When you meet Alarmel Valli, you understand what the term ‘thinking artist’ truly means. On stage, her movement and expression reflect her rare understanding of Bharatanatyam as an art. Off stage, her articulation of the creative process and the essence of the dance style connects her to cultures and people across the globe.
Her belief in the timelessness and wholesome appeal of the Margam have led her to explore the repertoire for new interpretations.
Trained under Pandanallur Chokkalingam Pillai and his son Subbaraya Pillai, she mastered the musicality of the art form under the legendary T. Muktha. Valli has performed at prestigious venues such as the Salzburg Festival, Bolshoi Theatre, Theatre De La Ville, Avignon Festival, Vienna International Dance Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Royal Albert Hall, Helsinki Biennale and Israel Festival. She has won applause for her impeccable technique and coveted awards for her constant endeavour to take Bharatanatyam to a wider audience.
At home, Valli is seen as an artist who lends dynamism to tradition, making it relevant to the changing times. The sabhas are where her artistry has evolved, while the rasikas, her source of inspiration and energy.
Over the past four years, she has also taken on the role of a curator with the Bani festival that opens this year (in collaboration with alap) on October 14. “It gives you an opportunity to showcase something that interests you; touches your heart,” says Valli. “Bani does not limit itself to styles. It is a personal engagement with art. It is my way of acknowledging all that I have got from it. Through this festival, I wish to explore many fascinating aspects of dance and music. This time it is colour,” she adds.
This week, as the guest of our column, ‘Ásk the Artist’, Alarmel Valli answers questions sent in by readers.
During the course of a performance, at some point of time do you get lost? If at all it happens, how do you come back to the reality?
R.N. Mythili, Chennai
It’s all too easy to lapse into cliches while speaking of the experience of the sacred in dance and a question like this, with philosophical and metaphysical connotations, is therefore not easy to answer. But I’ll try.
I remember an occasion, decades ago, when I was performing the Gopalakrishnan Bharathi song, ‘Enneramum undan sannidiyil irukkavendum aiyyaa’, in front of the Nataraja sannidhi in Chidambaram. Halfway through the song, the thirai which had been closed, was flung open. The aarti began; the bells started to ring. Around me, everything seemed to dissolve — the crowd, the music, the sound of the bells, even the movements of the dance — and merge into an experience I can never describe. I ceased to be aware of myself and all that was around me. Then, suddenly, I came to myself and found tears rolling down my cheeks. The bells had fallen silent and the curtains of the sanctum were once again closed. What was strange was that I had obviously continued dancing through the experience. Only, I hadn’t been aware of it.
Such exultant moments, where there is a merging of the dancer and the dance are rare. But on the other hand, when you dance with truth and devotion, you frequently experience a heightened state of awareness and the sublime joy that comes from total immersion in the dance. I guess it can be described as ‘getting lost’, though I like to think that it’s when I dance that I actually ‘find myself’.
On the subject of ‘reality’, in performance, you could say there’s a dual reality. There is on the one hand, the physical space around me, the musicians that I am continuously interacting with, the audience with whom I share a rapport. On the other, there is the world of imagination that unfolds, which is equally real to me during the performance. I find nothing discordant about inhabiting and traversing both.
On a different note, you could also say a dancer is ‘lost’, when she begins to believe she is greater than her art. In dance, where the body is the medium of expression with which, and on which you create, there is this very real danger.
You always look so ...young and agile.
Cathy Regis, Chennai
Thank you. Dance can certainly keep you young at heart, even if not indefinitely, young in body.
How can dance — the universal language, unite the world? Could you share an interesting experience/an anecdote in this context?
T.S. Karthik, Chennai
Whether dance can unite the world, given the complexity of our current problems and seemingly irreconcilable differences, is a moot point. But I have no doubts about the fact that dance has the power to healand unite. Decades of dancing across the world, in varied spaces, ranging from village squares to opera houses, has only reaffirmed and strengthened my conviction.
A year or so after the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, when anger still ran high between our peoples, I was travelling with my parents, performing In Europe. In those days, there were, as yet, very few immigrants from the subcontinent. A young man in the audience, seemingly an Indian, came up after the performance and with great warmth, insisted on inviting us to dinner at his home. He kept exclaiming over and over again in Hindi. ‘I am so happy. The dance made me feel I was back home, amidst my family.’ I remember how surprised and touched we were, when we discovered that home for him, was Lahore and he was in fact a medical student from Pakistan, studying in Amsterdam. The memory of the meal he cooked for us in his minuscule basement apartment is one that I will always cherish.
I have also often spoken of my experience, decades ago, dancing in a tiny mountain village in Italy, where an elderly woman knelt at my feet with tears in her eyes, thanking me for quickening once again, her faith in the divine, which, as our Italian interpreter explained, had been shaken by a terrible tragedy in her life. Considering I had presented a traditional Margam, complete with a varnam, none of which she could have understood, it speaks volumes for the ability of our classical dance to touch, at the most profound levels.
There have been several such occasions, when I have seen the magic that dance can work, even on those who had a less than favourable opinion of India. For, our dance can communicate and touch at many levels — physical, intellectual, emotional and ultimately, spiritual.
To be continued...
