The Ever Changing Tradition of Bharatanatyam, Part 2

Which types of audience members expect what and why?

Westerners love to watch “traditional” Indian classical dance – the kind that they assume can be traced back thousands of years. There seems to be some sort of psychological intrigue there, to watch what they perceive as another culture’s virtually unchanged identity. Whatever the case may be, the parameters of a successful performance to them are those that maintain the image of tradition. In parallel, they expect these performances to run within the parameters of certain Western standards such as time and structure of performances. With an eye on expanding into this unexposed market, artists are watchful of these desires.

The Indians within the global diaspora, however, control the economy of the artist: they are the ones who sponsor the tours that in turn bring artists the money to live comfortably in India. (O’Shea*) To these non-resident Indians, known as NRIs, the Indian classical arts speak enormously to their heritage and reaffirm and preserve their cultural processes. (Lopez y Royo***, Pillai**) As such, they, too, demand traditional performances with as little change as possible to the norm that they are aware of. A conversation with the Indo-American Council and Religious Foundation in New Jersey confirmed this. The board members stated that one of the few times they brought a dancer and her troupe from India with a recognizably contemporary style, patrons returned to them afterwards complaining of the show’s lack of traditionalism and hoped the IACRF would no longer bring such artists. With the amount of money and performance opportunities these wealthy patrons provide, performers of Indian classical dance again find a strong tug towards the traditional framework.

NRIs also make sure to train their children in the classical arts, who themselves cite that they cherish the form not because of its aesthetic beauty but for the simple means of keeping in touch with their heritage. This is not enough, however, for first generation children to continue patronage of such arts as they grow up, apparent from the aging audience at classical dance shows these days. So artists must address this issue in their performances as well.

Indians within India also run along the same thread of thought. While modern and contemporary dance is becoming more accepted, many Indians still view hybridity of forms and innovation within the field with suspicion (Lopez y Royo***). For instance, at a recent viewing of Tejas by Malini Srinivasan here and Manhattan, the troupe changed into some mohiniattam style clothng that was wound around their front and tied in the back, revealing a decent amount of skin. While still modest, it was more revealing than patrons were used to and I immediately herd some elderly ladies make some judgmental comments about the costume. So while people seem to enjoy innovation, it is a very fine line artists must tread.

As Lopez y Royo*** states, there is a great deal of contemplation as to what will happen to the form without this allowance for more modernity within the field. This polarizing duality makes for artists who struggle endlessly to place bharatanatyam firmly in a globalized context with new innovations and ideas in order to create sustainability while remaining within a static framework to continue to receive patronage.

This is the major influence shaping the way this tradition is perceived; the attempts to reach broader, larger, and more diverse audiences by remaining "classical" while still "innovating" directing the course of the changes. It is a fact that outside pressures will always create a change in tradition, and in this case, I posit that it is the struggle for sustainability and relevance in this globalizing world that are the determining factors.



* O' Shea, Janet. At Home in the World: Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage. Boston: Wesleyan, 2007. Print.

** Pillai, Shanti. "Rethinking Global Indian Dance through Local Eyes: The contemporary bharatanatyam scene in Chennai." Dance Research Journal. Print.

*** Lopez y Royo, Alessandra. "Issues in Dance Reconstruction: Karanas as Dance Texts in a Cross-Cultural Context." Dance Research Journal 36/2 (2004): 64-79. Print.

The Ever Changing Tradition of Bharatanatyam, Part 1

I've spoken about this before: how fifty years ago, the Indian classical dance scene became inextricably linked with India’s fight for independence. How the ensuing nationalistic fervor blossomed into a massive cultural overhaul with Indian classical dance at the forefront. Suddenly, Bharatanatyam** found itself in the middle of a huge reconstructionist and revivalist phase. Indians who had never thought twice about the devadasi establishment were now ardent supporters of the art and it quickly came to be that every well-cultured girl trained extensively in classical dance. Attendance for performances skyrocketed and the new government supported classical dance endeavors wholeheartedly through fiscal support for classes, concerts, and festivals. This drastic rise resulted almost immediately in an overvaluation of the form (*Coorlawala), the results of which are just now rippling through the world.

This issue is this: now, as nationalistic feelings slowly fizzle and fade post the independence movement, so too is the people’s love for the form. Bharatanatyam classes are now slowly being replaced by Bollywood dance lessons, bharatanatyam performances by bhangra competitions, and so on. Yet the number of professional classical dancers are growing: as Anita Ratnam wrote once, the world is “drowning…drowning in a deluge of [Indian classical] dancers” (personal email). The sudden boom and bust bore weighty consequences: the world currently faces a glut of highly trained performers and dancers in both India and the US who look with apprehension towards the ever-decreasing market share for Indian classical dance. With no foreseeable sustainability of the art and without the same nationalistic passion associated with them, traditional artists struggle to maintain their importance and relevancy in this globalizing world.

So exactly how do they do that?

The pressures artists face are polarizing: they must keep audiences interested using fresh innovations while maintaining the image of tradition; they must expand into larger global audiences who have no knowledge of bharatanatyam while still maintaining its complexities. They must satisfy the demands of the Westerner, unknowledgeable about the Indian arts; to the Indian in India, who can no longer find the relevance in classical dance; and the Indian abroad, searching for a tie back to their home: for these are the people who rule the artists’ future and thus, the future of the form.

In order to explain this phenomena, I have broken up the theory as such:

1. Outlining what each kind of audience members expect.
2. How bharatanatyam changes as a tradition.
3. How these audience influences create a change in tradition.
4. What other changes they have created.

Some of these posts will hopefully also be useful on their own!


*Coorlawala, Uttara. "The Sanskritized Body." Dance Research Journal 36/2 (2004): 50-63. Print.
**I never know if I should capitalize bharatanatyam or not...

The Nayika Reversal

Set to Aankhon Mein Tu Hai by Penn Masala.
Danced by Aishwarya Iyer, Sindhu Sundar, and myself.
Description: In this wonderful twist on the traditional padam, the dancers play men who can't seem to catch the attention of the women they adore.


The concept here was to really utilize the medium of film to explain the story line in a less stylized and more accessible manner. We'll see how that flies.


And, just to give a little credit to my dancers - we had to dance on twigs and stones in the dappled-sunlight tree scenes.  Never doing that again.


Enjoy!

Outside my Box

Who says bharatanatyam dancers cant go outside their sphere?

Directed by Jesse Newman, composed by Elizabeth Claire Burke, featuring Mark O'Connor, and choreographed by me and Ali Schechter!

Enjoy!

Sanskrit Manuals on Dance

A really interesting read I found online.

The quote they used to grab the reader's attention here is:

"These days, the dancers are stupid, and the scholars are not practicioners." -- Vacanacarya Sudhakalasa

www.iias.nl/iiasn/30/IIASNL30_18.pdf

Non Being

"na asat AsIt" -- "Non-being was not"
"na sat AsIt" -- "Nor being was then"

A poignant verse from the Rg Veda, and one of the most interesting sanskrit grammatical concepts - the idea of balance.  Everything has an opposite.  If there is dharma, there is adharma (not dharma).  The devas had the asuras, who, from what I recollect about ancient scriptures, were not necessarily evil, just their counterbalance.  Sanskrit philosophers understood Newton's third law well: for each action there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

Which brings us full circle: if there is being, there is not being, which is altogether different from lack of existence.  Raising the question...what was there before being and the opposite of being (non-being)?

This is probably where the concept of zero also comes from - this philosophy of balance.  If there are numbers, what is the non-number?

:)

Adaptations of Epics

I have recently been enthralled by the modern day rewrites of epics such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the Vedas.  After reading The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a rewrite of the Mahabharata from Draupadi's point of view, I immediately began gobbling up similar books.  I moved onto Ka, a retelling of the Rg Veda, which manages to capture the abstraction, philosophy, and beauty of language that is in the original Sanskrit. (Though I haven't read the Rg Veda in Sanskrit, just heard excerpts from professors).  Then, I finally began Ashok K. Banker's Ramayana series - a full, 7 series book that reinterprets, adapts, and personalizes the epic.

I was disappointed.  Not to say it wasn't a fun, accessible read, but I didn't really think of it as the Ramayana.  The author injects his extremely polarizing opinions into the novel to the point where I questioned whether I could think of this as similar to the great epic altogether...more or less, questioning the "essence" of the novel.  It made me wonder, is it possible to take a storyline and mould it around your own opinions and thoughts so much that it no longer represents the original epic?

This brings up an important question: can a work have an "essence" to begin with? One that, when changed enough, or in the right manners, makes it a different work altogether?

I thought about why I felt this way specifically when it came to the Ramayana and it was the combination of a few things:

1. The story prose itself was kind of "eh".  I am usually not the biggest obsessor when it comes to prose within books.  For instance, I love Harry Potter and couldn't give a damn about the writing. In fact, I didn't even notice the construction for the most part.  Yet, in this book, it was something I grabbed onto immediately.  I wonder if the lack of some sort of ode to the original Sanskrit within the prose nagged at me a little bit.

2. The story itself was altered immensely.  I have read, translated, and heard direct translations of many scenes within the Ramayana and the subtlety of right and wrong is pretty huge.  However, Banker's series is obvious: Kaikeyi is an evil queen. Manthara is a psychotic, Ravana-loving asura worshipper. Ravana is a terrible demon. Dasaratha, Kausalya, Bharata, Shatrugan, Lakshmana, Rama, are without reproach.  Scenes that never happened were inserted into this series.  Does that make it bad? No. Each artist must reinterpret as they see fit.  But I have never seen an Indian epic so cut and dry when it comes to right and wrong.  And to me, this is huge when rewriting manuscripts as these stories were meant to be vehicles for ideas such as dharma and karma.

3. The lack of Sanskrit philosophy.  Sanskrit grammar and prose come with enormous philosophical questions - and this book abandoned such intentions of the Ramayana completely.

I suppose this is just a poor adaptation in my opinion.  But I must take into consideration that each time the Ramayana was re-written by a major writer (Tulsidas, Kamba, etc) it went through it's own seive.  Tulsidas made the epic quite religious, and Kamba removed much of women's original voices.  If I had been Valmiki and read the second and third versions I probably would have been aghast as well.  So perhaps this is simply along the lines of such alterations.

And definitely a fun book regardless!