In the largely performance-oriented world of Indian classical dance, it might be arguable how and where the process of knowledge-sharing features. Paradoxically, in Indian classical dance, the practitioner needs to be rooted to tradition, whether their chosen path forward is its upkeep or rediscovery/innovation through contemporary ideas. This makes knowledge and platforms that provide them mandatory for dancers. However, a route that is determined by convenience and accessibility is often taken, given the scenario of limited opportunities and resources.
But is a knowledge-sharing platform relevant only to a dancer pursuing an academic path? Is it necessary after one has had a fair number of performance opportunities ? Is it possible that a little piece of knowledge might lead a splinter of a thought, to take shape into a choreographic vision? Would some of these platforms initiate the audience further into the art? Would the exposure lead to acceptance of other styles and schools of work and hopefully create a more progressive environment within the dance fraternity? In order to address some of these questions and hopefully to create many more necessary questions, a series of three articles will look at the knowledge-sharing platforms in Indian classical dance viz. conferences, festivals and workshops and present perspectives on curation, presentation and consumption of knowledge .
In today’s world of information overload, knowledge is all around us. However, according to the nature of the information, it needs to be discovered, validated, directed and connected to context, in one word, curated. The Natya Kala conference (NKC), one of the more consistent platforms with many eminent conveners and milestones over the last 37 years to its credit, has finally also achieved the most important of milestones — a sound and full audience for the morning conference, with Dr. Srinidhi Chidambaram as the convenor.
Choosing a theme
“Curation entails both the broader vision and the tiniest of details. The approach was to choose an overarching theme on what to address in terms of the concept, break it down to sessions and find the best person to present it. What has worked for me is the goodwill gained from being part of the dance fraternity for 40 years, which has allowed me to identify people and ask them for a specific contribution to the bigger theme. My medical and administration background helped to have regular reviews as part of the preparation and so did having ‘Aalaap’ as part of the team,” says Srinidhi.
An interesting addition to the conference was a session called, ‘Performing Sringaram’ by Priyadarsini Govind arranged at Amethyst. Right from visiting the relevance of parrots and messengers in today’s times, to male perspective, wit and humour, musicality and poetry, the conference left no stone unturned in the context of Sringara.
“The theme for the first year I convened the conference was the past, present and future of Bharatanatyam. To move beyond just the dance form, I picked an emotion ‘Sringaram,’ as the theme for the second year. Inspirations come largely from reading, poetry and painting and hence the respective representation in the conference,” explains Srinidhi on the choice of the theme and process of curation.
What would she suggest as an idealistic change/addition? Srinidhi says, “I would suggest the conference be taken out of the busy December season and moved to mid-January. It would also be good if the frequency of such conferences is increased.”
“Curation is also not merely about programming; it is also about re-visiting aspects of programming which include spaces and locales, timings and envisioning an event in a way that it is multi-dimensional and inclusive in its nature,” says Akhila Krishnamurthy, founder of Aalaap, about the process of creative collaboration with Srinidhi for the NKC. They deliberated upon the idea of NKC becoming a moving conference, which landed them on the session at Amethyst.
“ We believe that conferences like these provide us the opportunity to play with content and allow it to be expressed in ways that are out-of-the-box and enable conversations, aplenty, without any barriers. Ideas like these, are in a sense, reflective of the very premise of how Aalaap was born, to celebrate the classical and the contemporary in forms and formats that are new, engaging and accessible,” shares Akhila from an art management perspective on curation.
Curator, columnist and editor, AttenDance , Ashish Mohan Khokar, who earlier handled India’s biggest cultural exchange programme Festival of India, thinks that it is important for a curator to be grounded and know intrinsically various forms, levels of artistes and what will work and in which setting. He created ‘Dance DISCourse,’ an interactive dance forum for Alliance Francaise, Bangalore, and instituted the ‘AttenDance’ Awards for young talents that give them internships abroad. In the past seven years, these ‘Dance DISCourses’ have platformed over 800 dancers by letting audiences donate and be stakeholders.
“Curation also means an eye to detail and overall class. Commentary is important, as also is content notes. Comperes should be first rate, not aunts and nephews. Content is king but one must know how much salt to put in each dish. Or sugar,” adds Khokar.
The word “curate” has its origin associated with the entrustment of cure of souls to a cleric. Anita Ratnam pushes the metaphor into contemporary phrasing to say that an arts curator is in charge of the tastes and viewing palates of the public. From her experience of having curated, convened and headlined several dance-led conferences in India and around the world, including a recent seminar on curation, she says. “A curator in India also has to function as a producer, fund raiser, audience developer, cheerleader, hand-holder, psychologist, soothsayer among other responsibilities.”
The five dance conferences that she curated between 1999 and 2013 were all situated in the heart of the traditional Mylapore sabha circuit. She attempted to push the boundaries through ‘Purush,’ which drew from the growing LGBT debate and the criminalisation of Homosexuality with Article 377 in the Indian constitution. The Nirbhaya rape in 2012 happened a few days before the ‘Epic Women’ conference and was included in the daily round up and morning discussions.
“A curator has to earn the trust of the audience they are catering to, then the audience will be willing to try out the experience of a new viewing. Curating is much more than just cherry picking based on visuals. In India, curating is a devalued state, much like dance”, says Anita Ratnam pointing at the scope of dialogue on the subject.
(This series will have more pieces on festivals and workshops featuring conversations with dancers)
