In a span of a week, dancer couple V.P. Dhananjayan and Shanta Dhananjayan were criss-crossing the globe. Back in Chennai after a lecture in the U.S., they were soon on their way to Sri Lanka for a performance, after which they were to fly to Turkey to shoot for an ad film.
“We have been coming to Sri Lanka since 1980, though we made fewer trips from 1983 until the war ended,” says Dhananjayan. With his ivory-white hair combed back, the veteran beams in a beige kurta, his upright posture and brisk gait belying the fatigue one would expect from the previous night’s show, or from the 60 years of professional dancing.
“It’s always lovely coming back here and meeting the many friends we have made over the years,” says Shanta.
The couple, now in their 70s, has been married for fifty years – they went to Greece last year to celebrate the milestone – sharing their professional and personal lives. They were in the island recently for a performance to raise funds for the ongoing restoration work of the Thiruketheeswaram temple in Mannar. The Bharatanatyam exponents were here for the first stage of fund raising as well, about 12 years ago.
Restoring a temple
The Indian government is helping restore the famed temple in the Tamil-majority Northern Province with an over-$2 million grant, and support from the Archaeological Survey of India and the College of Architecture and Sculpture in Mamallapuram near Chennai.
“The temple and its sculptures are magnificent,” says Dhananjayan, who made a stop in Mannar on his way back from Jaffna, where his troupe performed after the Colombo show. The dancers, led by Dhananjayan, performed Kaadal Valli Kanda Murugan , one of the first dance dramas produced by Bharatakalanjali in 1974, the dance school that the couple runs.
After reviving it in 2016, the Dhananjayans brought it to Sri Lanka last week, to very receptive audiences in both Colombo and Jaffna.
“Sri Lankans have always been very appreciative of Indian arts and have learnt them and patronised them for years — be it music or dance,” says Dhananjayan, as Shanta recalls her Sri Lankan contemporaries at Kalakshetra in the 1950s when young artistes, both Sinhalese and Tamil, came to the foremost dance school in south India to learn from stalwarts of the time.
Dancers like Padmini Dahanayake, Balasundari Kanakasabai, Neila Sathyalingam and Kamala Johnpillai were among the earliest Sri Lankan students to study in India, says Shanta. The exchange appears to have been two-way. Guru Gopinath from Kerala travelled and performed in Sri Lanka, popularising Kathakali and learning about traditional dances of Sri Lanka. Given the similarity in the cultures of the two countries the affinity is only natural, according to the dancer couple.
Strong patronage
Through those linkages and the networks built by the many students who trained in India, the island has created successive generations of a keen audience, as was evident in Colombo last week.
“Even in Europe, North America and Australia, it’s the Sri Lankan diaspora that is supporting Indian arts in a big way,” she says.
On the revival of their production of the love story of Valli and Muruga, they speak of a year’s hard work as a team.
“The rehearsals got very intense the last three months. You can’t stage a production without that sort of rigour and investment,” says Shanta.
