian and Afro-Jamaican heritage, and D’Lo, a Sri Lankan American who performed Sex, Death and Basic Human Politics. Big Dance Festival, billed as “great dance for all ages and backgrounds” and “as exercise and art,” is held annually outdoors in multiple venues across London.56 In 2010, Kadam, connecting Asian dance and music communities and Luton Arts, presented Ash Mukherjee, who planned “to get 1000 people simultaneously performing with Ash to some of Michael (Jackson’s) moves in aid of charity.” In Los Angeles, Artwallah: Festival of the South Asian Diaspora began in 2000. It was described then as an event that was “all about a subculture that is born Indian and educated American.”57 The festival showcased various genres created by “young Indo-Americans coming up in contemporary American film, music, dance and even stand-up comedy.” According to reviewer Dhamija, “we are standing amidst a full-blown ‘revolution’ in what until now was considered the ‘white man’s media’.” Parijat Desai danced Rewired, “a three-woman show that displayed body locomotive creativity with gymnastic floor work, kathak/bharatanatyam moves combined with semi-yogic postures.” Artwallah celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2010. Over the years, it has grown tremendously, keeping pace with the artists’ sophistication with diverse forms of dance and media co-mingling. The overall effect is a layered palimpsest that challenges audiences to multi-task, as they look at real bodies on the stage and the same bodies at times in simultaneous video capture. Artwallah 2010, co-directed by Indian-American theatre artist Shishir Kurup and contemporary Indian dancer Sheetal Gandhi, used the title Afterlife “as a connective theme and the starting point of the pieces” (Program Notes). The evening’s highlight was a new theatre piece, created and performed by Shyamala Moorty, entitled Mamta, “inspired by someone dear to me,” remarks Shyamala, “with schizophrenia” (Program Notes). The piece travels into the past and the future of the fragmented mind of the central character, reliving happy memories prior to the mental illness, recreated via Hindi film footage, and into the present where voices invade her consciousness. Shyamala’s embodiment of an old, aging woman, ravaged by a disease over which she has no control, was deeply moving. Among other works in Artwallah 2010 was Sheetal Gandhi and Cynthia Ling Lee’s Unfinished Business that creatively used “time-delay video capture technology that allows [them] to grapple with [their] ‘past selves’” as they delve into “the concept of reincarnation, in particular the way in which

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difficult relationships or emotional patterns can repeat throughout many lives” (Program Notes). A somber titled Cremation was surprisingly humorous, rendered by stand-up comedian Rasika Mathur, who questions what would happen if a daughter wants to light a parent’s funeral pyre instead of the son, as stipulated by Indian tradition. She noted that the “piece will be slightly different each night as it is influenced by the daily death and resurrection of the collective ego” (Program Notes). In New York City, “Engendered” festival is the vision of Artistic Director Myna Mukherjee, who gave up her job as a financial consultant to follow her heart in heading the Nayika dance group and extending her work in dance to an annual festival that uniquely combines transnational arts and human rights. “Dance was an immense educator for me,” remarks Mukherjee, “It taught me about my body – both personalizing and politicizing it … about relearning about re-appropriating terms like ‘feminine’ and ‘feminist.’”58 Mukherjee provides a platform for “art practitioners, theorists, and activists … with often dizzying cultural references of South Asia,” probing the links between arts and activism, between religious and secular divisions. Among the main questions being addressed are: “What do the aesthetics of gender and sexuality tell us about South Asia? How could new narratives and new perspectives in these aesthetics raise new questions and discussions? How do our aesthetics of gender, sex, sexuality, and the body, add to or limit our ability to speak of them politically and personally? Through text, words, visual art, and performances, ‘Engendered’ constantly returns to these fundamental questions” (Publicity material). Mukherjee draws local and global links in aiming for a “shared conversation between New York and New Delhi, London and Lahore …We hope that as our communities rethink themselves, this festival becomes a catalyst, a space of incubation and advocacy” (quoted in Kothari Interview, narthaki.com). The 2010 “Engendered” festival (20–25 April) describes itself as “on a trailblazing mission to challenge the static tropes and clichés entrenched in classical, contemporary, modern, and popular dance forms, proudly hosting dozens of South Asian artists and choreographers from India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and America … (including) established and emerging dance companies and soloists, marginalized voices in dance from Pakistan and Afghanistan … incorporating classical and contemporary dance with technology with visual art.”59 “Engendered” is uniquely both “a transnational arts and human rights organization that promotes justice by initiating public dialogue around women’s issues, gender inequity sexual orientation, and minority and health rights.” “Engendered” 2010 presented intercultural artists exploring gender and sexuality intersecting with ritual and religion in South Asia and its diaspora, such as Bangalore-based Nrityagram Dance Ensemble which performs odissi with contemporary concepts; a collaborative work by Kamala Devam of the UK-based Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company; Seeta Patel from UK-based

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Mavin Khoo Company; Mandeep Raikhy of New Delhi’s Gati Dance; and Pakistani kathak dancer, Nighat Chaudhry. These dancers share a commitment to maintaining “an investigative approach to their movement vocabulary.” Another showcase, entitled “The Essence: Rasa,” featured New-York based Parijat Desai and Rajika Puri, Chicago-based Kritika Rajagopalan and others, including visual and multimedia artists. Popular dance performed by Bijli (danced by Fayaaz who “morphs into Bijli, a voluptuous Pakistani drag queen with a feverish following in the South Asian LGBT community”), the UBC Girlz Bhangra, and “other surprise performances” also appeared. Another New York City-based dance festival, “Erasing Borders” was inaugurated in 2008 by the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC), in order to complement an ongoing IAAC visual arts show that focused on the Indian diaspora. In 2010, the festival attempted “combining Art Exhibition-Dance Performances,” notes Rajika Puri, “coordinated by Amina Ahmed, IAAC Exhibitions Director, in collaboration with Dance Director Prachi Dalal.”60 Performers like Parul Shah Dance Company, “reveal[ed] a very contemporary view of Kathak,” reflecting its original choreographer, the pioneer Kumidini Lakhia, along with Parul’s own twenty-first-century reworking of kathak. “There is a postmodern edge to the whole – in a sudden swivel of the head,” remarks Rajika Puri. “In a series of twirls that end in stillness, bodies close to the floor – due more to the manner in which energy is manipulated than to any departure from ‘tradition’ per se.” The festival’s pairing of dancers and visual artists created unique conversations for artists and audiences. “Erasing Borders” included “a gamut of dance styles ranging from traditional and experimental classical to postmodern and Bollywood.”61 Bharatanatyam by Mythili Prakash in Vibha – The Lustrous Glory praised the guru “not only as a spiritual guide but also as a physical manifestation of god”; Sheetal Gandhi’s bahu-beti-biwi; Cynthia Ling Lee’s rudda (rude, huh?); and Ailey II’s Takademe, set to Sheila Chandra’s score, with solketu choreographed by Robert Battle who deconstructed the Indian rhythms with modern dance movements. Reviewer Rajagopalan was impressed with Wanted Ashiqz’s Bollywood performance, which included “Indian and American pop culture icons” such as Michael Jackson, Madhuri Dixit, Hrithik Roshan, Govinda, and Beyonce. Though I agree that “Bollywood is unquestionably a style of Indian dance,” the further assertion that this is because “Mumbai’s film industry has promoted traditional Indian dance in India and abroad” is debatable. “Erasing Borders” also included panel discussions such as “The Rasa Boxes workshop,” conceived originally by scholar Richard Schechner who uses “fun exercises that incorporated rasa theory into American performance technique. Participants were challenged to tap into the eight rasas as described in the Natya Shastra without separating acting, movement, and voice modulation in the overall experience of an emotional state.” The “Moving Traditions” panel, with Schechner, Anita Ratnam, Navtej

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Johar, and Chitra Sundaram, discussed “the changes in systems of learning and patronage for Indian dance, and the arena of funding” – private and corporate in India, along with what Ratnam called “the business of Bharatanatyam” in workshops, lecture-demonstrations, master classes, and arangetrams. Sundaram noted that Indian dance in Britain is “consciously marketed as part of British culture, and the British Council allocates funding to Indian dance companies based on region” (Rajagopalan, narthaki. com). The US scene is generally lagging behind in terms of state funding for dance. Festivals provide space to showcase new work, although artists have to contend with issues such as fitting the Festival’s rubric, and engaging with diverse audiences who may come with their own assumptions. Innovative work is translated via pre- and post-show dialogues among artists and spectators who come together from various locations, bringing their different assumptions with them. New and experimental work showcased at festivals creates varieties of meaning and spectacle that can draw audiences into thoughtful responses about the representations of gender inequities, and ethnic and national stereotypes. In conclusion, contemporary choreography in the North American diaspora as discussed in this chapter is dynamic and vital, pushing the parameters of dance forms along with becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Contemporary Indian dance’s non-verbal power is complemented with theatrical tools of voice and silence, multi-media and technology, and use of the internet in Post Natyam’s unique method of creating “long-distance choreography” working across geographical distances. The world is ever smaller for performing artists communicating, traveling, and networking via cyber space, even as they face the challenge of presenting their work in real time and place whether in Los Angeles or Toronto.

6 Dancing in the Diaspora Part II: Britain

The dance scene in the m/other country Contemporary Indian dancers with their variety of creative explosions gravitated in the late twentieth century and into the new millennium to the global North even as the genre continues to evolve within India. As discussed in the previous chapter, diasporic North American artists take Contemporary Indian Dance into bold thematic explorations of socio-political issues, gender and sexuality, as well as expanding the form in multidisciplinary and polyvocal directions. In this chapter, I explore the dance scene in Britain – the colonial epicenter with a specific relationship to South Asia going back to the eighteenth century, and continuing in ambivalent and complicated ways with the migrations of South Asians into Britain during the twentieth century. Whereas the United States is commonly recognized as a land of immigrants (though I would caution against romanticizing this), the arrival, integration, or marginalization of former ex-colonized peoples, including artists into Britain follows a different trajectory in the twentieth century. In British society, acutely class-conscious in the 1950s (somewhat different from the United States), working-class populations that entered the country performed specific service jobs in the economy. Their children, the second generation, as in the United States occupy a different space with higher levels of confidence than their South Asia born parents, and have openly embraced British identity. As I explore the British dance scene, similarities and differences with the artistic scenarios in North America (discussed in the previous chapter) will come to the fore.

Indian/South Asian/ British-South Asian Chitra Sundaram In Britain, several changes in the production and conception of Indian dance are noteworthy – what was once named as Indian in the 1980s is now increasingly South Asian, and what was seen as simply dance now includes 200

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performances with many elements of contemporary culture. An important commentator on this scene is London-based dancer-choreographer Chitra Sundaram. She was the prescient editor of Pulse: South Asian Dance and Music magazine from 2003 with support from Kadam, an organization that connects the South Asian arts community and is funded by the Arts Council.1 In an excellent essay, Sundaram analyzes the Indian/South Asian dance scene in Britain from the 1980s onwards and how this form “showed up in interesting disguises in all kinds of places from schools and hospitals to museums and malls, and in ‘mainstream’ auditoriums and temple halls.”2 She explains further in the same essay: As a “language,” it found many uses in drug-education or in resettling refugees; it was offered as senior citizens’ physical therapy and abused women’s emotional therapy, unsurprisingly, then, it surfaced as a mudra or mandala for a Western contemporary choreographer, or its music, digitally manipulated, created a “new” sound, providing differentiation in a crowded Contemporary Dance marketplace. Sundaram astutely recognizes that in this new perspective, “hybrid” came to be regarded as “a contemporary dance expression that had negotiated its South Asian-ness (and was) definitively British South Asian.” The solo bharatanatyam margam or group dance-dramas that were part of “the Authentic Period of the ’80s and early ’90s had all but vanished from the ‘mainstream’, gone across the river and back into the side-streams of selfsegregated Indian and Sri Lankan communities.” The new hybridity referring to identity (British South Asian), and to dance (classical Indian dance and other forms) “captured the imagination of public policy, funders, venues, writers, critics and the dance audience, in that order.” Sundaram outlines “three broad aesthetic categories for dance-making of South Asian origin in Britain: the Contemporary, the Classical and the Traditional.” Even the “contemporary” has come to be regarded as “classic,” she argues, “as the self-reported hybridity … is shaping up as an identifiable contemporary dance language with self-consciously chosen South Asian references that are being institutionalized through the teaching and analysis of the work of choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh and, soon, of dancer/ choreographer Akram Khan … The Contemporary aesthetic for South Asian dance in Britain is clearly Western.” The “classical” part of this tripartite delineation that Sundaram proposes in the same essay is interpreted, for instance, “with a mellowed Kathak aesthetic (Nahid Siddiqui), and an imploded Bharatanatyam aesthetic (Mavin Khoo).” Sundaram gives a lyrical and accurate description of Mavin Khoo’s expression of classicism (as) perfected intensity of bodyline, movement, energy and emotion. It revels in the bare-torso athletic, the

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androgynous physicality of an intellectual, superbly ballet-trained body; it serves as a vehicle for perfected, deconstructed and reassembled nrtta, with the traditional virtuosity of speed and complexity magnified by the quick fall-and-recovery of Contemporary Dance and the reaching energy and spatial leaps of ballet that dazzle his audience and often outshine his own intensely emotional abhinaya. (“A tevaram interpreted…”) Apart from contemporary and classical, “traditional” dance with its “aesthetic of color and costume, religion and ritual, god-stories and melodrama, of ‘foreign’ language and non-arranged live music” is mostly confined in Britain to arangetrams and performances sponsored by the community. Often, sadly enough, this is the only platform for the old masters of tradition and for innovative work based on traditional dance. More recently, there has been a shift, for instance with Akram Khan’s performances in prestigious venues in Britain, and via his success, some of the masters of traditional Indian dance have also appeared at mainstream venues like London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Sundaram’s own training in bharatanatyam inspired her solo Moham, which she describes as “an aesthetic ‘experiment’” and “a choreographicand-design artistic collaboration with Mavin Khoo.” The work uses and departs from the structure of a traditional varnam, the centerpiece of bharatanatyam repertoire, changing its pace and “dynamic. Moham is an interpretation,” notes Sundaram, executed “through interruption.” The choreography uses a medieval tevaram (devotional poem) dedicated to Shiva that was developed between the sixth and eighth centuries, to tell the story of a mature woman who, “falling madly in love” with Shiva, loses all self-control, leaves her family and good name, and follows him. Moham depicts her surrender beautifully at the end of the dance, as her back curves backward and her arms fly open as if she is going to fall, but then recovering as though with the help of divine intervention. Next, she removes her waistband, as if to shed all human ties, and “walks steadfastly into the darkened upstage.” Sundaram’s thoughtful engagement with issues that arose during the process of developing Moham is useful for other Contemporary Indian Dancers. For instance, questions of “accessibility, points of entry and exit, the meaning of the ‘integral’ role of text and music in the dance, the semiotics of live musicians … also the unexpected usefulness of conventions and … and the interesting consequences of losing traditional signifiers; they are about what signifies what, and how.” In another, more overtly contemporary work called Skull (2006) that Sundaram co-choreographed with Hari Krishnan, she demonstrates many tropes of Contemporary Indian Dance such as keeping her back to the audience, moving diagonally, repeating choreographic motifs such as circling

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of neck, arms, and hands, and the sounds of water.3 Dressed in a black sari with one painted arm portraying tiger skin, she begins by walking diagonally from the back to the front of the stage, as a play of light and shadow deliberately hides her face, with the circular movement of her arms visible. Then, with her back to the audience, Sundaram makes circles with her neck, arms, and then hands. She walks forward into nrtta with pointing and circling hands. Sounds of water are followed by the dancer’s action of splashing it on her face. Fingers interlock and make undulating circles like waves. Akaram (musical notes sung without words) and abhinaya add further layers to the composition. Skull’s reference point is a story about Lord Shiva – once, he took a dislike to Brahma’s five heads, enabling him to look in all four directions plus upward. So, Shiva chopped off one head that then stuck on Shiva’s hand, eventually becoming his begging bowl in his ascetic form. Smeared in ash he wanders through the forest as “the erotic ascetic.” The piece ends with the dancer’s hands covered in ash and held out as in an offering. Suddenly the audience hears a sound of something falling; the dancer looks down, then up as the audience sees blood on her hands. This act, Sundaram told me, reflects a kind of mystical transformation as well as the real violence that exists in the world. The piece communicated with a depth of emotional and intellectual engagement that drew the viewer both into feeling with rasa and into thinking of the layered choreography. Sundaram and Krishnan reveal how the same rasa of love or valor can be expressed differently via laughter (hasya) or anger (raudra), or pity (karuna). These emotions add layers of meaning and nuance of expression that Sundaram communicates to her audience. Mavin Khoo East and West are like two overcoats worn together. My identity in classicism [whether classical bharatanatyam or classical ballet] can place itself in any cultural canvas. (Mavin Khoo) Mavin Khoo, a Malaysia-born British South Asian dancer and choreographer, embodies the synergy of diverse dance styles in his body. He considers himself “fortunate to have had parallel training” in bharatanatyam by Chennai guru Adyar K. Lakshman and in ballet at Chennai’s Russian Embassy with Miss de Souza. Later, he studied both modern (Merce Cunningham style) and contemporary dance.4 In the same conversation he remarked that what excites him is “the power of classicism” to create a kind of emotional power or rasa that moves audiences, whether through abhinaya’s hand gestures or through ballet and modern dance’s abstract movement. “There is a natural stylization in India,” he commented, “where hands convey narrative” even in daily life. However, Khoo continues, his body and mind “are not Indian, but hybrid. To play Sita, or Juliet, require the same tapping into the power

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of classicism with its clarity of lines, the geometry in invisible lines and the in-between.” He elaborates, explaining that what people usually regard as “opposition” between ballet’s leaps and bharatanatyam’s grounding is really just “an illusion,” because even as the ballet dancer leaps s/he must know how to land, and as the bharatanatyam dancer takes the plié position, s/he must extend the upper-body skyward. Both before and after forming his company, mkD (2003), Khoo danced with Akram Khan in No Male Egos (1999), as a guest artist for the Shobana Jeyasingh Company in Exit, No Exit (2006), and with other major choreographers such as Wayne McGregor and Christopher Bannerman. Khoo has toured the world as a bharatanatyam soloist with a contemporary sensibility as noted on his website: “A large repertoire of the company’s work is in taking predominantly classical work into alternative venues.” One characteristic of Khoo’s work is “a sexual ambiguity.”5 Khoo has been commissioned to create work by the Royal Opera House (ROH2), Akademi, the National Youth Dance Company, The Jazz Company, and the South Bank Center in the United Kingdom. He performs in London clubs, and remains committed to developing new audiences for his hybrid work. Khoo collaborated with Carnatic musician O. S. Arun in Devi: In Absolution (2008). The dance, which evolved from an earlier incarnation created in 2006 and called Devi: The Female Principle, depicts the female goddesses Meenakshi, Durga, and Kali. Devi is shakti, the living female principle without which the male remains inert. A reviewer described his performance at Linbury Studio as “a collage: film, sitar, splendid live vocals from Pushkala Gopal and Michael Harper, dancing solos, duets, interplay between vocalists and dancers, shifting light, an interesting soundtrack of beats overlaid by jingling, jagged breathing, utterances.”6 The same reviewer notes that elements of movement are integrated with “sinuously rolling, writhing and arcing along the floor” to make a contemporary piece drawn from Indian mythology and bharatanatyam. At the end of the dance, when Khoo and the female dancer (Ann de Vos) “suddenly locked eyes,” they evoked “emotional engagement” or rasa. Khoo notes that he is always aware of space while he dances, so much so that he almost feels bonded in a “partnering” with space (Khoo, In conversation, July 2010). But even as he “partners” with space, he simultaneously and paradoxically “likes spaces that are contradictory. I like organized chaos.” Khoo’s concept differs from Jeyasingh’s, who believes in “choosing moments where the body is at odds with the space around it and the music … where they’re rubbing up against each other rather than all going in a flow. I’m very anti-flow” (Jeyasingh Interview in Pulse). Royona Mitra The British-Indian scholar and dancer-choreographer Royona Mitra’s experience of presenting her creative choreography in Kolkata unravels a

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significant paradox, namely that dancers who are marginal in their diaspora’s mainstream venues also face rejection on the “home”/India front for the “inauthenticity” of their hybrid work. Mitra’s creative choreography is based on her training in Physical Theatre and kathak. Her dance is accompanied, as it is with other second-generation artists (like the Post Natyam Collective), by scholarly engagement and theorization of female sexuality, and her position as an artist in Britain. Mitra draws on the notion of “the thinking body,” bringing the mind and body, “embodiment and thought” together in her essay, “Cerebrality: Rewriting Corporeality of a Transcultural Dancer.”7 She takes Susan Leigh Foster’s articulation of “corporeality [in which] the body is capable of being scripted, being written” into the realm of what Mitra calls “cerebrality.” Mitra takes this notion further into a cultural realm to explore the additional challenges faced by “practitioners who are using their bodies to reflect the diasporic transition between their cultures and the disciplines that arise out of them.” Mitra brings together her theoretical with her dance practice via her work with Kinaetma Theatre, co-founded with two colleagues at the University of Wolverhampton. “Kine” in Greek means movement and “atma” in Sanskrit means soul. Kinaetma “is an alliance of theatre practitioners and academics from Indian and European performance traditions. Kinaetma works between cultures, exploring the embodied phenomena of cultural exchange, identities and myths through imagistic and visceral means” (kinaetma.co.uk). One such work, Sita (2002), questions this stereotypical icon of Indian womanhood as the silent, suffering wife of Rama. Rather, the production acknowledges Sita both as a sexual woman and a loyal and pure wife. “‘Sita’ became a vehicle,” notes Mitra, “for my own questioning of the myth of the abstinent Indian woman” (“Mitra, “Cerebrality”). This has echoes with Mallika Sarabhai’s piece, Sita’s Daughters, that represents a resistant rather than a docile Sita (Chapter 3). In The Silk Route: Memory of a Journey (2004) presented in Kolkata, Mitra choreographed a provocative piece using Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, which portrays Marco Polo’s travels through Asia. Mitra uses three dancers in The Silk Route whose bodies touch, bend, crouch, and use the floor in contact improvisation technique, portraying the sensual and erotic that elicits profoundly negative responses from conservative audiences in India. Sexual desire represented by a female with agency made Indian conservative audiences uncomfortable (as was the case also with Moorty’s Sensitize, Chapter 5). Mitra’s bodily abandonment was seen as “impure and contaminated,” a result of her “Westernization.” The troubling implication here is that if sexuality had to be displayed, it would be fine on non-Indian bodies, reinforcing stereotypes about the promiscuous Western female body. Mitra’s essay, “Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality: Reclaiming the Corporeality and Sexuality of the Indian Female Dancer,” explores “the

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hostility and discomfort” expressed by the Kolkata audience viewing the performance of female desire and sexuality in The Silk Route: Memory of a Journey.8 Kinaetma conducted the project via workshops with local dancers who wished to explore ways of moving outside their classical training. However, getting them to imbibe “physical vocabularies and corporeal aesthetics of contemporary Western performance practices” was one challenge; convincing them to perform this in public was another. Responses such as “utter filth,” “shameless behavior,” “deeply offensive,” greeted their work, which the same critics regarded as “vulgar” and “profane” (Mitra, “Living a Body Myth”). Additionally, what fuelled the negative audience response was that the dancers wore saris while performing what Mitra describes as “less restrained physical movements” than that commonly undertaken by the sari-clad Indian dancer. Mitra comments that while contact improvisation is usually performed in duets, in The Silk Route, instead of two bodies on stage, the dancer’s partner “was the floor. So the intimacy explored was not with another body, but with one’s own body in relationship to the ground” (email to Katrak). Mitra articulates her own process, of how her exploration of the cerebral in her “Cerebrality” essay had not recognized its relationship to the sexual. The interconnections among corporeality, sexuality, and cerebrality became clearer to her after The Silk Route project. In the latter, she aimed “to intellectually test out bodily negotiations on other bodies” – something that she had been grappling with in her earlier essay on “Cerebrality” (2005) and her own “corporeal articulations between multiple movement systems and what that was doing to [her] sociological sense of self” (email to Katrak). Mitra notes that she has not found a comfortable space within which her work can belong in the British context. She does not wish to follow the route of artists like Khan and Jeyasingh who adopt “a hybridized global identity.” Instead, Mitra wishes “to challenge the notions of classicism by embracing hybridism when working in India.” She wants to negotiate a space “between diaspora and home through [her] practice” of integrating physical theatre’s heterogeneous media such as “dance, theatre, personal histories, text, and the expression of subjectivity through the self.” As a performer and academic, Mitra wishes “to reinstate the dancer as a thinking body who embodies and articulates thought, history and experience through her art” (Mitra, “Living a Body Myth”). Anusha Subramanyam Anusha Subramanyam is a dancer, choreographer, dance movement therapist, and one of the best exponents of bharatanatyam in Britain. Her Beeja Company creates new works based on bharatanatyam working with the physically challenged, as in a recent work, Sacred Sketches, that “challenges notions of normal and abnormal and draws inspiration from Subramanyam’s therapy work with people with physical and mental challenges.” The work

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combines “movement that is both classical and contemporary” (beeja.com). Anusha teaches bharatanatyam at London’s The Place, and in other arts and community centers in London and Birmingham.

The multidisciplinary and polyvocal new choreography of Akram Khan I feel we live in a society that is evolving at great speed … All traditions were once contemporary; it is just a matter of time when something is regarded as old or part of a tradition. However, I believe that the role of the performing arts is critical to the present contemporary society, primarily because the performing arts are … a place to reflect the world we live in … I always say the old society lives in a temple, the new one lives in a science-lab, but what excites me is the idea of bringing together these two worlds in order to make a ‘new’ place. Akram Khan’s creative work has been groundbreaking and has indeed shifted paradigms in Contemporary choreography. He is a remarkably talented dancer and choreographer whose meteoric rise has been stunning and brilliant. Scholar Royona Mitra analyzes Khan’s “explorations in performance (that) provide a set of conscious, intellectual and corporeal dialogues between classical kathak, contemporary dance, facets of European dance-theatre, and a series of artistic disciplines creating an intertextual creative landscape. However, at the heart of Khan’s practice lies not a formalist approach, but rather one driven by content that examines the nuances in diasporic life. This, in my view, distinguishes Khan from his British Asian colleagues.”9 Khan’s works probe identity in creative ways along with a philosophical, even spiritual base (from kathak) in his choreographic explorations. Dance critic Sunil Kothari describes Khan as “one of the most intriguing dancers on the international dance scene today for metamorphosing Indian classical Kathak dance into contemporary dance language … The speed and power with which he performs are amazing. He has a stage presence (that) leaves you spellbound. It is volcanic, mesmerizing, and absolutely riveting.”10 Khan was born in London in 1974 and raised there by his Bangladeshi parents. His art clearly represents the attitude of his confident second generation, expressed in a statement like, “It’s what I do that matters, not where I’m from.” This is very different from working-class South Asians who came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The Akram Khan Company (established in 2000 with producer Farooq Chaudhry) is “one of the foremost innovative dance companies … Embracing an artistic principal that both respects and challenges tradition and modernity, the company has become renowned for its intercultural, interdisciplinary collaborations.”11 Apart from the company’s ensemble work that Khan uses as his “testing ground,” his high-profile

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“Khan Chaudhry Productions” undertake collaborations with prominent performing and visual artists. The Akram Khan Charity Company, “the third part of this multi-pronged company assists up and coming young talented film directors, writers,” Khan himself notes, “by giving bursaries, grants.” Khan’s ethnically diverse company “is a blessing,” he admits. “It is a reflection of what I am today,” he comments, “which is to be in a state of ‘confusion’: where boundaries are broken, languages of origin are left behind and, instead, individual experiences are pushed forward to create new boundaries” (akramkhancompany.net). Khan narrated his dance journey – from kathak to contemporary dance, and again to kathak – to me in an interview.12 “There was a confusion, followed by clarity about the confusion,” he remarks. “In a way, the confusion is finding its own clarity, its own language.” Since he regards his style as constantly evolving, he refuses to be pinned down by a single signature style. He does not want to put himself “in a box. I change my mode every time I create. I start over, even change the principle. So, on the one hand, in a world where things are incredibly disposable, aesthetics are being dictated by trends, by economics, in a world where quality is being replaced by ephemera, I want to create something of lasting value; at the same time, it is contradictory since I do not want to keep on doing the same formula that has been successful. I do create a formula, but I do not describe it as hybrid.” Khan describes his own unique way of using kathak as evolving from an initial insecurity at “putting Kathak suddenly in a contemporary frame … I need a reason for why I use Kathak … To explore Kathak in the contemporary aesthetic, I needed to cut, layer by layer, like peeling an onion in stages … Now, I am more confident, each layer, strand from Kathak that I bring to contemporary work is being acknowledged and is working for me” (Interview with Khan on his website). In the same interview, Khan recognizes that he “needed to go back to the past to understand the present and (that he) needed to be in the present to understand the past.” Khan’s work has such wide appeal since he enables audiences to “imagine common elements,” notes Ramsay Burt, “that are sufficiently central to people’s experience of globalisation in multicultural Western countries to permit an appreciation of difference.”13 Indeed, Burt maintains that Khan’s work “contributes to the richness and diversity of contemporary British culture.” For example, Khan has conducted 200 performances in over 20 countries, sometimes under the auspices of the British Council of Kaash (meaning “if” in Hindi), his company’s first full-length work. Kaash began Khan’s ongoing collaboration with musician Nitin Sahwney, continuing in future works. Sahwney “explores the interface between Western techno dance music and the common musical time-cycles of traditional Indian music” in Kaash. Another collaborator, visual artist Anish Kapoor in Kaash (and later works) designed the set that looks like a window onto a void. The tentativeness of “if” in the title Kaash indicates Khan’s willingness to explore

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new styles and to be open to the mysteries of life and philosophic concepts of space and time. “It is important that we remind ourselves of the value of that which we cannot touch,” he notes. “The stillness between steps, the spaces between musical phrases and the empty spaces in space itself contain all the mysteries of their eventual forms” (akramkhancompany.net). Khan’s world-class choreography has earned widespread recognition. He has received prestigious awards such as Outstanding Newcomer to Dance Award from both the Dance Critics’ Circle and Time Out Live, both in 2000; Best Modern Choreography from the Dance Critics’ Circle (2002); a South Bank Award (2005); and the “Excellence in International Dance” award by the International Theatre Institute (2007); an MBE for services to dance; the Laurence Olivier Award for zero degrees (2006); and the South Bank Show Award for bahok (2009). Khan also received an honorary doctorate from De Montford University for his contributions to the British arts community. In fact, Khan’s dance works are part of school curriculum in Britain today – a significant recognition, though some insider community members have criticized this perceived “mainstreaming” of his work. However, I believe that such inclusion marks a very positive step in transforming mainstream perceptions of South Asians and placing them integrally as belonging to Britain’s diverse society, and all this despite the uphill battle that continues to exist for many ethnic artists. Khan’s inspiration for his choreography traces back to his roots in kathak, which he began to study with his guru Sri Pratap Pawar at age seven, and to his later study of Contemporary Dance in the United Kingdom at De Montford University and with Anne Teresa de Keersmarker of the Brussels based X-group. His stage career began at age 14 in Peter Brook’s legendary production of The Mahabharata, which toured the world between 1987 and 1989. Khan notes that, during this period, he “learnt a lot subconsciously” from Brook’s “style, approach, and aesthetic. And the concept of simplicity and complexity together.” Moreover, Khan “got to see the world, see what it felt like to tour.”14 Mallika Sarabhai as Draupadi (Chapter 3) in Brook’s production echoes similar sentiments. Along with his facility in drawing upon kathak rhythms and story-telling, and upon cultural history and memory Khan shows “extraordinarily contradictory qualities,” remarks Ann Sacks, “in being classical and modern, earthy and mystical, sensuous and masculine” as embodied “without any tensions.”15 The contradictions, rather, paradoxes are rooted in Asian culture where “you don’t have a voice,” notes Khan. “You just accept what everybody says.” However, this is “rather hard to believe now,” comments Christian Patterson. “The darling of the dance world has a reputation for pushing the boundaries of his form, tossing in a visual artist here, a musician there, a writer there, and then maybe adding, just for fun, an actress who’s never danced in her life.” Khan has been hailed as “the great new hope” and “wunderkind” of contemporary dance, “a phenomenon,” and “a marvel.”16

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Khan’s highly successful solos include Polaroid Feet (2001), which begins by playing with the tintal rhythm in kathak, where the dancer and tabla player communicate in dialogue. This is followed by Ardhanareshwara, Lord Shiva as half male and half female that “extends as a metaphor for all of creation.” Next, Anandam (joy, bliss) marks the final segment, which presents a tarana from kathak like the tillana in bhartanatyam, both displaying the sheer pleasure of movement and rhythm. Ronin (2003) presents Arjuna’s spiritual struggle and dialogue with Lord Krishna about the ethics of killing his own kin (as told in The Bhagvad Gita). Krishna urges Arjuna to do his duty and to recognize that “the true battle is for his own soul” (akramkhancompany.net). Ma (2005), created in collaboration with BritishSouth Asian writer Hanif Kureishi, tells the story of “a girl [who] grew up to be a woman” yet is unable to have a child. She prays to God, but to no avail until God tells her that the seeds she planted and has cultivated into trees are actually her children, “because she feels for them” what “a mother feels for her child” (akramkhancompany.net). Khan’s style here combines abstract movement with a narrative imbued with symbolism. The startling portrayal of an upside-down body with its head just above the floor and feet splayed out like branches recaptures Khan’s childhood memory of visiting his family’s farm in Bangladesh, “when he used to hang upside down in a tree to sort his head out” (akramkhancompany.net). In an interview with Naeem Mohaiemen, Khan reveals his fascination with exploring “strong connections between mythology and science … I have always been interested in what is real and illusion. I used some connection through mathematics, because maths is a universal language. The numbers – one and zero. I wanted to compare that because in North Indian and South Indian music and dance, maths plays an integral part … In Indian dance, the maths comes from the music. In contemporary dance, the geometric and geographic structures in relation to the body and space is where the maths comes in” (akramkhancompany.net). Although he is captivated with the mathematics of Indian musical rhythms, Khan asserts provocatively: “there is no such thing as abstract dance. I don’t really believe in the word abstract. I can’t say confidently when it comes to pictures or painting, but I can say that from my experience of movement, of a human body, we express something whether we like to or not; to want not to express is an expression in itself.”17 Khan’s creative process includes “sharing” kathak techniques with his dancers, and allowing them to contribute from their diverse training in return. As improvisation begins, “a new language” develops, “because I can’t say this is Kathak and this is contemporary,” he confesses. “In this way,” notes Theresa Barnes, “the movement of Kathak is meshed with contemporary sensibilities presenting embodied knowledge with a dialectic; a conversation to convince alterity to become one. Khan and his dancers are trained in most conventional Western forms like ballet, Limon, Graham,

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and release. It’s their ability to defy these movement connotations and devise new syncretic movement idioms that vivifies this cross-cultural dance-making” (Barnes essay, on akramkhancompany.net). The potent space of the in-between Khan finds the space or transition between two dance positions intriguing. “Once a movement is complete, one has arrived,” he remarked during my interview. “That is not as interesting as the in-between space of going from A to B.” The in-between is similar to the liminal space in ritual enactment as articulated by Victor Turner. Since Turner, this concept has been wielded flexibly and metaphorically in different contexts by both critical theorists and dancers – to describe the space between borders, the in-between space, as deeply potent in accommodating shifting, plural, and dynamic delineations of cultures and identities. Khan’s zero degrees, created with Flemish-Moroccan dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and sculptor Anthony Gormley, evokes a sense of in-betweenness that the body negotiates in both geographical and political space. The in-between space allows Khan to explore his fascination with movement between extremes, between “the extreme speed” and then “the extreme stillness” in kathak. Zero degrees is the first part of a trilogy that includes collaborations with high-profile artists – Sacred Monsters (2006) with Sylvie Guillem, the French prima ballerina, and In-I (2009) with actress Juliette Binoche. The latter premiered at London’s National Theatre, then toured internationally, winning the prestigious Helpmann Award in Australia for Best Choreography in a Dance work in 2007. Khan considers zero degrees as “probably his most important work,” and further that it “changed the way of thinking for European theatre” (Interview with Katrak). Khan’s collaborations with artists from different disciplines such as visual art, theatre, sculpture, and poetry enables “crossing … explor(ing) the threshold of the fields of dance studies, critical theory, and performance studies”.18 The intersections between and among these fields provide a useful lens through which to analyze Khan’s work. “This transdisciplinary approach to the cultural materiality of dance,” notes Lepecki, “delineates epistemologies that consider and articulate how the presence of the body leaves its mark on critical theories and performance practices” (Lepecki, Of the Presence of the Body, 77). Lepecki’s focus on “presence” and the “body,” along with “the phenomenological intertwining of presence and body that dance brings about as it moves (even in its most microscopic gestures) forces the recasting of our understanding of performativity, and brings about the current turn in dance studies toward the fields of performance studies and of critical theory” (78). In zero degrees, Khan and Larbi, embark “on a journey to seek the reference point, the source,” as noted on the Khan website, “the ‘0’ at life’s core … the reference point where everything begins … and everything ends.” Both collaborators grew up Muslim in Europe, learned the same prayers and

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endured the same Western stereotypes of Islam. “Inspired by their own dual identities, the two search for this middle point through polar opposites: becoming/death, light/dark, chaos/order.” To this movement expression Gormley’s sculpture adds “environment” (akramkhancompany.net). This sparks an “explosive collaboration,” remarks Royona Mitra in her excellent essay (on akramkhancompnay.net). The piece “is a formal and narrative exploration,” notes Mitra, “of the politics of border spaces as a metaphor for the transient nature of diasaporic identity.” Khan himself explains that zero degrees “symbolizes the rite of passage between life and death, belonging and non-belonging and most importantly identity and the lack of it ” (Interview with Katrak). Zero degrees was inspired by an actual train journey, when Khan and a friend traveled with a dying man between India and Bangladesh. Khan was deeply distressed because his family members advised him not to help the wife of the dying man, since as “a foreign witness” – a British citizen of Bangladeshi descent – he should “avoid bureaucratic hassles” (akramkhancompany.net). Khan’s choreography emphasizes the irony of dying identity-less in one’s own country. Mitra recounts how Khan’s burgundy colored British passport and his compatriots’ green one separates them. The piece includes text, when Khan conjures memories of border controls, evidence of the power of the passport in asserting identity, and how its lack can transform someone into a nobody. The text’s “corporeal translation” between Khan and Larbi proves deeply moving, observes Mitra. The “movement vocabulary transcends their individual technique to create a new hybrid language, as their bodies communicate embodiment of lived history.” Khan uses the vertical thrust of kathak to assert authority, only to suddenly crumble with the sound of a soulful Urdu lyric about a young bride who bemoans the loss of her lover. Larbi’s floor-oriented physicality is grounded and juxtaposed against Khan’s ethereal, vertical body as the artists play consistently with the space “in-between” the vertical and horizontal levels of the performance. “Khan’s physicality,” Mitra continues, “becomes feminine, submissive and soft … juxtaposed against his memory of the dying man’s wife on the train crying for help in vain. The postmodern intertextuality of the song cuts deep into the heart of Khan’s narrative, suggesting that tradition and postmodernity can indeed be in creative dialogue in an organic and moving way” (Mitra, on akramkhancompany.net). Moving between two spaces, the piece brings attention to those in-between borders that separate identities, nationalities, and even life and death. In Sacred Monsters, the second part of the trilogy, Khan uses the notion of “monster” to metaphorically play with the problematic glory of “contemporary stardom in which the icons of the arts and sports world are given divine status by their audience and the media … There is no more room for failure, imperfection, to express one’s real feelings and emotions. The divine status becomes inhuman, monstrous” (Dramaturg Guy Cools

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on akramkhancompany.net). One of Khan’s most telling comments about Sacred Monsters reiterates his desire to inhabit an in-between space from which he can access both the classical world of kathak that he loves as well as reach beyond its strict codification into contemporary dance. In the latter, however, he feels that he “can’t reach somewhere higher; there is no sense of spirituality; I feel I have no freedom to reach out there; so the most beautiful place for me to be is a place [in-between] where I can reach both worlds at the same time” (akramkhancompany.net). In the third part of the trilogy, In-I (2008), Khan’s exploration of spaces in-between continues. Here he finds that, “in between two people, there’s a third, the space in between the two, and it is in the search for the third that we discover who we really are.” Khan’s collaboration with Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche “a famous actress who has never danced” unfolds “in this meditation on love and obsession.”19 Both genres of dance and drama are pushed with new energy beyond their usual parameters. Bodies coming together and heightening the energized space of, and between, two bodies is reminiscent of Chandralekha’s playing with male and female energies in her choreography. Chandra encouraged her male dancers to find their femaleness and the female dancers their maleness. When the energies of both genders are balanced, the body is in harmony; but when one overtakes the other, violence and chaos ensue in the individual body and in society. In-I includes movement and spoken word as both artists share intimate stories about childhood and adolescence. Ranvir Shah describes “Akram’s energy on stage” as “intense and taut like a corkscrew … mov(ing) in a double helix of erotic moves with Binoche … reminiscent of a tantric visual of two snakes linked in a mating dance.”20 Such description suggests overlaps between Khan and Chandralekha in their artistry. I imagine them collaborating and creating amazing work with their bodily and mental synergy – something not to be since Chandra has passed away. In Gnosis (2009), Khan creates kathak in a contemporary idiom along with musicians from India playing sarod, mridangam, from Japan on taiko drums, cello from the United Kingdom, and vocals by Faheem Mazhar. Gnosis premiered at Sadler’s Wells, London as part of Svapnagupta, a two-week festival of Indian music and dance co-curated by Khan and Nitin Sahwney. The story of Gandhari from The Mahabharata – a devoted wife who decides to blindfold her eyes in order to live empathetically with her blind husband – inspired Gnosis. Although she possesses the choice of seeing, she retains her blindfold through momentous events: of births, marriages, and even the deaths of her own children. Khan was fascinated with this complex character, though the original story’s “themes are just landscapes, images, sketches from which ideas spring, and are then transformed into a more personal interpretation of the story, which I like to describe as a ‘story of movements.’”21 Sight and insight become rich metaphors for “the notion of inner knowledge and clouded vision, seeing darkness and yet being blind to light.”

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Figure 35 Sacred Monsters, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem (Photographer: Mikki Kunttu)

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Khan remarked in my interview with him that he faced “a huge dilemma” over how to “translate” Gandhari without having to explain the highly nuanced story. He used Kumudini Lakhia’s voice-over at the beginning, and even drew parallels between evil Duryodhana in the ancient epic and contemporary gangsters. But the voice-over came across as “apologetic” to Khan’s dramaturge. However, by simply dancing the story without explanation, the audience would miss many of the story’s important layers of meaning. This is the difficulty, he added, when choreographing Indian classical dance – if everything is explained to a Western audience and then repeated in the dance, the magic is lost. The dilemma of “translating” mythological stories to audiences unfamiliar with them remains to be resolved. Khan used voice-over, other dancers use slide-projections with the meanings, or visual slides. Khan’s UK-China collaboration in bahok includes dancers from China, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, Slovakia, and South Asia, who are suddenly thrown together in an airport (or train station) waiting room.22 The word “bahok” means “carrier” in Khan’s native Bengali. The dancers/characters in this deeply moving dance-theatre piece are carriers of their cultures, languages, and memories as they interact (or not) with others in the transit area. Each one has a story; indeed, Khan acknowledges “the dancers (as) the writers of the show. They are the ones who bring the source material … That’s what fascinates me, to explore these personal stories of these individuals on stage, in order to discover and reveal a more universal one” (akramkhancompany. net). Indeed, this theatrical piece deconstructs the very process of sharing personal histories through text (that Khan decides at times to convey incoherently), movement and voices (in different languages), through interactions that can be gentle or hostile. Stories are revealed in jagged lines, at times flowing, and at other times tense and threatening. I asked Khan (in my interview) what inspired bahok and he shared a deeply resonant personal experience that triggered this work. He recalled being in Japan on a lift (elevator) with different people – “a glamorous Japanese woman in a kimono, an African man in a traditional outfit, [and] a European couple.” Khan felt the urge to ask the Japanese woman “what the symbols on her kimono meant but was afraid to ask in case she did not understand English. Nobody made eye contact, nobody said anything. They were looking up at the lift’s ceiling; there was silence.” Suddenly, the lift stopped between floors, and “everyone starts talking in their own language/s,” remarks Khan. “We need to communicate, we tend to communicate because we are together in a moment of crisis.” This experience/memory transforms in bahok into an airport setting where Khan has “spent a lot of time. It is incredible, people go in and out, you may see a person after ten years” (Interview with Katrak). Bahok opens with a sense of waiting in an in-between space, a waiting room for passengers, usually strangers traveling from one location to

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another. The scene opens with diverse people seated or slumped in chairs. The set is dominated in the center by an overhanging electronic monitor on which information about departures, delays, gate numbers, and gate changes are updated with clanging sounds (recalling a time before computers). “A station is a crossroads of the world,” remarks reviewer Laura Bleiberg. “It’s both familiar and alienating. No one belongs and everything is strange.”23 Suddenly, the monitor starts clattering with letters and numbers that begin to move, at times stopping at some gibberish combination, at others by words, “Delayed,” “Please Wait,” or “Go to Gate.” Each time, this event initiates a scurry of activity among the passengers, who initially keep to themselves, some even acting hostile like the woman who will not allow anyone to sit next to her. Another passenger speaks on his mobile phone, in a language that sounds South Asian but remains deliberately incoherent except for the clearly spoken word, “mummy.” The dancers’ move spectacularly, especially when they descend close to the floor, hugging it, turning over their own bodies, doing somersaults and going from a standing to a soft fall and thud, or circling the floor with low, crouching movement. Movements also imitate hip-hop in sharp limb movements demonstrating great control. “The dancing contained veins of gold,” remarks Bleiberg in her Los Angeles Times review. “Khan’s movement style is a complex layering of cross-cultural technique and rhythm with the dancers’ upper and lower bodies seemingly at cross purposes, but gorgeously so.” Text appears intermittently to convey the dancers’ realities as well as echoes of contemporary violence rooted in ethnic, religious, gender and other differences. Another segment dramatizes themes of immigration, border crossing, and fears of deportation – a Korean man cannot communicate in English to a bureaucratically bland immigration official, and a sympathetic Caucasian woman translates, but her words are misinterpreted repeatedly and intentionally until she elects to be silent. The script is deliberately non-linear, inserting poignant humor via linguistic misunderstandings. However, the matter is dead serious since such communications determine who can enter a certain country, and who is undesirable, hence deported. In the choreographic mix of languages, English clearly wields power. Then the agitated woman, clearly a loner, allows the South Asian man, usually on his mobile, to sit next to her because she wants to share a story about India. She recalls her experience of seeing a temple on a mountain that evoked the human senses of sight, smell, and emotion—listening to temple bells and the recitation of rituals, smelling the incense, and feeling an overwhelming sense of peace. Suddenly, the story seems to trigger an agitated memory of being in a church with a similar incense smell and she declares that such embodiment of the senses is common to all religious spaces – mosques, temples, and churches. Khan uses this story to elicit a commonality of sacred feeling (reminiscent of Anita Ratnam’s work, Chapter 4) and a sense of harmony across religious divides rather

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than one religion asserting superiority over another. As I witness this, my mind fills with many contemporary religion-driven conflicts across the world – between Hindus and Muslims in India, between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, between Serbs and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia – sadly, the list can go on. An encounter over identity ensues between the woman who narrated the temple story and a man whom she repeatedly and persistently asks whether he is Russian until he loses his temper. In the physical struggle that follows, the mixture of aggressive movement with intervening peace-makers evokes the image of other violent realities around the globe – miscommunications based on linguistic ignorance or hegemonic impositions of one language or ethnicity over another. One of the Chinese male dancers separates the struggling pair, only to have the Caucasian male turn on him until the Chinese woman intervenes. It is telling on Khan’s part that during the physical encounters no language is used, as if to indicate that it is difficult to think, much less to use words and reason in order to resolve conflicts, once physical aggression takes over. As this struggle on stage is calmed down, all the dancers come into a tight circle, hugging and forming a pyramid with human bodies. The loner woman is left out. She tries unsuccessfully to enter the circle from below, then stands aside and hugs herself. She tries again, this time jumping up and is held by the group as if she too has a space in this community of strangers. The deeply human connections that total strangers make even temporarily, especially during unforeseen periods of waiting, communicate a feeling of rasa to the audience. Perhaps we have all been in situations where we share stories of our origins with someone whom we just met on an airplane. The piece ends with two final words projected on the monitor in quick succession: first, “home,” and then the last word, “hope.” Khan notes on his site that “the question (he) ask(s) in the piece (is) ‘where is home?’” and responds with John Berger’s words as an epigraph for bahok: “For nomads home is not an address. Home is what they carry with them.” Vertical Road (opened in London, October 2010) is “an ensemble work that draws inspiration from universal myths of angels that symbolize ‘ascension.’ The road between the earthly and the spiritual – the Vertical road” (akramkhancompany.net). Khan’s note (on his site) is used on the Program for Vertical Road: More and more, I am pulled reluctantly towards a strong horizontal current which is a place where time is moving at such high velocity, that even our breath is forced to accelerate … And I have always believed that it is in our slow exhalation, where the sense of this deep spiritual energy resides. In a world moving so fast, with the growth of technology and information, I am somehow inclined to move against this current, in search of what it might mean to be connected not just spiritually but also vertically.”24

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Figure 36 Vertical Road, Khan’s choreography (Photographer: Laurent Ziegler)

In my interview with Khan, he noted that his interest in Vertical Road lies in “how human beings access the spiritual … usually we look up to God. Plus, there are other ways (horizontal, diagonal) and from the past, present and into the future.” Do certain events happen by chance or is there divine intervention, or destiny? I asked Khan about his connection to the spiritual, what might have inspired this spiritual search in Vertical Road and he responded with a very personal and deeply moving story. After one of his performances at the Sydney Opera House, he was waiting for a taxi when two people cut in front of him and got into the taxi. As he waited for the next taxi, he had a strong urge to call his father – unusual for him since he always spoke only to his mother on the phone. He called and was speaking in Bengali to his father, asking him if everything was fine as he got into a taxi. As he hung up, the taxi driver asked him in Bengali if he was “the famous dancer, and whether his father and grandfather” were from a particular village in Bangladesh. “I’ve been looking for your father. He was my best friend,” he said. Khan was “spooked.” The taxi driver started to cry. He recounted that Khan’s father had been very keen to move to the city and then to Europe, and so this taxi driver had stolen money from his own father and given it to Khan’s father. After that, they had lost touch. Khan called his father back and said, “someone needs to speak to you.” Later, Khan got his parents to come to Sydney to see this friend and return

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the money that had indeed paved his father’s way so many years back for him and his family to be in Britain. Khan learned that the “money had been a burden on him (his father) for the past 35 years.” So, was this a vertical and/or a horizontal road that father and son had both taken? Khan wonders whether it was a coincidence or a higher power that guided him into this uncanny incident – taking a taxi (from the hundreds in Sydney) driven by a Bangladeshi driver who happened to be his father’s best friend from their home village. Khan started to ask questions. Is there something more? He said that he has always been interested in spirituality: “Somehow the temple part (of my training in kathak) is not eradicated from my body and mind” and Vertical Road, as in his other work, “is the coming together of both (kathak and contemporary) elements.” His next work is a solo for which he is off to Bangladesh, his parents’ ancestral home, working with a Bengali text, “a long-held ambition,” notes Juggi, and scheduled for performance at the nation’s fortieth Independence celebrations in 2011 (The Guardian, 25 September 2010). Khan’s dancing and choreography, multidisciplinary and intercultural, has transformed not only British contemporary dance but has been inspirational for a younger generation of Contemporary Indian Dancers. His creative choreography and his emotionally intense work that communicates rasa have made an indelible impact on the dance community and on audiences worldwide. I agree with Royona Mitra that Khan’s work “demand(s) the acknowledgement of a new identity for the genre [of Contemporary Indian Dance that] is now an undeniable reality.” It may be telling that this book approaches its close with Khan’s paradigmshifting work where kathak as well as other movement and spiritual traditions are present overtly or in the in-between spaces, between dance and sound, between movement and visual art, between belonging and alienation. Khan at the young age of 36 is someone to watch as his art deepens even more profoundly and brings new insights to how art enlivens and empowers us in our contemporary lives.

Conclusion: Ways of Looking Ahead

This study of Contemporary Indian Dance has taken a historical and geographical journey from the nineteenth century to the present, traversing parts of India, North America, and Britain. Today, in the face of growing competition to dance from the popular media of film and television, it is important for twenty-first-century rasikas and patrons (governmental and non-governmental) to foster the innovative work of Contemporary Indian Dancers. Lack of funding remains a major issue in India where Government of India grants are limited and highly politicized. Corporate funding with or without strings attached has become necessary for artistic survival in many parts of the world. A significant change is visible among US diaspora youth, who are making career choices to be performing artists rather than following traditional avenues of being doctors or teachers as their first-generation parents.1 One highly promising scenario that I have observed (in India and the United States) needs to be encouraged and underlined, namely second-generation artists’ openness in working collaboratively, sharing their skills and resources. Such collaborative synergy is very different from first-generation teachers of Indian traditional dance who commonly (with exceptions) remain tied to their own gurus and individual styles. But for the second generation, creative energy is exploding in the meeting of minds and bodies among dancers and writers, visual artists, musicians, poets, and filmmakers. Another method of supporting creative work in Contemporary Indian Dance is via networks – among artists within India, and across national boundaries in the global North and South. The potential of the internet, social media, and connecting via cyber space enables this current generation to co-create across geographical distances as undertaken successfully by the Post Natyam Collective (discussed in Chapter 5). Along with the youth taking initiative to make artistic connections, established Contemporary Indian Dancers are playing a significant role as mentors in summer workshops, such as “Unlocking Creativity” held by Kadam in Britain, “Dance Intense” in Toronto (previously in Birmingham 220

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and in Kolkata), and most recently The Gati Dance Forum in New Delhi. Such avenues are highly productive for dancers to develop new skills and hone old techniques, to meet like-minded artists and to share choreographic processes. Conferences sponsored by dance companies, at times with university cosponsorships, provide useful space for dialogue between artists and scholars. The landmark “East-West Encounter” meeting in Bombay in 1984 (discussed in the Introduction), and later conferences on innovations and new directions in Indian dance have been held in New Delhi, Kolkata, Chicago, and Toronto. Chitresh Das’ dance company sponsored a valuable “Innovations in Kathak” conference in 2007 in San Francisco. Toronto’s Kalanidhi Fine Arts conferences and performances have made significant impact. Festivals play a key role in providing platforms for new and experimental work; they are more common today than in the 1990s when Anita Ratnam took the initiative (as also with her pioneering work in initiating narthaki. com) to co-produce (with Ranvir Shah) The Other Festival in Chennai. Today, festivals sponsored by major newspapers and other backers take place all across India, such as Attakalari Movement Arts’ biennial in Bangalore among others. In Southern California, the two-yearly Artwallah Festival of diasporic South Asian Arts provides a significant platform for dancers, literary writers, visual artists, and filmmakers to present their work and dialogue with one another. I recall the exuberant energy of the first Artwallah Festival in 1999 and although the Festival has been scaled back, it is thriving. Other festivals take place in the global microcosm of New York City – Erasing Borders and Engendered Rituals offering opportunities for performing artists to show new work, dialogue, and network (discussed in Chapter 5). This study has analyzed Contemporary Indian Dance within the cultural politics of globalization and the related issues of diaspora, gender, and transnationalism. In translating cultures across national borders, artists deal with what Deirdre Sklar describes as “cross-cultural dialogue, with differences in bodily ways of knowing.” Sklar’s Introduction to “Dance Ethnography: Where do we go from here?” encourages “cross-cultural exchange about what it is we know when we know it in movement.” Although I agree with trying to discover “common ground” in “somatic ways of organizing knowledge,” other challenges remain – regarding cultural knowledge, “translating” and transcending stereotypes, and “recogniz(ing) movement knowledge from different cultural standpoints.”2 Sklar’s “Reprise: On Dance Ethnology”, notes new interpretive modes, increasingly important in dance analysis, such as: “the rapidly developing ideas and language of cultural studies,” with its attention to ethnicity, race, class, and gender; and the study of relations between performing bodies and community identities. Sklar also recognizes the importance of “invented communities, kinesthetic homes, all of which address the way dance works and is worked upon in the changing contexts of world politics.”3

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Looking to the future, is it time to institutionalize Contemporary Indian Dance in terms of outlining its unique grammar and idiom as is common in other dance styles? In bharatanatyam, for instance, there are different styles that have been codified along with individual signature styles, such as Rukmini Devi’s Kalakshetra style that is taught today by its graduates all across the world, or Balasaraswati’s signature bharatanatyam style (belonging to the hereditary devadasi tradition) soaked in bhakti and sringara. In Contemporary Indian Dance, Madhu Nataraj has a school in Bangalore and such initiatives may extend to other locations. Even though the style is evolving, would there be drawbacks to institutionalizing Contemporary Indian Dance? At the same time, without codification, it remains difficult to impart the style as evolved over three to four decades by pioneering artists such as Deboo or Jeyasingh unless one works with them directly. Documentation via video, DVD, and archives play important roles in preserving Contemporary Indian Dance. Videos of Jeyasingh’s Faultline, and Akram Khan’s zero degrees are available.4 The government of India has produced Beyond Tradition (2009), a timely and useful documentary (DVD) of four women Contemporary Indian Dancers, though the distribution of such work makes it difficult to find.5 An archive of pioneer Chandralekha’s work is in process in India and will be most useful to dancers and scholars. A segment of Chandra’s Sri was revived successfully when taught in Toronto to Indian-Canadian dancers by two artists, Geetha Sridhar (based in London) and Shijith (based in India), both of whom were trained by Chandra (discussed in Chapter 1). Many major artists have their own websites that provide useful material and links to prominent reviews and interviews. Scholarly books such as this one, and others sure to follow, ensure that the artistic legacies of major artists are available for future generations of artists. Scholarly exploration of their creative processes celebrates their creative triumphs, despite the many struggles in surviving as artists in our contemporary times. Even as the forces of globalization and the internet foster rapid communication across national boundaries in ways that were inconceivable for artists like Uday Shankar in the early twentieth century, dance today faces the new challenges of intense competition from television, film, and other smart media that entertain and inform virtually without engagement with live bodies on stage. For artists and art appreciators, it remains significant to inspire audiences and sponsors to patronize live dance and theatre, and to make the encounter compelling and rewarding. The Contemporary Indian Dancer’s physical body on stage moves spectators with rasa, filling them with that special kind of thoughtful emotion that both elevates the spirit and engages the mind in recognizing that art contributes in unique ways to a more just and humane world.

Notes Preface 1. “Astad Deboo in conversation,” at the Ananya Seminar in New Delhi, 7 October 2009, in conjunction with Ananya Dance Festival at the Purana Quila, New Delhi, 6–9 October 2009. 2. “Bala on Bharata Natyam,” Sruti 5 (1984), 11–15. See also Douglas Knight, Balasaraswati: Her Life and Art (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010). 3. Ketu H. Katrak, “Cultural Translation and Agha Shahid Ali’s Uses of the Ghazal Form,” Catamaran: South Asian American Writing 1 (Fall 2003), 40–59. 4. Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London and New York: Verso, 1989); and Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). 5. Esha De and Sonita Sarker, eds, Trans-Status Subjects: Marking Time and Territories (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2002), See Introduction, 1–27. 6. Yodh quoted in Lewis Segal, “Medha Yodh, 79; Classical Indian dancer and arts advocate taught at UCLA,” Obituary, Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2007, B9. 7. Ketu H. Katrak, Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2006). See also, “Cultural Translation of Bharata Natyam into Contemporary Indian Dance: SecondGeneration South Asian Americans and Cultural Politics in Diasporic Locations,” South Asian Popular Culture 2.2 (fall 2004), 79–102; “The Gestures of Bharata Natyam: Migrating into Diasporic Contemporary Indian Dance,” in The Migration of Gesture: Art, Film, Dance, Writing, ed. Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 217–40; “Changing Traditions: South Asian Americans and Cultural/Communal Politics”, The Massachusetts Review, XLIII, 1 (Spring/2002), 75–88. “Body Boundarylands: Locating South Asian Ethnicity in Performance and in Daily Life”, Amerasia Journal 27.1 (2001), 2–33; “South Asian American Writers,” in An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, ed. King-Kok Cheung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 192–218. 8. Deidre Sklar used this beautiful phrase during a conversation with me about this book. 9. Beyond Tradition, Documentary (DVD) by Rajesh S. Jala, Produced by Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2009. 10. Mrinalini Sarabhai, “Choreography,” in H. K. Ranganath, ed., Sangeet Natak Silver Jubilee Volume (New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1981), 115–21. 11. Jayachandran Palazy, “Contemporary Dance in India,” The Art and the City (web magazine, Max Mueller Bhavan, India, August 2009). 12. See Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1996), for an excellent discussion of how US legislation from the late nineteenth century onwards has controlled the entry of different Asian groups. 13. Some artists in India have reinvented twenty-first-century versions of gurukuls (a method of transmitting knowledge where the teacher and student share daily life while learning an art) as at Daksha Sheth’s studio outside Trivandrum in Kerala; 223

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or the idyllic artist village outside Bangalore, Nrityagram, that was envisioned by the late Protima Gauri. 14. Arangetrams have become lavish, even ostentatious, over the past decade or so, resembling weddings, with a large number of guests attending the recital, and a catered dinner and gifts for their presence. 15. Dance scholar Royona Mitra is currently completing a doctoral dissertation from Royal Holloway College in Britain, devoted to the work of Akram Khan.

Introduction 1. With apologies to John Berger’s resonant title of his excellent book, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972). 2. Kapila Vatsyayan, The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts (New Delhi: Roli Books International, 1983), 3. 3. Deidre Sklar, “Can Bodylore be brought to its Senses?” Journal of American Folklore 107 (Winter 1994), 9–22, 12. 4. Kapila Vatsyayan holds a highly significant place in scholarship on Indian dance, beginning with her text, Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts (New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1968, repr. 1977) that opened up the discussion between classical Indian dance and literature, dance and sculpture. Her other major publications on dance, theatre, and painting include: Traditions of Indian Folk Dance (New Delhi: Indian Book Company, 1976); Traditional Indian Theatre – Multiple Streams (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1980); Dance in Indian Painting (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1982). 5. Deidre Sklar, “On Dance Ethnography,” Dance Research Journal 23:1 (Spring 1991), 6–10, 6. 6. Homi Bhabha, Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 6. 7. I am indebted to my colleague Stephen Barker for pointing this out to me. 8. Stephen Barker, Autoaesthetics: Strategies of the Self After Nietzsche (New Jersey and London: Humanities Press, 1992), 118. 9. Randy Martin, “Dance’s Diversity: A US Perspective,” in Dance Transcending Borders, ed. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008), 134–54. 10. Jane C. Desmond, ed., Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1997), 3. 11. Ketu H. Katrak, Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 2006). See selected Katrak essays: “Towards Defining Contemporary Indian Dance: A Global Form,” Proceedings of the 2008 Congress of Research on Dance Conference (University of Illinois Press, 2009); “The Gestures of Bharata Natyam: Migrating into Diasporic Contemporary Indian Dance,” in The Migration of Gesture: Art, Film, Dance, Writing, ed. Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 217–40; “Cultural Translation of Bharata Natyam into Contemporary Indian Dance: Second-Generation South Asian Americans and Cultural Politics in Diasporic Locations,” South Asian Popular Culture 2.2 (fall 2004), 79–102; “Diasporic Belongings: Selected Asian American Literary and Cultural Expressions,” in The Borders in All of Us: New Approaches to Three Ethnic and Global Diasporic Societies, ed. William A. Little et al. (Northridge, CA: New World African Press, 2006), 222–47. 12. Ananya Chatterjea, Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies Through Works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004).

Notes 225 13. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, “Boundaries and Beyond: Problems of Nomenclature in Indian Dance History,” in her edited volume, Dance Transcending Borders (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008), 78–98. 14. Mark Franko’s, “Emotivist Movement and Histories of Modernism: The Case of Martha Graham,” in Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), traces the evolution of Martha Graham’s choreography over several decades. Franko’s text also includes useful discussions of Merce Cunningham and Jose Limon. 15. Georg Lechner and Jamshed Bhabha, “Dance Encounter, 1984,” National Centre for the Performing Arts Quarterly Journal XIII.2 (June 1984). This entire Special Issue is important for reproducing the dialogue and discussion at several sessions during this Conference in Bombay, 12–13. All references in the text to “Dance Encounter” refer to this article. 16. See Jack Anderson, Art Without Boundaries (Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 1997) for a useful discussion of the origins of modern dance, pioneers, post-1960s artists, and later moving worldwide into what Anderson describes as “A League of Dancing Nations.” 17. For a detailed discussion of Kumudini Lakhia’s life and choreography, see Reena Shah, Movement in Stills: The Dance and Life of Kumudini Lakhia (Ahmedabad, India: Mapin Publishing, 2005). “Lakhia’s composition, Yugal (1978) that instead of focusing on the intricacies of the form as she did in Dhabkar … examined the intricacies of mood and the landscape of dance. The landscape of Yugal is not as literal as it is metaphorical and contextual” (Shah, 196). The Ministry of Culture sponsored Yugal for a tour of China that also featured Mrinalini Sarabhai’s troupe Darpana Dance Academy, and Kerala Kalamandalam. “‘The music and dance could speak a language that politics couldn’t, so they sent us,’ Kumudini says” (Shah, 195). Lakhia composed a duet, Rati Kamdeva that she danced with the legendary kathak maestro Birju Maharaj in 1974 at Carnegie Hall. Earlier, in the 1930s Lakhia had danced with Ram Gopal. 18. Uttara Asha Coorlawala received many positive reviews for “integrating certain rhythms and movements, and modulating the music and lighting effects of modern dance … (even as) she preserved the elegance and vigor of the classical approach” (L’Espoir, 29 June, 1979). See also, Jennifer Dunning, “Asian Choreography in 2 Sensibilities,” The New York Times, 6 December 1988; V. V. Prasad, “The Corlawala Effect,” Financial Express, 10 Septemebr 1983, among other notices. 19. Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “Dancing and Writing from Otherness,” India International Center Quarterly 32/4 (Spring), 42–50. Another revision (with more additions) is forthcoming: “Writing Out Otherness: Bodies that Dance Asianness,” in Discourses in Dance Vol 5.1, Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance UK. 20. Rustom Bharucha’s work in various texts remains key for his analyses of cultural politics, the intercultural, secular, and sacred within the Indian context. See Bharucha, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking Through Theatre in an Age of Globalization (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001); Bharucha, Theatre and the World: Essays on Performance and Politics of Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1990). Globalization of culture scholars that I find useful include Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Frederic Jameson, The Geo-Political Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992, repr. 1995); James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 241–61; Edward Said, The

226

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22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

Notes World, The Text, and the Critic (Cambridge,. MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), and Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979). Transnational feminist scholars attentive to diaspora include Chandra Mohanty, Esha De, Uma Narayan among others. This stance in intercultural performance is distinctly different from Peter Brooks’ universalist humanism expressed in a statement as: “Each culture expresses a different portion of the inner atlas; the complete human truth is global, and the theatre is the place in which the jigsaw can be pieced together.” Quoted in Patrice Parvis, ed., The Intercultural Performance Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 68. In a useful article in India Currents magazine (2003), bharatanatyam artist Ramaa Bharadvaj forthrightly questions the Indian State’s decision at the time to send only “young” dancers abroad. Bharadvaj speaks against such ageist criteria, plus the fact that in the diaspora, viewing a young artist, however technically accomplished, would be less rewarding than seeing a mature artist whose skills and bhava (expression) have usually deepened with age and life experience. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed., Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1981). See also Pam Morris, ed., The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshnikov (London and New York: Edward Arnold, 1994). M. M. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans. Vern W. McGee (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1986). Kapila Vatsyayan, Bharata, The Natyasastra (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996), 138. Among many different translations of The Natyasastra, Manmohan Ghosh’s multi-volume translation and editing is considered the standard (Calcutta: Manisha Granthalaya, 1956–67). For discussion of Rasa, see Chapter 27. See also Adya Rangacharya, The Natyasastra: English Translation with Critical Notes (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996). Priyadarshi Patnaik, Rasa In Aesthetics: An Application of Rasa Theory to Modern Western Literature (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997). H. H. Ingalls, trans., The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana and the Locana of Abhinavagupta (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Henceforth in text reference to this work appears in parenthesis by the name Ingalls, followed by the page number. This predilection to categorize and number is also seen in Ancient Sanskrit dramas of different types (heroic, comic, etc.). The tendency to divide, sub-divide, and impose rigid rules led to the breakdown of the dramatic form. Dramas became more like elaborate poetic readings. Only 60 Sanskrit dramas survive, whereas many are believed to be lost. Sushil Kumar De, History of Sanskrit Poetics (Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 2nd edn, 1960. First published in two volumes in 1923 and 1925). See especially Chapter V on Anandavardhana, and Chapter VI on Abhinavagupta. See also, G. T. Deshpande, Abhinavagupta (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1998, 2009). Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “It Matters for Whom you Dance: Audience Participation in Rasa Theory,” in Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance, ed. Susan Kattwinkel (Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 2002), 37–53. See also Coorlawala’s 1994 PhD dissertation from New York University, entitled “Classical and Contemporary Indian Dance: Overview, Criteria, and a Choreographic Analysis.” I am deeply indebted to Deidre Sklar for this insight. Deidre Sklar, “Dialogues. Dance Ethnography: Where Do We Go From Here?” Dance Research Journal 33.1 (Summer 2001), 92.

Notes 227 34. Susan Leigh Foster, Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance (Berkeley, Los Angels and London: University of California Press, 1986); and the edited volumes: Choreographing History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995); Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture, and Power (London and New York: Routledge, 1996); Worlding Dance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). See also Foster’s most recent book, Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance (NY: Routledge, 2010). 35. Cliffod Geertz, “Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols,” The Antioch Review 17.4 (December 1957), 421–37. 36. Randy Martin, “Agency and History: The Demands of Dance Ethnography,” in Choreographing History, ed. Susan Leigh Foster (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), 105–15. 37. Foster made this comment at a talk given at the University of California, Irvine, 2 June 2004. 38. James Clifford and George Marcus, eds, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1986). See also James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA., and London: Harvard University Press, 1997). 39. Deidre Sklar, “Can Bodylore be Brought to its Senses?” Journal of American Folklore 107 (1994), 9–22,12, 20.

Chapter 1 Contested Histories: “Revivals” of Classical Indian Dance and Early Pioneers of Contemporary Indian Dance 1. Vinay Dharwedkar, ed., The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 40–4. 2. See useful reconstructions of kathak history in Sunil Kothari, Kathak: Indian Classical Dance Art (New Delhi: Abhinav Publciations, 1989); and Pallabi Chakravorty, Bells of Change: Kathak Dance, Women and Modernity in India (Calcutta, London and New York: Seagull Books, 2008). 3. Susan Leigh Foster, ed., Choreographing History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), Introduction. 4. See Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “The Birth of Bharatanatyam and the Sanskritized Body,” in The Body in Dance: Modes of Inquiry, Conference Proceedings, The Congress of Research on Dance, 1996; Matthew Allen, “Rewriting the Script of South Indian Dance,” Tulane Drama Review 41.3 (1997), 63–100; Janet O’Shea, At Home in the World: Bharatanatyam on the Global Stage (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2007); Janet O’Shea, “Traditional Indian Dance and the Making of Interpretive Communities,” Asian Theatre Journal 15.1 (1998), 45–63. Other scholars on this “revival” history are noted in the course of the chapter. 5. Indira Viswanathan Peterson and Davesh Soneji, eds, Performing Pasts: Reinventing the Arts in Modern South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008), 6. Hereafter, citations from this text are indicated by Performing Pasts. 6. Jayachandran Palazy’s article is on a newly launched web magazine, Art and the City, by the Max Mueller Bhavan, India. 7. Among the most renowned rulers was Serfoji II (1879–1932) who fostered learning, especially encouraging music and dance. 8. Prior to the establishment of the Madras presidency by the British in 1685, continuing until Indian independence in 1947, the golden age of the Cholas and

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10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

Notes Pandyas prevailed. The British East India Company had been trading since 1600. However, the Company was disbanded after the 1857 Mutiny against the British and Queen Victoria officially declared British Raj over the territory. Avanthi Meduri, “Bharata Natyam – What Are You?” Asian Theatre Journal 5.1 (Spring 1988), 1–22. See also, Meduri’s 1996 PhD dissertation, “Nation, Woman, Representation: The Sutured History of the Devadasi and her Dance,” New York University. See Avanthi Meduri, ed. Rukmini Devi Arundale (1940–1986): A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts (New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass Publishers, 2005) for a useful compilation of essays by Kapila Vatsyayan, Mrinalini Sarabahia, and Lakshmi Viswanathan, among others; and Leela Samson, Rukmini Devi (Viking India, 2010). The Hindu, 16 March 1936. Gowri Ramnarayan, “Rukmini Devi: Restoration and Creation,” Sruti: Indian Classical Music and Dance Magazine 10 (August 1984), 26–38. Raman, N. Pattabhi and Anandhi Ramachandran, “Balasaraswati: The Whole World in Her Hands,” Sruti 5 (1984), 17–31. T. Balasaraswati, “The Art of Bharatanatyam,” Sruti 50 (1988), 37–40. Amrit Srinivasan, “Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and her Dance,” Economic and Political Weekly 20.44 (2 November 1985), 1869–76. Anonymous, “The Renaming of an Old Dance: A Whodunit Tale of Mystery,” Sruti 27/28 (December 1986/January 1987), 30–1. The Journal of the Music Academy (XLV.233), quoted in Sruti 27/28. Pallabi Chakravorty, Bells of Change: Kathak Dance, Women and Modernity in India (Calcutta, London and New York: Seagull Books, 2008), 15. Hereafter, citations from this text are indicated by Bells of Change. See Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “Ruth St. Denis and India’s Dance Renaissance,” Dance Chronicle 15.2 (1992), 23–52; Jane Desmond, “Dancing Out the Difference: Cultural Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis’s ‘Radha’ of 1906,” Signs 17.1 (Autumn 1991), 28–49. See also Priya Srinivasan, Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor in the US (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011); and “The Bodies Beneath the Smoke or What’s Behind the Cigarette Poster: Unearthing Kinesthetic Connections in American Dance History,” Discourses in Dance 4.1 (2007), 7–48. Srinivasan’s scholarship usefully reinserts the invisible nautch dancers into American dance history alongside figures such as St. Denis. Joan L. Erdman, “Cultural Policy in India: Who Should Speak for the Performing Arts? The Case of the Delhi Dancers,” Pacific Affairs 56.2 (Summer 1983), 247–69. James R. Cowdery, “The American Students of Balasaraswati,” UCLA Journal of Dance Ethnology 19 (1995), 50–7. Kamala Chakravarty and Mohan Khokar, “Uday Shankar: The Bright Years,” Sruti 12.98 (1984), 34–9. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, ed., “Boundaries and Beyond: Problems of Nomenclature in Indian Dance History,” Dance: Transcending Borders (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008), 78–98. Joan Erdman, “Performance as Translation: Uday Shankar in the West,” The Drama Review: TDR 31.1 (Spring 1987), 64–88. Shankar’s production sense was no doubt aided by his expertise as a visual artist and painter – a profession that he had given up in favor of becoming a dancer – “enticed” by Anna Pavlova, notes Erdman. Leela Venkataraman, “Ambassador of Indian Dance” (Obituary for Ram Gopal), The Hindu, 24 October 2003, Entertainment Section.

Notes 229 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42.

Naseem Khan, “Tribute to Gopal,” The Guardian, 13 October 2003. Naseem Khan, “Tribute to Gopal.” “ObiTribute: Ram Gopal (1912–2003),” narthaki.com. Only two schools operated at the time: Kalakshetra, established in 1936 under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, and Uday Shankar’s Almora Center, established in 1938 (but surviving only a few years). Hence, Gopal spent much of his life touring the West. Indeed, some prominent dancers worked in his troupe – Kumudini Lakhia, an innovator in kathak, and Mrinalini Sarabhai in bharatanatyam. Brochure, kind courtesy of Narendra Sharma whom I was very fortunate to meet on 10 February 2006. Brochure, for January 2006 performance of Flying Cranes and Antim Adhyay. I viewed this work in December 2009 at the Doordarshan (National television) Archives in New Delhi. “Director’s Note” in the Program Brochure of Flying Cranes and Antim Adhyay, performed in New Delhi in January 2006. Chandralekha, “Reflections on New Directions in Indian Dance,” National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Quarterly Journal XIII.2 (June 1984), 60–4. Rustom Bharucha, “Remembering Chandra: Points of Reference in the Here and Now,” in Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, ed., Dance Transcending Borders (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008), 3–18. See also Bharucha’s excellent text on Chandra’s life and work: Chandralekha: Woman/Dance/Resistance ((New Delhi: Harper Collins, 1995). Dashrath Patel and Sadanand Menon, Chandra – In Other Voices … And in Her Own (Chennai: SPACES, 2008). Coorlawala, “Ananya and Chandralekha – A Response to Chandralekha: Negotiating the Female Body in and Movement in Cultural/Political Signification,” Dance Research Journal 31.1 (Spring 1999), 7–12. Sadananad Menon, Chandralekha: Choreographic Works Angika to Sharira 1985 to 2003 (Chennai: SPACES, n.d.). I saw Sharira first in Toronto in January 2008 along with a conference on Contemporary Indian Dance that honored Chandra. The “Process Revealed” was a session held the morning after the performance. I saw Sharira again in New Delhi in November 2009, even more magical in this production than the one in Toronto. I saw a DVD recording of Mahakal and Lilavati at the Doordarshan (National Television) Archives in New Delhi, December 2009. Dikshitar is one of the trinity of classical Carnatic musical composers along with Tyagaraja and Shyama Sastri.

Chapter 2 Abstract Dance with Rasa: Pioneers Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh 1. Leela Venkataraman, “Peerless” (on Astad Deboo’s choreography, Breaking Boundaries), The Hindu, 1 May 2009. 2. Shobana Jeyasingh, interview with Ketu Katrak, 7 July 2010, Moving Arts Base, London. 3. On www.narthaki.com, 20 November 2001. 4. Simin J. Patel, “Acknowledging Astad,” Parsiana, 7 August 2007, 18–20. 5. Lalitha Venkat, “Astad Deboo gives space a new dimension,” narthaki.com 19 August 2003. 6. Shobana Jeyasingh, interview on her website. 7. Avanthi Meduri, “Labels, Histories, Politics: Indian/South Asian Dance on the Global Stage,” Dance Research 26.2 (2008), 223–43.

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8. Shobana Jeyasingh, “Imagining Homelands: Creating a New Dance Language,” in Alexander Carter, ed., The Routledge Dance Studies Reader (London: New York: Routledge, 1998), 46–52. 9. Andre Lepecki, ed., Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, 2004). 10. Astad Deboo, “Creating Endless Possibilities,” in Sunil Kothari, ed., New Directions in Indian Dance (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2003). 11. Interview with Lalita Venkat, on www.narthaki.com, 20 November 2001. 12. Marcellus Baptista, “Amazing grace!” in Mumbai Mirror, 26 September 2005, 41. 13. Ramu Ramanujan, “Waah Ustad Waah!” India Perspectives (April–May 2008), 57–67. 14. Malcolm Tay, “What is There to Celebrate?” Asianweek.com, 21 November 2003. 15. “Master Craftsman,” Dance Divine website. 16. Priya Pathiyan, “Dance Like A Man,” Times of India, 25 September 2005, 2. 17. The Indian Express, 25 September 2005. 18. Aditi De, “Challenging Beats,” The Hindu, 28 November 2004. 19. The Hindu, 28 November 2004. 20. Marcellus Baptista, “Amazing Grace!” Mumbai Mirror, 26 September 2005, 41. 21. Leela Venkataraman, “Breaking Boundaries,” The Hindu, 1 May 2009. 22. “Now, street kids break boundaries,” The Deccan Herald, Hyderabad, India, 15 April 2009. 23. Shobana Jeyasingh, Interview with Ketu Katrak, 7 July, 2010, Moving Arts Base, London. 24. “Shobana Jeyasingh in Conversation” with Donald Hutera, Pulse Magazine: Asian Music and Dance 105 (Summer 2009), 6–9. 25. On the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (SJDC) website. 26. Shobana Jeyasingh, “Getting Off the Orient Express,” Dance Theatre Journal 8.2 (1990), 34–7; Jeyasingh, “Imaginary Homelands: Creating a New Dance Language,” in Border Tensions (Surrey: University of Surrey Department of Dance Studies), 191–7. 27. Jeyasingh, “Imaginary Homelands.” 28. Royona Mitra, “Dancing Embodiment, theorizing space: Exploring the ‘third space,’ in Akram Khan’s zero degrees” (on the Akram Khan website). 29. Sanjoy Roy, “Growths and Outgrowths,” in New Directions in Indian Dance, ed. Sunil Kothari (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2003), 156–67, quotation on 160. 30. This is also the case in Bruise Blood discussed below. 31. SJDC website. 32. Janet O’Shea, “Unbalancing the Authentic/Partnering Tradition: Shobana Jeyasingh’s ‘Romance… with Footnotes,” Society of Dance Historians (SDHS) Proceedings, 1998 (Published by SDHS, 1998). See also, O’Shea, “‘Traditional’ Indian Dance and the Making of Interpretive Communities,” Asian Theatre Journal 15.1 (1998), 45–63.

Chapter 3 Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Choreography by Masters of Traditional Indian Dance and Emerging Innovators 1. “Extensions of tradition” are undertaken by many traditional dancers such as Delhi-based Rama Vaidyanathan, Geeta Chandra, Chennai-based Indira Kadambi, Lakshmi Ramanthan, Shobhana among others. They create new work

Notes 231

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

with contemporary social themes, or reinterpret old myths from the epics. One other trend in extending tradition includes a return to medieval Tamil literary texts that are presented in new dance-dramas. Institute Brochure. I met and interviewed Maya Rao and Madhu Nataraj in Bangalore in 2006. They graciously shared materials with me, and also had their students show their work. www.aditimangaldas.com. Kelly Apter, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, August 2004. Mary Brennan, The List, Edinburgh, August 2004. Mangaldas, Interview with Katrak, 21 December 2009, New Delhi. I saw Now Is, on 7 November 2009, at the Kamani Auditorium in New Delhi. Daksha Sheth, “My Journey in Dance,” Natya Kala Conference, 20 December 2000. www.narthaki.com. Daksha Sheth, Bio Note on www.dakshasheth.com. Daksha Sheth, “Search for my Tongue,” in Sunil Kothari, ed., New Directions in Indian Dance (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2003), 94–105. “The Dancing Warrior,” PUNE Newsline, 12 February 2006 (accessed on http:// cities.expressindia.com). Daksha Sheth, “My Journey in Dance,” Natya Kala Conference, 20 December 2000. www.narthaki.com. “The Arts: Bhukhamb,” in India Today, 9 April 2001. Daksha Sheth, in Beyond Tradition, DVD made by the Government of India showcasing four female contemporary choreographers, 2009. Daksha Sheth, “My Journey in Dance,” Natya Kala Conference, 20 December 2000. www.narthaki.com. “The Arts: BhuKhamb,” India Today, 9 April, 2001. Arundhati Subramaniam, The Indian Express, Mumbai, 18 November 2000. Kavitha Srinivasa, The Asian Age, Bangalore, 16 January 2000. Reginald Massey, The Dancing Times, London, August 1999. Daksha Sheth, “Search for my Tongue,” in Sunil Kothari, ed., New Directions in Indian Dance (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2003), 94–105. Navtej Singh Johar, Interview with Katrak, February 2006. At the recent opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, in October 2010, Johar presented a choreography based on South African Doris Lessing’s novel, The Grass is Singing. Mallika Sarabhai, http://taal.20m.com/mallsara.html. Aditi Tandon, “Mallika on a Mission,” The Tribune (India), 13 October 2007. Mallika Sarabhai, “Dance to Change the World,” as a TED Presentation, 26 November 2009. “The Fact that I am Standing, Mr. Advani, means the world is watching,” The Telegraph (Calcutta), 29 March 2009. V. Radhika, “Dancing to Transform,” boloji.com, 4 December 2004. www.narthaki.com, May 2001. Canada Council for the Arts website. Express India, 18 December 2008. New York Times, 24 August 2008. Pada, on narthaki.com, May 2001. Pada suffered an awful personal tragedy, losing her husband and two daughters in 1985 on the Air-India airplane crash, a mid-air explosion, an act of terrorism. V. Radhika, “Dancing to Transform,” Boloji.com, 15 April 2010.

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35. Leela Venkataraman, The Hindu, 21 November 2003. 36. S. L. Rao, The Telegraph, 8 December 2003. 37. “What is Classical?” in the Harborfront Publicity materials (accessed on Sampradaya website). 38. Reflections … On Dance, Nritarutya Company Brochure. 39. Interview with Katrak, 13 November 2005 at the Alliance Francaise, Chennai, where Athreya was rehearsing. 40. Preethi Athreya, “Making Dance: A Choreological Approach,” Paper presented at the Natya Kala Conference, Chennai, December 2001 (accessed via google). 41. Athreya at Natya Kala Conference, Chennai, 2001 (accessed via google). 42. The Hindu, 10 January 2006. 43. Nirmala Sheshadri, Interview with Katrak, February 2006, Chennai. 44. Review in The Hindu, 7 February 2002. 45. Tilt, Program Notes, Performance at the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, 24 September 2009. 46. Katrak’s phone interview with Lall in New Delhi, 19 December 2009. 47. Anjana Anand, “Raring to Go,” The Hindu, 27 August 2009, MetroPlus, 2. 48. Vasanti Sankaranarayanan, “A New Experience,” The Hindu, on the Padmini Chettur website. 49. Chitra Swaminathan, “Beyond Boundaries,” in The Hindu, 22 December 2008. 50. Padmini Chettur, Publicity material packet. I am grateful to Chettur for this packet. 51. Chettur, Interview with Katrak, at Chettur’s Chennai dance studio, 16 March 2006. 52. Vasanti Sankaranarayanan, “A New Experience,” The Hindu, on the Padmini Chettur website. 53. Franz Anton Cramer, “Reduction and Updating,” on the Padmini Chettur website. 54. Deepa Mohan, “Just Contemporary, Not Comprehensible,” Citizen Matters, 19 February 2009. 55. Mark Franko, “Some Notes on Yvonne Rainer, Modernism, Politics, Emotion, Performance, and the Aftermath,” in Jane E. Desmond, ed., Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1997), 289–303.

Chapter 4 Hybrid Artists and Transnational Collaborations: Chennai, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur 1. David Huddart, Homi K. Bhaha, Routledge Critical Thinkers Series (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 59. 2. Homi K. Bhabha, Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 86. 3. See my essay, “The Arts of Resistance: Ethno-Global Artists Arundhati Roy and Denise Uyehara,” in Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes, Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon, eds. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 244–63. 4. Anita Ratnam, “The Contemporary In You,” At A Glance: Understanding India, June 2008. 5. Anita Ratnam, “Kaisiki Natakam: A Report on a Revival Project”, Sruti Magazine (July 2000), 49–51. 6. Ratnam provides the details of the story as narrated here (email to Katrak, 13 September 2010). 7. Anita Ratnam, “The Sacred Spiral … Musings on Dance and Life,” India Perspectives (New Delhi), 22.3 (June–July 2008), 17–22, 18.

Notes 233 8. Aniruddhan Vasudevan, “narthaki.com: Virtual Dance,” Ashish Mohan Khokar’s Attakalari: The Dance Annual of India 2007–08 (Published in India by Ashish Mohan Khokar), 53–7. 9. Anita Ratnam, “The Sacred Spiral”, 17–22, 18. 10. The Hindu, 22 May 2000. 11. The Hindu, 26 September 2002, G9. 12. The Statesman, 9 May 2003. 13. I saw a video recording (in 2005, Chennai) of the Hyderabad performance (in 2000) of this work. 14. Chitra Swaminathan, “Celebrating Woman Power,” The Hindu, 29 December 2009. 15. Interview with Nadine Kreisberger, The Indian Express, 3 January, 2010. 16. Interview with Anita Ratnam by Nadine Kriesberger, Indian Express, 3 January 2010. 17. Chitra Swaminathan, “Celebrating Woman Power,” The Hindu, 29 December 2009. 18. Cadence Mandybura in “Reinventing the Triangle” (expressbuzz.com, 10 January 2010). 19. Leela Venkataraman, “Myth Crosses over to Reality,” The Hindu, 8 January 2010. 20. Hari Krishnan, in Nicholas Keung, “New Pioneers: Taking Large Steps on the Path to Diversity,” Toronto Star, 21 March 2007. 21. Interview with Lalita Venkat, 7 August 2005. 22. Glenn Sumi, “Stage Previews”, Now (Toronto) 27:7 (18 October 2007). 23. Homi K. Bhabha, “Art and National Identity: A Critics’ Symposium,” Interview with Brian Wallis, Art in America 79.9 (September 1991), 82. 24. Michael Crabb, Here and Now’s Dance Critic on CBC Radio, 12 October 2007. 25. Glenn Sumi, “Stage Previews”, Now (Toronto) 27:7 (18 October 2007). 26. Huddart, Homi K. Bhabha, 7. 27. Homi K. Bhabha, “Signs taken for Wonders…,” reprinted in the collection of Bhabha’s essays in The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 114, original emphasis. 28. It is intriguing to observe that Krishnan’s choreography, his gender politics, his challenging of stereotypes all work outside the box, and yet, iconographically, his visual designs often represents boxes, as in the “hopscotch” of Bollywood Hopscotch, or even in his co-choreography of Ratnam’s 7 Graces where the piece evolves via the lush, colored squares that are projected onto the stage floor, moving from black, to blue, and so on. It is as if – even as he uses and breaks the symmetrical lines of bharatanatyam – the symmetry of squares and triangles, the orderliness of these shapes, enter his choreographic imagination. 29. Gabriele Brandstetter, “Dancing the Animal to Open the Human: For a New Poetics of Locomotion”, Dance Research Journal 42.1, Summer 2010. 30. “Colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of difference that is almost the same, but not quite. Which is to say, that the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (Bhaba, Location of Culture, 86). 31. Arshia Sattar, “Valmiki’s Ramayana,” Malashri Lal and Namita Gokhale, eds, In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology (New Delhi: Penguin, 2009), 10–17. 32. See Ilieana Citaristi’s useful article, “Contribution of Male Stage Artists To the Evolution of Odissi Dance,” Sruti Magazine 205 (October 2001), 15–19. 33. During a meeting entitled “Classical Indian Dance: How do We Preserve the Tradition?” 21 September 2009. 34. Chacko Vadaketh, “Ramli Ibrahim – Finding His Bliss,” Apostrophe 24 February 2005.

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35. “The costumes of the Sutra Odissi dancers of Malaysia: A dialogue with textual and substantial evidence” by Dr Soubhagya Pathy et al. (25 September 2005).

Chapter 5 Dancing in the Diaspora Part I: North America 1. Ramsay Burt, “Contemporary Dance and the Performance of Multicultural Identities,” 19 April 2004 (accessed on akramkhan.com). 2. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). 3. See Ketu H. Katrak, “Diasporic Alienness and Belonging: Selected IndianAmerican Cultural Expressions,” in Esha Niyogi De and Sonita Sarkar, eds, TransStatus Subjects: Gender in the Globalization of South and Southeast Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 232–48. 4. Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “The Sanskritized Body,” Dance Research Journal 36.2 (Winter 2004), 50–63, p. 59. 5. See my essay, “The Gestures of Bharatanatyam Migrating into Contemporary Indian Dance,” in Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness, eds, The Migration of Gesture: Art, Film, Dance, Writing (Minnesota and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 217–40. 6. Edward Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), Introduction. 7. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 2. 8. Victor Turner, “Liminality and Communitas,” in The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969), 94–130. 9. See my essay on Agha Shahid Ali’s use of “cultural translation” and his re-working of the ghazal form in a Special Issue of Catamaran: South Asian American Writing 1 (2003), 40–59, dedicated to Ali. 10. Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “The Toronto Conference on ‘New Directions in Indian Dance,’” Dance Chronicle 16.3 (1993), 391–6. 11. I have heard personally from Shyamala Moorty and Sandra Chatterjee of the Post Natyam Collective about prominent dance scholars Coorlawala’s (based in New York city) and Ananya Chatterjea’s (at the University of Minnesota) generous mentoring of their early efforts in Contemporary Indian Dance. Ananya Chatterjea’s contemporary theatre work from a feminist perspective includes “Unable to Remember Roop Kanvar” (who committed sati, widow-immolation) among other works. 12. Quoted in Benita Parry, “Signs of Our Times: A Discussion of Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture,” in M. Miyoshi and H. D. Harootunian, eds, Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2002), 119–49, 139. 13. Discussion with Anusha Subramaniam in London, 11 July 2010. Subramaniam is a bharatanatyam dancer who innovates from within the tradition, using abhinaya for contemporary creative work, and to work with physically challenged children. 14. Parijat Desai choreographed a padam-style piece to the popular Roberta Black song, “Killing me Softly with his Eyes.” The audience follows the English song as they view Desai using abhinaya as well as adding an ironic interpretation to the romantic lyrics. 15. I am very grateful to all four artists for sharing their creative processes in interviews with me during January and February 2003 and for ongoing conversations via email and in person.

Notes 235 16. Email correspondence with Shyamala Moorty, April 2002. 17. Shyamala Moorty, “Post Natyam Unveiled,” 2009, on http://postnatyam. blogspot.com. 18. V. R. Devika, The Times of India, 1 January 2010. 19. Devika Natarajan, The Hindu, 6 December 2006. 20. I am grateful to Anjali for lending me video tape recordings of this performance, as well as of her own captivating Bharatanatyam arangetram. 21. They kindly shared a copy of this essay with me. It is published now in Mots Pluriels 23 (March 2003), and can be read at . They discuss issues of hybridity in terms of personal identity and artistic work. 22. Another striking example of local-global progressive action was the recent legal harassment of prominent dancer Mallika Sarabhai in Gujarat India, for her open criticism of the corrupt Gujarat state government. Her passport was impounded. This sparked a global protest against such action that finally made them back down. Another such instance was the legal harassment of Booker prize-winning writer and activist Arundhati Roy in India, when the court attempted to keep her from speaking out against the atrocities of the Narmada Dam, which made hundreds of thousands of the poorest tribal populations homeless. A recent documentary entitled Dam/Age movingly recreates this history. 23. As political commentators such as Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy have indicated, 9/11 is also a fateful date in world history – on that date Pinochet came to power in Chile, backed by the United States; Steve Biko was murdered by the fascist apartheid regime in South Africa. 24. Nirmala Nataraj, “A Post-Modern Artist: Shyamala Moorty explores a plurality of dance,” India Currents (August 2009), 34, 36. 25. Melissa Acoba, India Post, Life Style, 24 July 2009. The film Sex and the City 2 was released in 2010, and addresses issues of women in marital and other relationships, m-othering, and the struggle to redefine the institution of marriage – all done within the context of an almost Bollywood-esque excursion into Abu Dhabi! 26. Nirmala Nataraj, India Currents (August 2009), 36. 27. Included on printed blurb with DVD of Carrie’s Web. I am grateful to Shyamala Moorty for this. The impact of Moorty’s work was further in evidence at her recent performance with one of the survivors of domestic violence, who wanted to tell her story verbally to an audience while Shyamala embodied the story in dance. It was a very moving representation presented at a fund-raiser for the community organization, South Asian Network in Los Angeles. 28. Sohini Chakraborty, “Dance as Healing: Kolkata Sanved,” in Dance Matters: Performing India, ed. Pallabi Chakravorty and Nilanjana Gupta (London, New York, New Delhi: Routledge, 2010), 62–9. 29. Moorty responded sensitively to one of the domestic violence survivors who expressed a profound desire to put her story in words that she herself would read out as Shyamala created movement. I was present at this very moving public performance at a fund-raiser dinner for South Asia Network. Though the piece was appreciated by the majority of the audience, it was palpable in the atmosphere that some audience members, perhaps perpetrators of domestic violence were made uncomfortable. 30. Parijat Desai as quoted in India Post, 8 September, 2000. 31. Interview with Parijat Desai, narthaki.com, 30 October 2004. 32. Interview with The Deccan Herald, 3 March 2002.

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33. David Gere, UCLA Magazine, Winter 1999. 34. Interview with Desai, on narthaki.com, 30 October 2004. 35. Aniruddhan Vasudevan, “Text in Transit – Word to Image” in Some Perspectives in Indian Writings in English (Chennai: SDNB Vaishnav College for Women, September 2005). I am grateful to Vasudevan for a copy. 36. Aniruddhan Vasudevan, on narthaki.com, 2 December 2004. 37. Lewis Segal, The Los Angeles Times, 8 October 2001. 38. Rajika Puri, “‘Site of Departure Source of Arrival’ Festival of Dance and Art: Differing Media, Similar Conversations,” narthaki.com, 25 March 2010. 39. Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, 27 October 2007. 40. Sheetal Gandhi, in Cassandra Braun, The Sunday Times, 3 November 2003. 41. Ramya Harishankar along with her husband Harish Murthy run the Ektaa Center in Irvine that provides a space for dance classes, yoga, and also presents visiting artists. They organized, along with scholar Priya Srinivasan, an excellent conference, “Dance Conversations” bringing together the dance teachers of Southern California to discuss their work, and also participate in an evening performance. Backstage conversations and collaborations were almost more fascinating than the performances. This conference honoured Medha Yodh (my dance teacher who has since passed away) for her significant presence on the California dance scene since the 1950s (when the immigrant Indian community was hardly visible), and for her support of the dance teachers in California over the years. 42. I do not present a detailed study of first-generation teachers in the United States and their compositions under the rubric of “extensions of tradition.” See Anuratha Kapoor’s MA thesis (UCLA) for an insightful discussion of studying with Viji Prakash in Los Angeles. 43. See Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1996) for an excellent analysis of US state policies and exclusion laws that have controlled inclusion and exclusion of different Asian populations throughout the twentieth century. See also, Sucheta Mazumdar’s Introduction to Making Waves: Writings By and About Asian Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989) where she presents a useful historical overview of US immigration laws as they impacted on women and family formations. 44. Sandhya Shukla, “Locations for South Asian Diasporas,” in Annual Review of Anthropology 30 (2001), 551–72. 45. Sunaina Maira, Desis in the House: Indian-American Youth Culture in New York City (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001); Rajini Srikanth, The World Next Door: South Asian Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007). See also Jigna Desai, Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film (New York: Routledge, 2004). 46. See my essay, “Body Boundarylands: Locating South Asian Ethnicity in Performance and in Daily Life,” Amerasia 27.1 (2001), 2–34, where I argue that part of the “popularity” of bharatanatyam in the diaspora lies in the changes to group choreography and dance-dramas. The innovations entail both gains and losses. 47. Ketu H. Katrak, “Diasporic Belongings: Selected Asian American Literary and Cultural Expressions,” in The Borders in All of Us: New Approaches to Three Ethnic and Global Diasporic Societies, ed. William A. Little et al. (Northridge, CA: New World African Press, 2006), 222–47. 48. Publicity material, Shakti School, April 2009. 49. “Dance Journeys,” Pulse Magazine: Asian Music and Dance (Spring 2009), 8. Other artists covered by this article are “Kiran Rajagopalan (from the United

Notes 237

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

States to India), Jyotsna Jagannathan (From India to Africa and back), Kalpana Raghuraman (between cultures and comments), and Divya Kasturi (between India and the United Kingdom).” “Young Dancers: the Tradition Continues,” Presented by the Music Circle, Los Angeles, 3 February 1999. The event also featured Mythili Prakash and Sweta Bharadwaj. Natasha Bakht, “Family Arbitration Using Sharia Law: Examining Ontario’s Arbitration Act and its Impact on Women,” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 1.1, Article 7 (available at http://www.bepress.com/mwjhr/col1/iss1/art7). Program Notes. I saw White Space at the Fleck Theatre in Toronto, in January 2009. The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa supported this work financially. Ananya Chatterjea, Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies through Works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004a), 232. Gati receives Indian and European funding from the Neemrana Foundation, the French Embassy, the Max Mueller Bhavan, and National School of Drama, New Delhi. “The Arts Artists and Activists come together for Diasporadics 2000,” www. indiainnewyork.com, 13 October 2000. On www.kadam.org.uk, 17 May 2010. “Kadam, based in Luton, is a significant South Asian dance development agency with international reach. It aims to connect communities in the United Kingdom and globally in order to sustain the South Asian art forms, energise the practitioners and the enthusiasts and encourage the development of new work. Kadam publish Pulse, the premier magazine for South Asian dance and music launched in 2001. In addition, Kadam run Unlocking Creativity, the International Summer School focusing on Choreography.” Tina Dhamija, “All about a Subculture that is Born Indian and Educated American,” India Journal, 2 June 2000. Sunil Kothari, “Myna Mukherjee – Director of Engendered Dance Festival,” www. narthaki.com, 11 June 2010. Press Release on http://engendered.org/Dance 2010. Rajika Puri, “‘Site of Departure Source of Arrival,’ Festival of Dance and Art: Differing Media, Similar Conversations,” narthaki.com, 25 March 2010. Kiran Rajagopalan, “Erasing Borders and Erased Preconceptions,” www.narthaki. com, June 2010.

Chapter 6 Dancing in the Diaspora Part II: Britain 1. Pulse is a unique venture, notes Sundaram in an email response to me (20 August 2010), since it is a publicly funded magazine. Pulse was “a great positioning platform on the global stage for South Asian dance,” she notes. The magazine presented South Asian dance in the United Kingdom that had thus far not been portrayed in print, but had been mostly dominated by ballet and contemporary dance. Since 2007, when Sundaram stepped down, Pulse’s editor has been Sanjeevini Dutta, who has introduced new features such as a “talking pen” as well as including feature articles on music along with dance. Sundaram believes that South Asian dance and music “has arrived” in the United Kingdom and has achieved respect. Under Sundaram, Pulse covered issues such as dance and technology, race and color, copyright in choreography, music, and video among

238

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

Notes other things. Key individuals in Indian dance were covered in Pulse, such as Chandralekha, Ram Gopal, Kumudini Lakhia, Akram Khan, and Mavin Khoo among others. Under Dutta as editor, Pulse’s global scope includes reviews and feature articles about South Asian dance in the United Kingdom, India, the United States, and Canada. The “Movers and Shakers” series has included interviews with Shobana Jeyasingh, Akram Khan, and a 2010 feature (by Katrak) on the Post Natyam Collective’s negotiation of space, creating long-distance choreography. Along with Pulse, another significant body supporting South Asian dance in Britain is Akademi, with Meera Kaushik at its head. Chitra Sundaram, “A Tevaram interpreted, a Varnam interrupted: Negotiating a new aesthetic for Bharatanatyam in Britain,” in Pallabi Chakravorty, ed., Proceedings, 2003, Dance in South Asia: New Approaches, Politics and Aesthetics, Swarthmore College, 2003. All Sundaram references are to this essay. I am deeply grateful to Sundaram for screening a copy of both Moham and Skull for me in London, 6 July 2010. Mavin Khoo in conversation, London, 10 July 2010. The Independent (available at mavinkhoodance.co.uk). Review in Flailbox, 22 March 2007. Royona Mitra, “Cerebrality: Rewriting Corporeality of a Transcultural Dancer,” Tanz im Kopf, German Dance Research Yearbook 2005 (accessed via “Royona Mitra” on Google). Royona Mitra, “Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality: Reclaiming the Corporeality and Sexuality of the Indian Female Dancer,” Feminist Review 84.1 (2006), Special Issue on “Postcolonial Theatres.” Royona Mitra, “Dancing Embodiment, Theorizing Space: Exploring the ‘third space’ in Akram Khan’s zero degrees,’” akramkhancompany.net. Sunil Kothari, Interview with Akram Khan, on narthaki.com, 15 November 2009. Program Notes, bahok, at the Irvine Barclay Theater, 9 February 2010. Interview with Katrak, Ispwich, UK, 8 July 2010. Ramsay Burt, “Contemporary Dance and the Performance of Multicultural Identities” 19 April 2004, akramkhancompany.net. Naeem Mohaiemen, “Akram Khan: Explosion in Contemporary Dance,” akramkhancompany.com. Ann Sacks, Review of Fix/Loose in Flight/Rush, London Evening Standard, 2 February 2001. Christian Patterson, “The Big Interview with Akram Khan: ‘You Have to be A Warrior,” The Independent, 6 November 2009. Article by Thea Nerissa Barnes on the Khan website. A. Lepecki, ed., Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), 25. The London Paper, 19 September 2008. Ranvir Shah, “Cultural Alchemy: A joint production of dancer Akram Khan and actor Juliette Binoche, ‘In-I’ delved into the many layers of love,” Review of In-I at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York City, The Hindu, 4 October 2009, Magazine, 5. “Introductory Text by Choreographer,” Middle East Online site. I saw bahok at the Irvine Barclay Theater, in Irvine, California, 9 February 2010. Laura Bleiberg, “Dance Review: Akram Khan Company’s First Southern California Stop,” Los Angeles Times, 10 February 2010.

Notes 239 24. Akram Khan, Program of Vertical Road, London, 5 October 2010. I am most grateful to my friends Pauline Gooderson and Chris Dymkowski for sending me the Program from London. See also Maya Jaggi, “A life in dance: Akram Khan,” The Guardian, 25 September 2010 for a positive review of Vertical Road (World Premier in Leicester’s Curve Theatre, 16 September 2010) as well as Khan’s career.

Conclusion: Ways of Looking Ahead 1. Rinoti Amin, “Hobby or Career?” India Currents (February 2007), 12–14. 2. Deidre Sklar, “Dance Ethnography: Where do we go from here?” in Dance Research Journal 33.1 (Summer 2001), 90–2. 3. Deidre Sklar, “Reprise: On Dance Ethnology”, Dance Research Journal 32.1 (Summer 2000), 70–7. 4. Faultline is available from the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (SJDC.com); zero degrees is available from Sadler’s Wells, London, and also from Amazon. 5. Beyond Tradition, Documentary (DVD) by Rajesh S. Jala, Produced by the Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2009. I got a copy via a friend of Anita Ratnam’s in New Delhi.

A Selected Bibliography Agnew, J. A. and Duncun, J. (1989). The Power of Place: Bringing Together Geographical and Sociological Imaginations (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman). Anderson, J. (1997). Art Without Boundaries (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press). Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). ——. ed. (2001). Globalization (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). Arudra. (1986–7). “The Transfiguration of a Traditional Dance: The Academy and the Dance, Events of the First Decade,” Sruti, 27–8, 17–21. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin and London: University of Texas Press). ——. (1986). “Speech Genres and Other Late Essays,” trans. V. W. McGee (Austin and London: University of Texas Press). Balasaraswati, T. (1978). “The Art of Bharata Natyam: A Personal Statement,” Congress of Research on Dance, 1–7. ——. (1984) “Bala on Bharatanatyam,” Sruti 5, 11–15. ——. (1988) “The Art of Bharatanatyam,” Sruti 50, 37–40. Banes, S. (1994). Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press). Barker, S. (1992). Autoaesthetics: Strategies of the Self After Nietzsche (New Jersey and London: Humanities Press). Best, D. (1975). “The Aesthetics of Dance.” Dance Research Journal 7.2 (Spring– Summer), 12–15. Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge) Bharucha, R. (1990). Theatre and the World: Essays on Performance and the Politics of Culture (New Delhi: Manohar). ——. (1995). Chandralekha: Woman, Dance, Resistance (New Delhi: Indus). ——. (2001). The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking Through Theatre in an Age of Globalization (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). ——. (2009 ). “Remembering Chandra: Points of Reference in the Here and Now,” in Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, ed., Dance Transcending Borders (New Delhi: Tulika Books), 3–18. Bose, M. (2007). Movement and Mimesis: The Idea of Dance in the Sanskritic Tradition (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld). Breckenridge, C. A. and van der Veer, Peter, eds. (1993). Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Breckenridge, C. A. et al., eds. (2002). Cosmopolitanism (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). Bruckner, H. et al. (2007). The Power of Performance: Actors, Audiences and Observers of Cultural Performances in India (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors). Burke, P. (2009). Cultural Hybridity (Cambridge: Polity Press). Carter, A., ed. (2004). Rethinking Dance History (London and New York: Routledge). Carter, A. and O’Shea, J., eds. (1998). The Routledge Dance Studies Reader (London and New York: Routledge). 240

Selected Bibliography 241 Chakravorty, P. (2008). Bells of Change: Kathak, Dance, Women and Modernity (Calcutta, London, New York: Seagull Books). Chakravorty, P. and Gupta, N. (2010). Dance Matters: Performing India (New Delhi and Abingdon: Routledge). Chandralekha. (1984). “Reflections on New Directions in Indian Dance,” National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Quarterly Journal XIII.2 (June), 60–4. ——. (2001). “Choreography in Context,” in Attendance: The Dance Annual of India (Bangalore: Ekah-Pathways). Charsley, S. and Kadekar, L. N., eds. (2006). Performers and their Arts: Folk, Popular and Classical Genres in a Changing India (London: Routledge). Chatterjea, A. (2004a). Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies through Works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha (Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press). ——. (2004b). “In Search of a Secular in Contemporary Indian Dance: A Continuing Journey,” Dance Research Journal 36.2 (Winter), 103–16. Clifford, J. (1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). ——. (1997). “Diasporas,” in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 241–61. Clifford, J. and G. E. Marcus, eds. (1986). “Introduction: Partial Truths,” and “On Ethnographic Allegory,” in Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press), 1–26, 98–121. Coorlawala, U. A. (1992a). “Indian Dance in New York: Outside Mainstream, with Poor Image,” Sruti 91.10 (April), 39–41. ——. (1992b). “Illustrating Kathak,” Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts 15.1, 88–93. ——. (1992c). “Ruth St. Denis and India’s Dance Renaissance,” Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts 15.2, 123–52. ——. (1993a). “The Classical Traditions of Odissi and Manipuri,” Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts 16.2, 269–76. ——. (1993b). “The Toronto Conference on ‘New Directions in Indian Dance,’” Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts 16.3, 391–6. ——. (1994). “Classical and Contemporary Indian Dance: Overview, Criteria, and a Choreographic Analysis,” PhD Dissertation, New York University. ——. (1995). “Dance Across Borders,” Sruti 128, 33–5. ——. (1996). “Darshan and Abhinaya: An Alternative to the Male Gaze,” Dance Research Journal 28:1 (Spring), 19–27. ——. (1999). “Ananya and Chandralekha – A response to ‘Chandralekha: Negotiating the Female Body and Movement in Cultural/Political Signification,’” Dance Research Journal 31.1 (Spring), 7–12. ——. (2000). “Kapila Vatsyayan Formative Influences, An Interview.” Dance Research Journal 32.1 (Summer), 78–109. ——. (2002). “It Matters for Whom you Dance: Audience Participation in Rasa Theory”, in S. Kattwinkel, ed., Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance (Westport, CT, London: Praeger), 37–53. ——. (2005). “The Birth of Bharatanatyam and the Sanskritized Body” in A. Meduri, ed., Rukmini Devi Arundale: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts (Delhi: Motilal Banarrasidass). Cowdery, J. (1995). “The American Students of Balasaraswati,” UCLA Journal of Dance Ethnology 19, 50–7.

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De, E. and Sarkar, S., eds. (2002). Trans-Status Subjects: Genders in the Globalization of South and Southeast Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). De, S. K. (Orig. 2 volumes 1923 and 1925, Repr. 1960) History of Sanskrit Poetics (Calcutta: K.L. Mukhopadyay). Deshpande, G. T. (1998, 2009). Abhinavagupta (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi). Desmond, J. C. (1997). Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). Dolan, J. (2001). Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press). Erdman, J. (1983). “Cultural Policy in India: Who Should Speak for the Performing Art? The Case of the Delhi Dancers,” Pacific Affairs 56.2 (Summer), 247–69. ——. (1987). “Performance as Translation: Uday Shankar in the West,” TDR: The Drama Review 31.1, 64–88. ——. (1996). “Dance Discourses: Rethinking the History of the ‘Oriental’ Dance,” in G. Morris, ed., Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance (London and New York: Routledge). Fisher, J. and Shay, A. (2009). When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Foster, S. L. (1986). Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press). ——. ed. (1995) Choreographing History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). ——. ed. (1996). Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture, and Power (London and New York: Routledge). ——. (2010) Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance (London and New York: Routledge). Franko, M. (1989). “Repeatability, Reconstruction and Beyond,” Theatre Journal 41.1, 56–74. ——. (1995). “Emotivist Movement and Histories of Modernism: The Case of Martha Graham,” in Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Gaston, A.-M. (1996). Bharata Natyam: From Temple to Theatre (New Delhi: Manohar). Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books). ——. (1975) “Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols”, The Antioch Review 17.4 (December), 421–37. Ghosh, M. (1956–7). The Natyasastra, trans. and ed. M. Ghosh (Calcutta: Manisha Granthalaya). Hana, J. L. (1979). To Dance is Human: A Theory of Non-Verbal Communication (Austin and London: University of Texas Press). Howes, D., ed. (1991). The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Huddart, David (2006) Homi K. Bhaha, Routledge Critical Thinkers Series (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 59. Ingalls, H. H. (1990). The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana and the Locana of Abhinavagupta, trans. H. H. Ingalls (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Iyer, K. E. (1957). Bharata Natya and Other Dances of Tamil Nadu (Baroda: M. S. University). Jameson, F. (1982). The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). ——. (1995). The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

Selected Bibliography 243 ——. and Miyoshi, M., eds. (1998). The Cultures of Globalization (Durham, NY, and London: Duke University Press). Jeyasingh, S. (1990) “Getting Off the Orient Express,” Dance Theatre Journal 8.2, 34–7. ——. (1995). “Imaginary Homelands: Creating a New Dance Language,” in A. Carter and J. O’Shea, eds. (2008) The Routledge Dance Studies Reader (London and New York: Routledge). Johnson, M. (2007). The Meaning of the Body (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press). Jones, B. T., ed. (1983). “Dance as Cultural Heritage,” Dance Research Annual XIV. Jordan, S., ed. (2000). Preservation Politics: Dance Revisited, Reconstructed, Remade (London: Dance Books). Katrak, K. H. (1997). “South Asian American Writers,” in An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, ed. King-Kok Cheung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 192–218. ——. (2001). “Body Boundarylands: Locating South Asian Ethnicity in Performance and in Daily Life,” Amerasia Journal 27.1, 2–33. ——. (2002). “Changing Traditions: South Asian Americans and Cultural/Communal Politics,” The Massachusetts Review, XLIII 1 (Spring), 75–88. ——. (2004). “Cultural Translation of Bharata Natyam into Contemporary Indian Dance: Second-Generation South Asian Americans and Cultural Politics in Diasporic Locations,” South Asian Popular Culture 2.2 (Fall), 79–102. ——. (2006a). Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World (New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Rutgers University Press). ——. (2006b). “Diasporic Belongings: Selected Asian American Literary and Cultural Expressions,” in W. L. Little et al., The Borders in All of Us: New Approaches to Three Ethnic and Global Diasporic Societies (Northridge, CA: New World African Press), 222–47. ——. (2008). “The Gestures of Bharata Natyam: Migrating into Diasporic Contemporary Indian Dance,” in The Migration of Gesture: Art, Film, Dance, Writing, ed. Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press), 217–40. Keali’inohomoku, J. (1983). “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as Ethnic Dance,” in What is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism, ed. R. Copeland and M. Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press). Kersenboom, S. C. (1987). Nityasumangali: Devadasi Tradition in South India (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass). Kliger, G., ed. (1993). Bharata Natyam in Cultural Perspective (New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies). Kothari, S., ed. (1979). Bharata Natyam: Indian Classical Dance Art (Bombay: Marg Publications). ——. (1989). Kathak: Indian Classical Dance Art (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications). ——. ed. (2003). New Directions in Indian Dance (Mumbai: Marg Publications). Khokar, M. M. (1976). “Male Dancers,” The Illustrated Weekly of India, 24–7. ——. (1984). “Dance in Transition: The Pioneers,” Marg Pathway 36.2 (Mumbai: Marg Publications), 41–76. Knight, D. M. (2010). Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press). Krishnan, H. (2009). “From Gynemimesis to Hypermasculinity: The Shifting Orientations of Male Performers of South Indian Court Dance.” in J. Fisher and A. Shay, When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

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Lal, M. and Gokhale, N., eds. (2009). In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology (London: Penguin Books). Lechner, G. and Bhabha, J. (1984). “Dance Encounter, 1984”, National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Quarterly Journal XIII.2 (June). Lepecki, A., ed. (2004). Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press). Lewis, J. L. (1995). “Genre and Embodiment: From Brazilian Capoeira to the Ethnology of Human Movement,” Cultural Anthropology 10.2 (May), 221–43. Lowe, Lisa. (1996). Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). Marglin, F. A. (1984). Wives of the God-King: Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). Martin, C. (1987). “Feminist Analysis Across Cultures: Performing Gender in India,” Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 3.2, 32–40. Martin, R. (1990). Performance as Political Act: The Embodied Self (New York: Bergin and Garvey Publishers). ——. (1995). “Agency and History: The Demands of Dance Ethnography”, in S. L. Foster, ed., Choreographing History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), 105–15. ——. (1998). Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). ——. (2008). “Dance’s Diversity: A US Perspective”, in Dance Transcending Borders, ed. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (New Delhi: Tulika Books), 134–54. Mason, J. L. and Patwardhan, M. V. (1969). Santarasa and Abhinavagupta’s Philosophy of Aesthetics (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute). Meduri, A. (2008). “Labels, Histories, Politics: Indian/South Asian Dance on the Global Stage,” Dance Research 26.2, 223–43. ——. ed. (2005). Rukmini Devi Arundale: A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts (New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass). ——. (1988). “Bharata Natyam: What Are You?” Asian Theatre Journal 5.1, 1–22. Miyoshi, M. and Harootunian, H. D., eds. (2002). Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press). ——. et al., eds (1991). Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). Munsi, U. S., ed. (2008). Dance: Transcending Borders (New Delhi: Tulika Books). Oldenburg, V. T. (1991). “Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow” in D. Haynes and G. Prakash, Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press). Ong, Aihwa. (1999). Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality Durham, NC: Duke University Press). O’Shea, J. (2007). At Home in the World: Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press). Patnaik, P. (1997). Rasa In Aesthetics: An Application of Rasa Theory to Modern Western Literature (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld). Pavis, P., ed. (1996). The Intercultural Performance Reader (London and New York: Routledge). Peterson, I. V. and Soneji, D., eds. (2008). Performing Pasts: Reinventing the Arts in Modern South India (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Selected Bibliography 245 Raman, N. P. and Ramachandran, A. (1984). “Balasaraswati: The Whole World in Her Hands: Part I,” Sruti 4, 17–30; and Part II in Sruti 5, 17–31. Ramanujan, Ramu. (2008). “Waah Ustad Waah!” India Perspectives (April–May), 57–67. Rangacharya, A. (1996). The Natyasastra: English Translation with Critical Notes (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers). Ramnarayan, G. ((1984). “Rukmini Devi: Dancer and Reformer,” Sruti 9, 17–29. Richmond, F., Swann, D. L. and Zarrilli, P. B., eds. (1990). Indian Theatre: Traditions of Performance (Manoa: University of Hawaii Press). Ratnam, A. (2008). “The Contemporary In You,” At a Glance: Understanding India (June). ——. (2008). “The Sacred Spiral… Musings on Dance and Life,” India Perspectives 22.3 (June/July), 17–22. Said, E. (1979). Orientalism (New York: Vintage). ——. (1993). Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf). Schechner, R. (1984). “A Reply to Rustom Bharucha,” Asian Theatre Journal 1.2 (Autumn), 245–53. ——. and Appel, W., eds. (1990). By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ——. (1988, Revised second edition, 2006). Performance Theory (New York and London: Routledge). Shah, R. (2005). Movement in Stills: The Dance and Life of Kumudini Lakhia (Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing). Sklar, D. (1991a). “Invigorating Dance Ethnology,” UCLA Journal of Dance Ethnology 15, 4–15. ——. (1991b). “On Dance Ethnography”, Dance Research Journal 23:1 (Spring), 6–10. ——. (1994). “Can Bodylore be brought to its Senses?” Journal of American Folklore 107 (Winter), 9–22. ——. (2000). “Reprise: On Dance Ethnography,” Dance Research Journal 32:1 (Summer), 70–7. ——. (2001a). Dancing with the Virgin: Body and Faith in the Fiesta of Tortugas, New Mexico (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press). ——. (2001b). “Dance Ethnography: Where Do We Go From Here?” Dance Research Journal 33:1 (Summer), 92. ——. (2005). “The Footfalls of Words: A Reverie on Walking with Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe,” Journal of American Folklore 118.467, 9–20. Soja, E. W. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Srinivasan, A. (1985). “Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance”. Economic and Political Weekly 20.44, 1869–76. Thepan, M., ed. (1998). Anthropological Journeys: Reflections on Fieldwork (Hyderabad: Orient Longman). Vatsyayan, K. (1968, repr. 1977). Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts (New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi). ——. (1976). Traditions of Indian Folk Dance (New Delhi: Indian Book Company). ——. (1980). Traditional Indian Theatre – Multiple Streams (New Delhi: National Book Trust). ——. (1982). Dance in Indian Painting (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications). ——. (1983). The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts (New Delhi: Roli Books International). ——. (1996). Bharata, The Natyasastra (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi). Wayne, A. and Holloman R. (1982). “From Ritual to Theatre in Kerala,” The Drama Review 26.2 (Summer), 59–72.

Index Abhinavagupta, 19, 29 abhinaya, xix, 4, 21, 44, 60, 61, 89, 99, 112, 116, 123, 147 129, 140, 148, 155, 161, 175, 176, 179, 182, 202, 203 Abhinaya Darpana, 169 abstract dance, 56, 67, 71, 74, 75, 76, 118, 121, 210 and rasa, 56–83 see also rasa aesthetics and politics, 179 Agha, Shahid Ali, xix, 157, 234 AIDS awareness, 105, 111 Ambegaonkar, Anjani, xxv, 187, 189, 191 Ambegaonkar, Amrapali, xxv Amin, Samir, 13 Anandavardhana, 18 Andal, 132, 133 anti-nautch, 24 see also nautch Anzaldua, Gloria, 172 Appadurai, Arjun, 12 arangetram, xxv ardhanareshwara, 109 see also Lord Shiva artist activist/activism, 101, 103, 111, 160 Arts Councils, 158 Athreya, Preethi, 109–11 Attakalari Center, 116, 120 audiences, xxiv, 73, 106, 107, 112, 114, 167, 194, 202, 203 conservative, 115 cultivating, 109 diaspora, 158, 169, 170 diverse, 199 educating, 175, 176, 179, 180 exclusive, 41 insiders, 189 rasa, 217 resistant to Contemporary Indian Dance, 12, 20, 120, 121, 134, 138, 156, 205, 206 thinking, 98

authentic, 155, 158, 171 autobiographical, 175 avant-garde, 121 awards, 56, 67, 209 bais/ baijis, 26, 34, 166 see also tawaifs Bakhtin, M.M., 114 Bakht, Natasha, 3, 5, 15, 112, 158, 185, 193 White Space, 53, 193, 194–5, 237 Obiter Dictum, 193 see also image on frontispiece Balasaraswati, T., xix, 31, 37, 54, 223, 228 see also Devi, Rukmini Arundale ballet, xxii, 91, 107, 161, 163, 171, 172, 181, 185, 194, 202, 203, 204, 210 Bangalore University, 85 Bangladesh, 207, 210, 212, 218 Barker, Stephen, 3 Bausch, Pina, 8 Berger, John, 217, 224 Beyond Tradition (DVD), xxiii, 137, 222, 223, 231 Bhabha, Homi, 2, 124, 130, 142, 149, 156, 174, 234 Bhagvad Gita, 210 bhakti, 34, 131, 189, 222 Bharadvaj, Ramaa, xxv, 187, 189, 191–2, 226 Bharucha, Rustom, 12, 42, 46, 174, 225, 229 Bhatt, Sujata, 98 Birju Maharaj, 88, 89 blacklisted /banned, 93, 94 body, xxiii, 1, 4, 100, 110, 111, 112, 115, 117, 118, 211 and space, xxiii, 111 see also female body bol cholum, 72 see also Deboo, Rhythm Divine Bollywood dance, xx, 7, 90, 143, 147, 189

246

Index 247 borders, 106, 170, 185 brahmins, 29, 113 Brathwaite, Kamau, 157 Brecht, Bertolt, 4, 105, 109, 175, 176 Britain, xxi, xxv, 188, 200, 219, 220 British-Indian, 204 British Asian, 75, 207 British-South Asian, 3, 200, 201, 203 British colonial history, xviii, 8, 24, 32, 58, 62 and Indian nationalism, 26 Brook, Peter, 101, 103, 209, 226 Canada, 193 caste and class, 72 chakras, 45, 95, 132, 136 Chakraborty, Sohini, 180, 181 Chakravorty, Pallabi, 34 Chandralekha, xviii, xxiii, 9, 19, 24, 37, 42–55, 56, 60, 71, 78, 83, 84, 89, 93, 116, 118, 119, 124, 125, 131, 136, 145, 161, 169, 170, 188, 195, 213, 229 body and energy, 43 dance and resistance, 43 dance and society, 42 Sharira, 47–51, 195 Sri, 136, 147, 222 Yantra, 52, 195 Mahakal, 52, 229 Lilavati, 52, 229 change, xviii, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, 101, 105, 106, 115, 117, 181 Chatterjea, Ananya, xxiii, 7, 45, 157, 195, 234 Chatterjee, Sandra, 159, 160, 163, 168 “BiDentities…”, 170 see also Moorty, Shyamala; Post-Natyam Collective chhau, xviii, 93, 109 see also Sheth, Daksha Chettur, Padmini, xxiv, 84, 109, 117, 118–22, 127 images, 49, 50 choreography, 4, 100, 119 Clarke School for the Deaf, 65 see also Deboo, ContraPosition Classical dance tradition, 27, 88, 201, 215 and folk, 27, 167 and contemporary, 197, 207, 209

classicism, 203, 204, 206 Clifford, James, xxiii, 23, 227 Cohen, Robin 154 collaboration, 85, 98, 107, 109, 113, 202, 204, 220 and Deboo, 61, 63 and Jeyasingh, 76 and Khan, 208, 211, 212, 215 and Ratnam, 140; and Ratnam with Krishnan, 131 and Sheth, 98 intercultural, 158 with visual artists and musicians, 161 young generation, 114, 160, 220 color, 82, 136, 151, 202 commercialization, 99, 168 community, 105, 117, 165, 179, 188, 197, 221 computer-generated images, 115, 116 contact improvisation, 4, 128, 142, 159, 161, 185, 205, 206 contemporary, 1, 7, 53 and classical, 12, 202 contemporary dance, xviii, 203, 207 contemporary Indian Dance, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxvi, 1, 2, 4, 59 and naming, 6 and soundscape, 4, 5 and stage space, 5 and theatre, 4 Coorlawala, Uttara, Asha, xxiii, 9, 10, 35, 46, 155, 157, 225, 226, 227, 228, 234 image, 11 costumes, xix, xx, 6, 65, 84, 89, 95, 107, 122, 143, 147, 148, 152, 194, 202 courtesan, 164, 165 creative dance, 87, 88 creolization, 143 cross-cultural, xxiii, xxvi, 112, 127, 211, 216, 221 cultural differences/stereotypes, 143, 157 Cunningham, Merce, xxiii, 8, 59, 121, 203 D’Lo, 177, 196 dance and education, 40 dance and theatre, 4, 41, 42, 56, 72, 101, 104, 112, 134, 140, 164, 175, 176, 185, 213, 215

248

Index

dance-drama, xxv, 30, 36, 38, 103, 114, 188, 189, 201 dance festivals, 158, 195–9 Artwallah, 17, 158, 167, 196 Attakalari Movement Arts, 221 Bangalore Biennial, 183 Big Dance Festival, 5, 196 Desh-Pradesh, 158 Diasporadics, 158, 196 Edinburgh Festival, 94 Engendered Rituals, 17, 221, 158, 197, 237 Erasing Borders, 17, 158, 198, 221 The Other Festival, 17, 117, 119, 127, 165, 183, 221 dance gurus: Adyar Lakshman, 203 Devabhrata Singh, 62 E.K. Pannicker, 63 Prahlad Das, 62 Shri Krishna Chandra Naik, 93 Sri Pratap Pawar, 209 Seityaban, 72 dance therapy, xxi, 180, 181 dance workshops, 167, 195, 206, 220 Dance Intense, 167, 195, 220 Gati Dance Forum, 115, 117, 158, 195, 198, 221 Unlocking Creativity, 195, 220 Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, 101 see also Sarabhai, Mallika; Sarabhai, Mrinalini De, Esha, xxi deaf communities, 63, 64, 74 Clarke School for the Deaf, Chennai, 63, 65 Action Players of Kolkata, 63, 65 Deboo, Astad, xviii, xx, xxiii, xxiv, 3, 5, 8, 10, 14, 24, 56–75, 88, 94, 110, 127, 129, 185, 194, 222 and collaborators, 59, 61, 63 Astad Deboo Foundation, 74 Breaking Boundaries, 67–72, 88 ContraPosition, 19, 63–7 Deboo images, 20, 66, 69, 73 Padma Shri Award, 56, 67 Rhythm Divine, 15, 69, 72–4 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, 56 signature style, 67, 69, 70 Desai, Parijat, 159, 181–4, 196, 198

Desmond, Jane, 4 devadasi, 5, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 44, 124, 141, 142 Devi, Rukmini Arundale, 29, 33, 59, 99, 100, 228 see also Kalakshetra; Balasaraswati, T. Devissaro, 94, 97 see also Sheth, Daksha Dhananjayans, 109 dialogic, 14 diaspora artists, xviii, 2, 17, 24, 83, 84, 153, 155; in Canada and the USA, ch. 5, 154f; in Britain, ch. 6, 200f community, 12, 150 collaborative spirit,114 dance theatre, 176 diasporic life, 2–7; in Southern California, 4 first-generation, xxv festivals and workshops, 195, 198 global, xxi identity, 212 marginality, 205; theories, 154; and home, 206 see also dance festivals; dance workshops; second-generation disgust, 19, 66, 137 domestic violence, xxi, 5, 155, 159, 165, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180 see also Moorty, Shyamala Draupadi, 101, 103 Drishtikon Dance Foundation, 88 see also Mangaldas, Aditi Drishya: A Learning Centre for Children, 87 see also Nataraj, Madhu dhrupad, 94 East-West Encounter Conference, 8, 221 emerging artists, innovators, choreographers, xix, xxvi, 84, 108 energy, 112, 118, 119, 201, 202 environment, 101 Erdman, Joan, 36, 37, 38, 39 ethnic dance, 12 ethnic and ethnicity, xviii, xx, 2, 95, 112, 140, 152, 155, 161, 182, 188, 208, 209, 216, 217 stereotypes, 141, 199, 221; ethno-global, 125, 129, 140

Index 249 erotic, 100, 112 experimental, xxiv, 110, 113, 117, 127, 152, 185, 198, 199, 202, 221 extensions of tradition, xxv, 10, 25, 187–92, 230–1 female body, 165, 168, 170, 172 and pleasure/desire, xx, 169, 170 female sexuality/sensuality, xx, xxi, 32, 169, 170, 205 feminism and feminist, xxiii, 4, 5, 24, 45, 85, 103, 104, 105, 124, 130, 135, 152, 153, 157, 185, 197 see also Gandhi, Sheetal; Moorty, Shyamala; Ratnam, Anita; Sarabhai, Mallika festivals see dance festivals first-generation, xxv, 154, 155, 188, 236 folk traditions, 38 Foster, Susan Leigh, xxiii, 21, 23, 27, 154, 205, 227 Foucault, Michel, 3 Franko, Mark, xxiii, 121, 232 fusion, 6, 108 Gallaudet University, 64, 65 Gandhi, Sheetal, 5, 185–7, 196, 198 bahu-beti-biwi, 5, 185, 186 Gauri, Protima, 113 gender, xx, xxi, 4, 12, 51, 59, 121, 152, 216, 221 and culture, xx and equality, xxi, 101, 199 and generation, 4 and race, 175 and sexuality, xx, xxi, 11, 54, 123, 150, 155, 159, 161, 163, 188, 197, 200; promiscuity, 34; stereotypes, xxi, 115, 124, 143, 150, 205; gender-bending, 6; gender roles, 101 see also nation geography xxi, 2 see also Soja, Edward Geertz, Clifford, xxiii, 22 Ghosh, Amitav, 12 Gillis, Margie, 144 global and globalization, xix, 42, 160, 181, 217, 221, 237 dance styles, xviii, xxvi, 129, 222

and diaspora, xxi; and local, 124, 127, 129, 175, 235 globalization, xx, xxiv, 58, 60, 208; globalization studies, 12, 142 Indian/South Asian, 7, 141 links, 197 scope, 238 South and North, xxv, 25, 200, 220 Gilroy, Paul, 143 Gopal, Ram, 37, 39–40, 94, 151 Graham, Martha, xxiii, 8, 63, 87, 121, 210 Gundecha brothers, 47, 48 see also Chandralekha (Sharira) guru-shishya-parampara, 64 gymnastics, 95, 128 hair, 112 Hall, Stuart, 143 Harishankar, Ramya, xxv, 187, 189, 236 hereditary performers, 29 see also devadasi Hershell, Neewin, 112, 113–14 and Nrityagram, 113 heteroglossia, 13 Hindi films, 7 Hindu-Muslim, 5, 217 see also Muslim history, 77, 80, 160, 175, 206, 209, 212 home/homeland, 161, 189, 205, 206, 217, 221 humor, 176, 186, 187 hybrid and hybridity, 122, 130, 201 artists, 123–53 Bhabha, Homi, 143 challenge stereotypes, 140 choreography, 98 cultural, 161 hybridism, 106 identity, 62, 182, 187, 203, 206 language/form, 11, 14, 78, 110, 153, 188, 212 movement, 83, 138, 150 new hybrid work, xix, 25, 204, 205 space, 142 theories of, 154, 156 young generation, 78 see also Bakht, Natasha; Khan, Akram; Ibrahim, Ramli; Post Natyam Collective; Ratnam, Anita; Krishnan, Hari

250

Index

Ibrahim, Ramli, 7, 123, 150–2 Sutra Dance Company, 25, 151 iconoclasts, xxv immigrants, xxii, xxv, 200, 216 see also migrant improvisation, 146, 210 innovators/innovation, xxiv, 6, 57, 58, 118, 148, 150, 160, 199, 220, 221 innovative choreography/language, xix, 2 in-between, xviii, xxi, 2, 48, 129, 130, 156, 174, 176, 211, 212, 213, 215, 219 literal and metaphoric, 3 Indian aesthetics, xxiii, xxiv, xxvi, 1, 17, 42, 60, 84, 87, 119, 129, 176, 187 mind and body, 21, 24, 95, 129, 138, 203 Indian classical dance, xviii, xix, xx, xxv, 3 Indian contemporary dance see contemporary Indian dance Indian epics and myths, xx, 5, 21, 93, 98, 188, 204, 205, 215, 217 see also Ramayana, and Mahabharata Indian goddesses, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 204 Indian-American, 3, 156, 181 Indian/South Asian/half-Indian, xxi, xxv, 15, 58, 59, 106, 154, 157, 170, 171, 200, 201 Indianness, 6, 39, 40, 75, 95, 119, 171, 172 Indian traditional dance, xviii, 5, 84, 89, 101, 112, 122, 137, 159, 187, 188, 191, 194, 198, 202, 220 and modern/contemporary, xviii, 88, 90, 99, 106, 207 intercultural, xix, 12, 24, 59, 106, 108, 152, 153, 161, 174, 183, 186, 197, 219 collaborations, xvix, 106, 207 see also transnational interdisciplinary, 2, 3, 4, 24, 44, 93, 187 collaborations, 43, 207 internet, xxiv, 127, 163, 164 intertextual, 207

Jackson, Michael, 7 jazz rhythms, 87 Jeyasingh, Shobana, 24, 56, 58, 59, 75–83, 109, 116, 117, 119, 120, 183, 193, 197, 201, 204, 206, 222 Bruise Blood, 79 Configurations, 79 Faultline, 78, 239 Just Add Water? 79 Palimpsest, 79 Romance … with Footsteps, 79 Surface Tension, 80 collaborations, 76 images, 77, 81 see also Khoo, Mavin Johar, Navtej Singh, 84, 98–100, 117, 127, 198 Jones, Bill, T., 43, 180 Kadam, 124, 201, 237 Kadambi, Indira, 109 Kalakshetra, 30, 33, 34, 63, 99, 113, 120, 126, 229 see also Devi, Rukmini Arundale kalari, xviii, 44, 49, 89, 90, 93, 95, 118, 130, 194 Kalidasa, 18 Katrak, Ketu, H., xxii, 4, 223, 234, 236, 238 interviews with dancers, 229, 231, 232, 238 Khan, Akram, 4, 15, 24, 52, 53, 58, 78, 98, 127, 158, 201, 202, 204, 206, 207–19, 224 bahok, 209, 215–17 Gnosis, 213 In-I, 211, 213 Kaash, 208 Ma, 210 Sacred Monsters, 211, 212–13 Vertical Road, 217–19 zero degrees, 52, 209, 211–12 and Anish Kapoor, 208 and Antony Gormley, 211, 212 and Farooq Chaudhry, 207 and Hanif Kureishi, 210 and Juliette Binoche, 211, 213 and Nitin Sahwney, 208, 213 and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, 211, 212 and Sylvie Guillem, 211

Index 251 Khokar, Ashish Mohan, xxiii, 40 Khoo, Mavin, 4, 78, 158, 198, 201, 202, 203–4 Kothari, Sunil, xxiii, 10, 207, 227, 230, 237 Krishna, Iyer, E., 29, 33 Krishnan, Hari, xix, 7, 14, 15, 78, 112, 123, 129, 131, 140–50, 152, 165, 176, 202, 203, 233 Bollywood Hopscotch, 6, 54, 143, 146, 147 Box, 145 Breaking Through Surface, 144 Inverse, 145 Owning Shadows, 52, 53, 146, 148, 150 Recipes for Curry, 142 Yogurt and Venom, 142 InDance Company, 25 and Ratnam, Anita, 131, 136, 138 signature style, 141, 143, 145 “vintage bharatanatyam”, 124 see also hybridity; gender; nation; Ratnam, Anita; transnational Kumar, Ratna, xxv, 187 Kurup, Shishir, 196 kuruvanji, 30 La Metri, 40 Laban, 110 labels, 77, 182, Lakhia, Kumidini, 9, 10, 88, 89, 93, 94, 185, 198, 215 Lall, Anusha, 16, 84, 112, 115–18 see also dance workshops (Gati Dance Forum) Lall, Ein, 51 Lee, Cynthia, 160, 164, 166, 196, 198 see also Post Natyam Collective Lepecki, Andre, xxiii, 211 lighting, xxi, 4, 6, 37, 82, 85, 89, 95, 100, 143, 150 and shadow, 111, 142, 145, 203 liminal, 156, 211 see also Turner, Victor Limon, Jose, 63, 210 long-distance choreography, 164, 199 Lord Krishna, 89, 114, 132, 133 Lord Shiva Nataraj, 100, 146, 173, 174, 202, 203 and ardhanareshwara, 169, 210

Mahabharata, 101, 103, 110, 189, 209, 213 male desire/body, 114, 115, 146 mallakham, 93, 97 see also Sheth, Daksha Mangala Initiative, 141 Mangaldas, Aditi, xxiii, 53, 84, 88–92, 93, 107 martial arts, 3, 42, 46, 57, 59, 63, 70, 71, 78, 85, 87, 92, 93, 101, 104, 109, 113, 128, 181, 182, 184 see also kalari; thang-ta; chhau Martin, Randy, xxiii, 4, 22 masks, 93 maternal health, 101, 105 meditative, xx, 61, 69, 73, 78, 100, 128, 130 Meduri, Avanthi, 29, 34, 58, 228, 229 Menaka, Madame, 34 Menon, Sadanand, 43, 45, 53, 229 methodology, 24, 117 metissage, 157 migrant, xxii, 155, 156, 165, 191 see also immigrant mime, 85, mimesis, 149 minimalism, xx, xxi, 2, 14, 48, 71, 118, 122, 123, 130, 132, 195 Mitra, Royona, 76, 77, 156, 204–6, 207, 212, 219, 230, 238 Modern dance, xviii, 3, 4, 8, 60, 61, 63, 66, 84, 91, 99, 109, 110, 115, 119, 122, 128, 145, 159, 161, 181, 185, 194, 203 Mohenjadaro, 33, 47 Moorty, Shyamala, 3, 146, 159, 160, 163, 168, 196 Balance of Being, 163, 172–4 “BiDentities…”, 170 Carrie’s Web, 5, 155, 159, 164, 175, 176–80, 235 Rise, 5, 20, 159, 164, 179 Sensitize, 165, 169–70, 205 see also Chatterjee, Sandra; Post Natyam Collective mother tongue, 98, 187 Mudgal, Shubha, 91 multiple idioms, xviii, 7 movement and words, 4

252

Index

multiple movement vocabularies, xviii, xix, xx, 2, 109, 113, 122, 123, 124, 152,155,157, 161, 168, 181, 186, 198, 206, 212, 216 diverse, 78; folk, 38; Indian, 1, 60, 85, 98, 159; slow, 70; Western, 61 and spine, 45 and visual art, 219 and voice, 215 multidisciplinary, xviii, 2, 59, 60, 112, 113, 185, 199, 200, 207, 219 multiethnic, multicultural, 141, 142, 154, 165, 170, 193, 208 multimedia, xviii, xxi, 24, 60, 78, 79, 82, 84, 98, 113, 152, 155, 199, 206 multinational, 76, 161 Munsi, Urmimala Sarkar, 7, 37, 39 Muslims, 105, 124, 190, 193, 211, 217, 237 mystic poet-saints, 129 mythology, 10, 41, 84, 85, 113, 138 see also Indian epics and myths Nair, Mira, 68 narthaki.com, 127 see also Ratnam, Anita Nataraj, Madhu, 17, 84, 85–8, 222 and Natya STEM Dance Company, 85, 109 nation, national, nationalists, xviii, xx, 2, 12, 13, 29, 32, 35, 124, 155, 152, 154, 157, 172, 188, 189, 199, 212, 220, 221, 222 Natyasastra, xx, xxi, 13, 17, 29, 33, 35, 198 nautch 28, 31, 32, 34, 35 see also anti-nautch, 24 navarasas, 18, 65, 133 Ness, Sally Ann, xxiii new dance language, xxiv, 2, 58, 61, 79, 128, 201, 210, 212 new media, xviii, 159, 160, 170 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 3 Nigerian artists, 140 nitya sumangali, 31 North America, xxi, xxv, 154, 156, 188, 200, 220 nrtta, xix, xxix, 4, 44, 60, 65, 115, 116, 123, 129, 147, 148, 159, 176, 179, 192, 202, 203 Nyman, Michael, 79

Oldenberg, Veena, 35 Ong, Walter, 23 oral history, 166 oral testimony, 177, 180 see also Moorty, Shyamala (Carrie’s Web) Orientalists/ Orientalism, xix, 29, 35, 39, 76, 167, 171, 172 originality, 95 O’Shea, Janet, 31, 227, 230 Pada, Lata, 53, 84, 106–8 and Sampradaya Dance Company, 106 Palazhy, Jayachandran, xxiv Pan-Asian, 59 paradigmatic, xxiii paradigm-shifting, 154, 207, 219 Pavarotti, 137 Pavis, Patrice, 156 Pavlova, Anna, 35, 59, 149 and Shankar, Uday, 38 performance venues, 63 Peterson, Indira Viswanathan see Soneji, Davesh pioneers, xxv, 14, 24, 36, 37, 88 polyvocal, 207 postcolonialism, 142 postmodern dance, xviii, 4, 60, 121, 142, 150, 164, 170, 184, 185, 198, 212 Post Natyam Collective, 53, 158, 160–81, 182, 183, 184, 205, 220 Meet the Goddess, 162, 165 Sunoh! Tell Me Sister, 165 see also Chatterjee, Sandra; Moorty, Shyamala; Tata-Hudson, Anjali; Lee, Cynthia Prakash, Mythili, xxv, 187, 190–1, 198 Prakash, Viji, xxv, 167, 187, 189 pung cholam, 70, 72 puppeteers, 57, 60 Puri, Rajika, 198 Rainer, Yvonne, 121 Rajagopalan, Hema, xxv, 187 Ramanujan, A.K., 26 Ramayana, 104, 148, 150, 170, 190 Rasa, xx, xxi, 3, 17–21, 24, 44, 56, 57, 60, 67, 70, 71, 74, 83, 93, 111, 119, 129, 151, 169, 175, 182, 185, 194, 198, 203, 204, 217, 219, 222 and rasikas, xxi see also abstract dance

Index 253 Ratnam, Anita, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 15, 109, 111, 112, 113, 117, 123, 126–40, 152, 165, 175, 182, 198, 199, 216, 232 7 graces, 5, 14, 19, 53, 125, 131, 132, 133, 135–38, 143 Daughters of the Ocean, 5, 131, 134 Kaisika Natakam, 125, 126 Ma3Ka, 135, 138 Neelam, 126, 132 narthaki.com, 127 and Krishnan, Hari, 131, 136, 138 Neo-Bharatam, xxiv, 124, 125, 129–31 reinterpreting the sacred, 125 signature style, 124, 130 see also feminism; Indian goddesses; dance festivals (The Other Festival) Rao, Maya, 85 reference points, 13, 211 religiosity, 131 religious roots, xviii, 8, 10, 20, 216 and institutionalized religions, 48 religious fundamentalism, 164, 175 relocation, xxi, 154 resistance, 118, 178, 180, 181, 186 revival and revivalists, 26, 31, 33, 38 Rex, 143 Rigveda, 33 ritual, 95 Roy, Arundhati, 235 Rushdie, Salman, 75 sadir, 26, 30 Sahitya Natak Akademi, 36 Said, Edward, 171 Sangeet Natak Akademi, 36, 40, 56 Salaam Baalak Trust, 68, 70 see also Deboo (Breaking Boundaries) Samson, Leela, xxvii, 116 Sanskrit texts, 34, 52, 179, 205 Sarabhai, Mallika, xxiii, xxiv, 3, 5, 84, 100–5, 112, 205, 235 see also artist activist; Darpana Academy; feminist; social change Sarabhai, Mrinalini, xxiii, xxiv, 10, 101, 128, 225 Manushya (1949) Memory is a Ragged Fragment of Eternity (1963), xxiv see also Darpana Academy

Sarabhai, Vikram, 105 Schechner, Richard, 13, 198 science fiction, 80 second-generation, xx, xxv, 78, 98, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 174, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 193, 200, 205, 207, 220 set design, 90 sex trafficking, 180 sexuality and sensuality, xx, 93, 95, 97, 119, 159, 205 Shah, Ranvir, 127, 238 see also dance festivals (The Other Festival) shakti, 100, 109, 204 Shankar, Uday, 10, 24, 37–9, 41, 87, 123, 222, 229 Sharvani, Isha, 95 see also Sheth, Daksha Sharma, Narendra, 40–2 Sheshadri, Nirmala, 111–13 Sheth, Daksha, xxiii, 84, 92–8, 134 see also chhau; Devissaro; mallakham; Sharvani, Isha signature styles, xx, xxi, 2, 7, 85, 120, 124, 208, 222 silence, 5, 69, 89, 110, 130, 134, 142, 179, 181, 187, 199, 215, 216 Sita, 104, 148, 149, 150, 205 site-specific, 5, 195 in Britain, 5, 76 see also Deboo, Astad; Bakht, Natasha; Jeyasingh, Shobana Sklar, Deidre, xxiii, 1, 2, 19, 21, 221, 224, 226 Smithsonian Festival of India, 65 see also Deboo, ContraPosition social awareness, xxi, xxiv social change, xxiv, 3, 25, 69, 104 social justice/injustice, xxiv, 3, 25, 101, 104, 109, 155, 175 social vision, 68 social reform and reformers, 24, 27, 28, 32 Soja, Edward, xxi, 155, 234 Soneji, Davesh, 27, 141, 227 and Peterson, Indira Viswanathan soundscape, xxi, 5 South Asian, 7, 124, 169, 201, 209, 216, 237 South Asian Network (SAN), 165 see also Moorty, Shyamala (Carrie’s Web)

254

Index

space, xx, xxii, 4, 5, 9, 61, 64, 88, 99, 100, 107, 111, 115, 116, 117, 119, 132, 150, 152, 167, 175, 200, 204, 212, 217 and time, 1, 42, 82, 118, 119, 155; and body, 70, 71 spine, 89, 110 Srinivas, Amrit, 31 Srinivasan, Priya, xxiii, 228 spiritual, sacred, sensuous, 99, 113, 124, 125, 128, 129, 131, 132, 134, 137, 151, 182, 183, 190, 207, 213, 216, 217, 218, 219 St. Denis, Ruth, 34, 35 stagecraft, 34, 36, 37 stereotypes, see gender; nation; ethnicity; cultural differences street children, 87, 109 street theatre, 99 Subbulakshmi, M.S., xxii Subramanyam, Anusha, 206–7, 234 Subramanyam, Padma, 10 sufi, 34, 61, 100, 190 Sundaram, Chitra, 9, 199, 200–3 Surpranaka, 148, 149, 190 Sydney Opera House, 218 Tagore, Rabindranath, 57, 61 tai-chi, xviii, 134, 181 tantric philosophy, 87, 95, 118, 132 Tata-Hudson, Anjali, 159, 160, 163, 166, 167, 168 see also Post Natyam Collective tawaifs, 26, 34, 35, 166 see also bais TeAda Theatre Works, 165 technology, 107, 197, 199 text/script, 89, 112, 174, 179, 182, 186, 212, 215, 216 thang-ta, xviii, 57, 61, 62 Thanjavur, 28, 141 Thanjavur Quartet, 32 Thapar, Romila, 43 theatre and theatrical, xviii, 2, 3, 101, 107, 130, 131, 185, 199, 211, 215 theoretical frames, 1, 2 Theosophical Society, 32 time and space, 55, 90

tradition, 41, 45, 46, 58, 64, 76, 83, 84, 90, 92, 104, 119, 130, 136, 152, 156, 159, 160, 181, 185, 187, 190, 192, 198 and innovation, 157 transcolonial, 123 transcultural, 129, 156, 205 transdisciplinary, 59, 211 transnational, xviii, xxvi, 13, 24, 122, 146, 155, 195, 197 collaborations, 25, 123–53, 128, 152; networks, 25 Turner, Victor, 156, 234 see also liminal Upadhya, Mayuri, 17, 84, 108–9 and Nritarutya, 109 universal body language, xxiv, 95 utopian, 170 Vatsyayan, Kapila, xxiii, 1, 2, 17, 39, 43, 160 Vasudevan, Aniruddhan, 84, 114–15, 127, 128, 183 Vedas, 97 video capture, 196 violence, xxi, 5, 19, 20, 68, 73, 74, 78, 85, 159, 164, 165, 175, 179, 180, 183, 203, 216, 217 virtual body, 82 virtual space, 78 visionary, 119 visual culture, 3 visual design/ art, xviii, 6, 60, 62, 67, 107, 109, 111, 122, 131, 140, 184, 197, 208, 211, 219, 221 visual studies, 4 Visweswaran, Chitra, 114 voice/ vocalization, 5, 107, 175, 185, 186, 187, 199, 209, 215 vulgar, 206 and body sensuality, 93 Wesleyan University, 141 westernization, 205 women’s status/rights, 85, 193, 197 see also feminism workshops see dance workshops wu-shu, xviii, 130, 131

Index 255 Yodh, Medha, dedication page, xxi, xxii, 183, 236 see also, Balasaraswati, T. Yoga, xviii, 4, 47, 51, 54, 87, 89, 90, 100, 109, 113, 128, 161, 177, 181, 194, 195

Yoni ki Baat, 170 You Tube, 7 Zoroastrian, xxii, 62, 190