On the occasion of the 93rd birth anniversary today of one of the seminal thinkers around dance, we reproduce a lecture titled ‘Changing Phases of Bharatanatyam’, she delivered (along with a demonstration of segments of her path-breaking 1985 choreographic production ‘Angika’) at the morning session of the Annual Festival of the Music Academy, Madras, on January 1, 1986.
In her signature prose-poetry style, Chandralekha outlines a deeply conceptual understanding of her context and signals the need for a radical re-think for new directions in dance. Thirty-five years on, her call for contemporary relevance in dance remains valid.>
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Once upon a time, dance related to life and to daily functions of life – like food gathering, hunting, fishing, planting, cultivating, harvesting.>
Once upon a time, dance was related to stars, to the sun and moon, their cyclic movements, the movement of the Earth; the crescent and the full moon; and the moon on the fifth or seventh or eleventh day – panchami, saptami, ekadashi, paurnami, phalguni, vaishakhi.
And to the movement of constellations – swati, chitra, hasta, revati.>
And to the eclipses – rahu, ketu; and to the seasons – vasant, sharad, shishir; and to the feelings of rain and heat and the cold nip in the air.>
Once upon a time, dance related to Prithvi; to directions and to the guardians of directions – varuna, yama, kubera; and to mountains and rivers.
And to wind and water and clouds – chandavayu, parjanya; to navagraha and pancha bhuta; to agni and akasha; to purusha and prakriti – the male and female principles.>
Once upon a time, dance related to trees and forests and groves and pastures, to their silences and sounds; and movement of trees and flowers – kamal and ketaki; mandara, parijaata, champaka, kadamba – tree flowers, water flowers, grass flowers, creeper flowers.>
Once upon a time, dance related to birds and animals; and bees and butterflies – bhramara, prajapati; horse and tiger and boar; and monkey and lion and elephant; the majesty and dignity of their bodies, their walk, their mass and lightness and weight and gravity.>
Once upon a time, dance related to the daily chores of life – sweeping and cleaning; grinding and pounding; sprinkling and cow-dung paving; planting and transplanting.
Once upon a time, dance related to Space – space intimate and space infinite; and to Time – time immediate and time eternal; and to the movement of prana – breath inhaled and breath exhaled; inner and outer.>
Once upon a time, dance related to fertility of soil and of people; to bodies of men and women; to the poetry and power in their bodies.>
Once upon a time, dance was an expression of the collective, the community; of togetherness; of generation of energy, of ananda; of linked hands of men and women, young and old.
Once upon a time, dance meant knowledge of how to stand, how to sit, move, lie down, jump, kick; how to give and receive a blow; how to hit and how to heal – knowledge of the spine and its secrets.>
Once upon a time, a legendary sage called Bharata told us about this in an insightful and poetic text.>
It taught us how to move the body to a rhythm, to an impulse, to the beat of a drum or beat of the heart; of tala, chanda, shruti; and of mandala, utplavana, bhramari, chaari, gati; of the links between natya, kavya, chitra, ganita, shilpa, sangita, vaastu.
It proposed the module of a theatre to a human scale – a mandala integrating all castes and colours.>
It told us about our eyes and neck and hands and feet and head.>
It gave us alphabets and language; and meaning of hastas evolved across centuries, retaining the memory of nature, animals, birds, martial arts – simhamukha, sarpashira, mrigashirsha, shukatunda, kapittha, kapota, matsya, mayura, hamsa, garuda – having a continuity to this day.>
It hearkened us to the inherent wisdom of the body, to the flow of fluids in the body, to the movement of rasa in the body – a knowledge which alone can vitalise us, totalise us as humans, humanise us, activate us.>
Bharata’s message is like a mantra, a secret. It is a great journey to be attempted on one’s own feet. Along with body language, it comprised values of life and education – not just of entertainment.>
What happened to this inspired body language?>
Across time, the content of the body got diverted, subverted, negated. Dance reduced to become a vehicle to serve gods, priests, religion.>
Also read: ‘I Believe Dance is a ‘Project’ To Enable a Recovery of the Body, of Our Spine’>
Then body became a vehicle to serve kings, courtiers, men.>
An then dance became outcaste, rejected by moralistic society, by elite respectability, until its revival and resurrection again by a newly confected respectability.>
And, into our times, body turns into an object – more and more ornate, more and more decorative, more and more fragmented, more and more alienated, more and more enslaved.>
And less and less vibrant, less and less militant.>
Today, we have reached a critical cross-road in our dance landscape. From here we can proceed in two ways – one is to take the path of change and of relating dance to our life and to our contemporary reality; the other is to be smug and self-satisfied, on the side of status quo, of entertainment devoid of energy.>
There is some talk of ‘innovation’. For me, innovation cannot be a regurgitating of sentimental and tired mythologies or the opulent decorativeness of shiny silks and jewellery or spectacles catering to the consumer market. It has to spring from a need.>
Innovation, for me, is to ask a critical question and follow it honestly and fearlessly to where it leads you.>
Text and pictures courtesy: The Chandralekha Archive @ SPACES, Chennai.>