Classical tradition views the arts as a single entity, with music lending structure to dance, and dance isolating itself through sculpture. Simultaneous manifestations of the human condition, these forms bounce off each other, creating and narrating history, completing each other’s sentences to form sustained trajectories over time. In a similar vein, the intrinsic connection between performance and painting sparked off a conversation between Bharatanatyam dancer Malavika Sarukkai and art historian B.N. Goswamy. They met at a painting workshop years ago, but have since been collaborating on several lecture presentations, the latest of which is titled, ‘ Conversing with the Gods ’.
The Guler Brothers
The illustrative presentation on Saturday evening places Vishnu at the centre of a diverse mythological landscape. Goswamy looks at the work of the Pahari painter Manaku of Guler. Active from the early to mid-18th century, Manaku came from a family of legendary painters; his younger brother Nainsukh is one of the most well-documented Pahari miniaturists. The older sibling had a penchant for mythological themes and is famous for the Gita Govinda folios (c. 1730), based on poet Jayadeva’s eponymous 12th-century Sanskrit love lyric. In this lecture, Goswamy elaborates on these folios and a few others from Manaku’s illustrations of the Bhagavata Purana .
Goswamy has spent a lifetime researching the Pahari school of painting, even publishing a comprehensive book on Nainsukh’s work titled Nainsukh of Guler . The historian and art critic is in awe of Manaku’s versatility, describing his ‘ Hiranyagarbha’ (The Cosmic Egg). The artwork depicts the seed of creation floating on turbulent primordial waters that ripple with finely lined concentric whorls of surf. The golden egg is textured, striking one’s eye as it seems to float above the grey waters.
Dance and art collide
Sarukkai layers Goswamy’s lecture with two narratives on Vishnu. She tells the story of Varaha, where Vishnu takes the form of a wild boar to retrieve the Earth from the depths of the ocean. She continues with the poetry of Andal, the eighth-century bhakti poet whose verse burns with the intensity of her love for Vishnu. Goswamy was drawn to Sarukkai’s ability to use his lectures as a springboard for her performances. “She would pick something up from the same theme, but take off on her own,” he says. “This resulted in two experiences of one theme for the audience. Indian tradition does not isolate the arts from each other; it facilitates a beautiful interconnectedness between them.”
The dancer is deeply invested in her work with an intensity that suffuses her experience of mentoring young dancers. Sarukkai doesn’t want an army of clones. She hopes, rather, to trigger in the dancers new ways of thinking about meaning and movement, and the ability to make choreographic decisions.
And it’s the sense of energy in Manaku’s paintings that draws Sarukkai to his work. “Bringing the visual detail of the painting into dance is a lifetime’s work,” she says. “I channel the energy of the painting. In this case, I see the swirling waters and the clash of titans. Also, as a soloist, recreating multiple characters can be very different. Can I recreate Manaku’s paintings? No. I can only energise the canvas of the stage and the space.”
In a presentation that is more a collaboration of ideas than forms, the audience begins to play a crucial role in negotiating affect and cohesion. The end result is enriching after hearing a lecture and watching a choreography that expresses it in another dimension. It reinforces an interdisciplinarity of the arts. “The transience of dance is a moment that impacts you or leaves you, but which hopefully stays.”
For Sarukkai, such poignancy comes through in the poetry of Andal. Bursting with blazing desire and intense longing, Andal’s words settle on the soul like a tapestry of paper cuts. Interspersing common Sanskrit verses drawn from temple worship with Andal’s Tamil poetry, Sarukkai finds a personalised approach to the divine, marrying formal temple tradition and informal mystical abandonment.
Viraha , or longing, is something Sarukkai has had a long acquaintance with as a classical dancer. Yet, channelled through Andal, it feels different. “She speaks to the clouds, addressing them as thoodu (messenger), as she asks them to embrace the hill that Perumal (a name for Vishnu) sits on. Dancing Andal somehow takes away all the separation.”
Conversing with the Godswill be held at the NCPA on Saturday. Tickets between Rs. 200 and Rs. 750.
