Nurturing and Embracing Womanhood Through Dance
A few months ago, a 16-member WhatsApp group ‘Think Dance’ brought together largely young professionals, male, female dancers from a variety of Indian classical dance traditions. The platform provides an avenue to discuss varied journeys in dance. It is ironical that seven decades into our independence, women are asserting their position in a territory where the category of Indian classical dance and music emerged in the discourse of cultural nationalism by marginalising women public performers – the tawaifs, devadasis and maharis.
The prompt for Women’s Day on the WhatsApp group was an illustration from my own journey:
“I learned a composition Paran-aamad that had two mnemonic syllables – Thung-Gaa. It was first taught in a broad manly manner. Subsequently, the movement attained a sense of feminine curve. Later, as [a] researcher, I spent an entire night with two tawaifs who were court dancers in the State of Rampur (UP).
They told me that their Guru Achhan Maharaj (father of Birju Maharaj) taught the movement by being inspired by the manner the dhobis (Washermen) wash clothes by swinging and slamming the cloth on a stone as if it were a movement forming an S. At a later date when giving birth to my first child after long labor, the first syllables that came from my mouth were Thung-Gaa. I meditated and as I now perform – the Thung symbolizes my rootedness while the Gaa, the flight of empowerment with the thought that my body gave birth to a new life.”
The responses
Odissi dancer Madhur Gupta described his journey of performing Radha in a verse ‘Ya hee Madhav, Ya hee Keshav’ from the 12th-century poem 'Gita Govinda'. “The verse narrates how Krishna who has dallied with maidens all night returns in the morning to Radha. She petulantly sends him away. As a young dancer for me I performed keeping in mind the pain of Radha, but now [when] I enact, I interpret her as empowered. She is complete but Krishna needs other energies of women to complete himself.”
Also read: Why You Might Find Me Dancing Bharatanatyam in the Middle of a Crowded Street
Significant content in Indian dances surfaces from the gaathas (stories) associated with Indian Gods who in themselves are timeless metaphors. The stories situate the Gods in two worlds of sociological and metaphysical context. “Krishna, as male,” says Gupta “gathers empathy in our patriarchal world, which Radha would not have had she dallied with other men. In fact, she would be perceived as a loose woman.” But the other dimension is that Krishna is provided with a greater status as he is perceived as a sacred metaphor and his worldly deviance dismissed.
Madhur Gupta. Credit: Mohit Wadhwa
Purvadhanashree chose from her repertoire of Vilasini Natyam dance of the Telegu devadasis. “I have never met any devadasi, and yet when I perform, I aspire to recreate [a] sacred ritualistic environment on the modern stage. For example, in the Abhinaya of a Varnam ‘Samivinara,’ my intention echoes the multiple roles a devadasi played in her association with Lord Shiva. She is his friend, confidant, devotee and teacher. The feminine empowerment is danced in the surrender to the idea of Shiva. In the process, I bring myself and reclaim the space for the art of marginalised women performers.”
Sangita Chatterjee. Credit: Jean-Pierre Poutre
The responses then took a life of their own. Kathak dancer Divya Dikshit Goswami described a movement called ardhalingan (half embrace) – stimulation of which arises from just above the breasts. “Interestingly, I first saw the movement in two male bodies. Its circular flow provides immense possibility, the centrality of my feminine beauty as a vessel is positioned to fuse a variety of my thoughts with the outer world.”
Sangita Chatterjee and Harpreet Kaur Jass had interesting interpretations of Kathak chakkars (pirouettes). Chatterjee said: “The chakkars, on the one hand, affirm power and grit, but as I grew into motherhood, it assumed the symbolic circular journey of life.”
Dance is often a language to bridge the gap between genders. Kaur Jass performs the 18th-century Punjabi tragic romance ‘Heer,’ also perceived as a Sufi’s sojourn. While she remains in the centre, her body re-creates the idea of chant (jaap) by using, in a chain, half reverse pirouettes. This evolves as a way to transcend gender.
Nurturing the woman in the young
It is interesting the manner in which teaching of dance translates itself as contemplation of the identity of being a woman. This was illustrated in the response of Jayashree Acharaya, who says:
“While teaching young girls, I often use images to bring out the inner poetry of abstract dance as learned from my Guru Pandit Birju Maharaj ji. Those images unconsciously make them enjoy their feminine identity. For example, the opening of the palm and moving it around is about showing the beauty of henna patterns, while spinning in half circles with stretched arms is about surrounding your body with colors of joy."
Bharatnatyam dancer Sneha Chakradhar referred to the choreography of a poem 'Chidiya ki paheli udaan ka gee' – the song of the first flight of a bird. “The poem written and sung by my father Ashok Chakradhar alludes to India’s freedom. Yet, for me, it was the symbol of that free bird who flies and rests from the roof of a temple to that of a mosque; from one country to another. I use patterns of rhythmic syllables (jatis) and nuances of my dance vocabulary to choreograph the poem. Yes, while I clutch the window bars I look out to that bird who knows no borders, no discrimination I turn to dance to break free.”
Navina Jafa is vice-president of Centre for New Perspectives, a think tank that works on intangible heritage, traditional knowledge through research and pilot programs for sustainable development.
This article went live on March eighth, two thousand nineteen, at zero minutes past three in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
