Dancing for young audiences

I just returned from a short lecture-demonstration performance tour in Rajasthan under the auspices of ‘The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC MACAY). I had almost forgotten the impact of these interactions for students of slightly off the beaten track colleges, universities, schools and other teaching institutions. Theoretically, students in the NCR have access to a cornucopia of cultural performances that are in reality out of reach for young people far from the capital city’s glow.

The last time I did a performance tour of Rajasthan by road was decades ago. Kaushal Bhargava, a legendary cultural figure, orchestrated over 14 Odissi concerts that memorably included visits to a spectacular tribal fair at Banswara and the glorious white marble Jain temple at Ranakpur.

The schedule this time was too tight to visit or revisit the heritage frescos of the Shekhawat region, but the response of the young audiences more than compensated. I was impressed with their enthusiasm and focus. The structure of lecture-demonstrations offers the potential to make available a more nuanced, deconstructed understanding of a performance art than possible within the framework of a formal concert.

Simply to experience great art forms is quite wonderful and can be a mind altering experience for impressionable minds. SPIC MACAY is certainly the most prominent organisation facilitating the sharing of India’s performing arts by so many masters. I like to make full use of the lecture-demonstration structure to provide a bit of added value though teasing out the connections imbedded in the performance, to both historical and personal meanings.

I love to contextualise an Odissi presentation in a variety of ways, ranging from pan-India references to points specific to eastern India. In addition to highlighting that many of the gods dance, if the students have an engineering or even basic school background in physics, I mention that western scientists recognise the poetic description of the Big Bang Theory of the cosmos is ‘The Dance of Shiva’.

Regarding Odisha, I may speak of its bridging north and south India, Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions while maintaining its own unique identity. I share its role in the spread of Indian culture to South and Southeast Asia to the extent that Indonesians still refer to Indians as ‘Klings referring to the Kalinga dynasty’s long lasting impact. The filigree silver, Ikat weaving travelled east along with Buddhist and Hindu dharma, still honoured in Odisha with an annual Bali Yatra festival launching symbolic boats.

If glimpses of the history of Odissi seems appropriate for a given group, I might first touch on some of the standard facts of 2nd century BC relief sculptures, 8th century Shaivite temple dancers, Buddhist yogini traditions, Jagganath Puri devadasi and medieval bhakti Gotipura traditions, but I emphasise the place of classical dance in the revival of national identity as part of the Indian independence movement.

It’s worthwhile to share that India’s classical dance traditions are not unchanging. The dance on the walls of the Rani Gumpha ancient Sanskrit theatre is not the dance that we perform today. With all our sculptural and textual antecedents, our classical dances are largely neo-classical and continue to evolve.

Dancers must seem to perform effortlessly. A dear friend, a gorgeous professional modern dancer, used to say that dancers are just people who sweat a lot. But on stage it spoils the aesthetic if the audience even sees the dancer breathing heavily. A lecture-demonstration is a unique opportunity to invite brave volunteers to come up on the stage to try some basic steps in the triple-bent tribangi and the squared symmetrical chauk body positions. Students enjoy the challenge of trying to coordinate their different body parts in rhythm while their friends in the audience understand elements of the technique and appreciate its sophistication.

As usual, the stage quickly filled with volunteers at the Banasthali Women’s College, Modi University and Rukmini Birla Modern High School, but I was surprised to initially get zero volunteers at the international residential Nimawat Public School in rural Shekhawat. I realised that an invitation to try out classical dance, and in front of your peers, was probably quite rare for these Rajput youngsters! Yet after two students from the 5% of girls in the school bravely took the lead, plenty of boys followed up to the open air, moonlit stage and had a fun experience.

Once students have tried, or seen their friends try, to do a few steps of Odissi, they engage more with the pure dance that follows. I frequently include my senior disciple, Viswanath Mangaraj, in my school programmes so that students can see that the beauty of the dance is as manly as it is feminine. Earlier this year, another male student, Madhur Gupta, organised several presentations in Kanpur at his alma mater and other schools and colleges which demonstrated the gender neutrality of Odissi.

Another significant idea worthwhile communicating to students is that love is not something recently discovered in modern films and music but has always been incorporated in Indian philosophy and classical dance as the ideal metaphor to the more than mundane metaphysical love for the divine. Whether a charming Odia kavya on a village Radha’s interaction with Krishna representing the atma connecting with the paramatma or the equality of Parvati with Shiva expressed by Kalidasa, a lecture demonstration is an opportunity to illustrate in an age appropriate way the spiritual dimensions inherent in Odissi and all classical Indian dance. Of course, this also assists young audiences to recognise that Indian classical dances uniquely mandate the dancer to be an actor as well as a mover to interpret and bring out the essence of text based dances.

In the 1980s and 90s I had the opportunity to present over 400 school lecture-demonstration performances in the United States for over 120,000 youngsters. These were around the country with over half for the Los Angeles Unified School District and several even accompanied by my guru, Padmabhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra on Odissi mardala, Pt. Bhubaneswar Misra playing violin, Shri Rakhal Mohanty vocal and Ratikant Mohapatra manjiras during the Festival of India at Detroit Institute of Arts Youth theater programs around Michigan. I loved bringing the rich culture of India alive to students through Manipuri and Odissi.

It is a challenge to switch from right brain explanations to the left brain, purely experiential immersion in the art necessary to communicate through the language of the dance. The effort was more than validated after the last SPIC MACAY programme at the Rajasthan Institute of Engineering and Technology in Jaipur when I met three students who had patiently waited to meet me while I was changing for the trip back to Delhi.

The first student said that he loved dance and was a dancer, but had only known western dance before. He had no idea that such an art existed and he was overwhelmed with the discovery and wanted my blessings. The second student said that he was spiritually inclined and had been transfixed from start to finish. He felt that when I danced the room and audience vanished and there was only a communion with the divine. The third student was a young woman, who simply said “I have no words” as she bent to take my blessings. I know that I am the one who is blessed to be one among the many artists who can share such experiences with our youth.

— Sharon Lowen is a respected exponent of Odissi, Manipuri and Mayurbhanj and Seraikella Chau whose four-decade career in India was preceded by 17 years of modern dance and ballet in the US and an MA in dance from the University of Michigan. She can be contacted at sharonlowen.workshop@gmail.com