International Dance Day is coming.
One of the best things about my dance teacher was how she helped transform the world on the stage with mere mortals. Children of varying interest levels, abilities and time. We somehow knew each other’s pieces, and the rehearsals became a place of camaraderie and belonging like nothing I have known since. Friendships formed in the orbit of practice, each of us helping or being helped as the D-day drew near. The energy of practice was always enough to bring a smile. No matter how hard or terrible a day you’d been having, if you have to smile and dance when it is your turn, it does something to you, and you find yourself in a better frame of mind without even trying.
How I wish dancing, singing, art, literature, creative writing, team and adventure sports are all a part and parcel of everyone’s life on a regular basis. Without having to carve time for it, without yearning for it, without having to take the car or public transit to plan for it. What a luxury that would be?
As we spend time working, we spend time in our creative pursuits – intellectual, or physical.
As the children grew up, I had the chance to attend many dance programs, arangetrams and productions over the years. As soul-nourishing as they all were/are, I still yearn for the dance dramas that my childhood teacher was so good at conceptualizing, choreographing, composing, teaching and performing. Who cannot be caught up in the climax of Mohini skillfully directing Bhasmasura towards annihilating himself through dance, or Mahishasura Mardini, or any other epic being played out on stage?
While I yearned for multi-dancer theatrical dramas played out on stage, I was also keenly aware of why they were difficult to pull off. In a society where the number of hours were optimized, did you dedicate time for learning your margam of items – the standard pushpanjali/kowthwam, alarippu, jasthiswaram, shabdam, varnam, keerthanais and thillana so that you can prepare for an arangetram in that time, or spend a part of that time with a dance drama production? It is a tricky situation complicated by expectations of society – individual performances merited standardized margams, dance dramas demand a different format.
So, whenever I get the chance to go to a dance drama, I practically dance into the auditorium myself.
Nirupama Vaidyanathan’s Journeys of Faith based on Shoba Narayan’s book, Food & Faith
In recent years, I have had the pleasure of attending a few of these theatrical productions. Nirupama Vaidyanathan’s Journeys of Faith based on Shoba Narayan’s book, Food & Faith was one such. Nirupama is always skilled at having multiple dancers quickly move together, seamlessly, in beautiful patterns on stage. She managed to incorporate standard thillana-style formats etc into this production which I thought was a very clever way to balance the needs of the student and the theatrical dance drama format.
That dance performance was amazing. Nirupama is a clear orator, and in this production, her voice overs, where she was narrating pieces from the book as she set the stage for the Palani Murugan temple or the Udipi Srikrishna Temple were amazingly done. She had the music pieces composed, and stitched together for the dance drama. I just have to close my eyes to see the way all her senior students came together on stage at the very end to show how the prasadam in a big temple kitchen is prepared. Who cannot be filled by a performance like that, followed by an excellent prasadam at the Livermore Temple afterwards?
She combined literature, theatre, dance and music in such a satisfying and eloquent manner that a year after the actual performance, I am able to recall the transformation of the stage in her skilled and capable hands.
Meenakshi Sundareshwarar Dance Drama
I had a similar feeling with the Meenakshi Sundareswarar dance performance by Sharanya Ganesan. It has been a few months since her dance school staged the dance drama to which I was invited. But, was it a transformative experience?! She managed to fill the stage with students of every stage in their dancing journey.
There was the child Meenakshi, the young-adult Meenakshi, and the adult Meenakshi – with all the dancers accompanying the stories filling the stage with their rhythmic jathis, their quick and coordinated movements. The stage ebbed and flowed with the dancers themselves. The costumes – oh the costumes! Bharatanatyam costumes are always a joy to behold, but on that stage, they took on a fantastic life of their own. Except for the main characters of the story – Meenakshmi, her parents, Sundareshwarar etc, everyone was clothed in combinations of cream and (red, pink, violet, or green). I have always loved the cream colored combinations, and on that stage housing over 50 dancers, they all stood out and merged together.
The dance performance itself co-ordinated across all the batches of children she teaches must have been both a joy and a huge project in and of itself. Every group knew of the pieces they needed to perform, but according to her senior students who spoke to the audience afterwards, the whole thing was a concept weaved together into the magic it transformed into only in Sharanya Ganesan’s head.
On YouTube Please!
Every time I look for entertainment to watch, I yearn to see if these dance dramas would be on YouTube or Netflix. I wish they were. For I love to watch a good dance drama on a cold evening – I end up watching some dance pieces, but a good dance drama choreographed, executed with such talent, beauty and grace would be something that I would love to see every now and then, or even on a flight.
There are always good ones we miss out on because of conflicts – how marvelous it would be, if we could manage to fill our souls with the performances later? I am on a flight to South India – thumbing through the entertainment available on the flight, I thought to myself that I would love to see The Whispers of the Kaveri when I am traveling to the very lands of the Kaveri river – Tamil Nadu & Karnataka.
Nourish-n-Cherish 