T he dance jatis are sent via email, sometimes through Whatsapp. D.V. Prasanna Kumar then jots them down in a script that he has devised. He goes through them, verbalises and practises the sollukattu (phrases of rhythmic syllables) and makes his way to the rehearsal room. There, he performs his designated role as a nattuvangam artist to a Bharatanatyam dancer and ensures that his recital of the sollukattu and the keeping of rhythm through cymbals matches the footwork of the dancer and enhances her performance. This routine is sometimes re-enacted for another dancer, possibly on the same day or week and most often involves reciting similar jatis or learning new ones to give voice to a variety of choreographies and dancers.
Prasanna belongs to the small, but significant group of professional artists that are today hired by dancers as freelance nattuvangam artists. An arrangement that was practically unheard of a few years ago, these artists came into existence fairly recently to cater to the increasing number of dance programmes dotting our cities. “It all began because dancers needed artists to fill in for a dance teacher who is not able to travel and do the nattuvangam for her student or because there are many students of the same teacher performing in different venues across the city,” says Preethi Bharadwaj, a Bharatanatyam dancer who also works on freelance nattuvangam assignments.
Nattuvangam today, therefore, is essayed by artists who hail from a variety of backgrounds: dancers-turned-nattuvanars, percussion artists as nattuvanars, singer-cum-nattuvanars and so on.
This is a significant development in the journey of classical dance, for traditionally, nattuvangam was never envisaged as a specialised art form—one that can be learnt separately. The reason for this is shrouded in Bharatanatyam’s own history. “It all goes back to the nattuvanar clan which can be traced to the oduvars back in the time of the Cholas,” says Nandini Ramani, a dance scholar and teacher based in Chennai. “Nattuvanars, originally were excellent choreographers who had complete mastery over laya, men who knew the grammar of music and dance. Most of them started out as singers. That they also used to conduct a dance programme was a natural outcome and an added skill,” she says. Dance historian Ashish Khokhar agrees with Ramani and adds, “Gurus and Nattuvanars were not separate people. Apart from choreography and dance training, they also maintained the rhythm at a performance. They would sing too. So naturally they kept their hands free, used cymbals to make the sollukattu audible to others—a reflex activity, intrinsic to the form itself.”
A glimpse of this tradition can be seen even today where it is still, on many occasions, the dance teacher who is the nattuvanar at a performance. “A teacher knows the entire composition, when to give the cue for the singer, can recognise the student’s mistakes if any—nattuvangam is akin to conducting a programme. You have to follow the dancer and lead the orchestra. The idea is to uplift the dancer’s performance,” explains Minal Prabhu, a Bharatanatyam teacher. “I don’t know when I learnt nattuvangam specifically. My parents were my dance teachers and my training in nattuvangam was part of my dance training. Apart from that, I also observed senior artists from the nattuvanar community. Any teacher of dance should know nattuvangam,” says Gayathri Keshavan, a veteran dance teacher.
In this context, how do we read the emergence of the new specialists of nattuvangam? “The truth is every dancer would prefer his or her teacher to be the nattuvanar. There is a comfort in knowing that your teacher is conducting the programme. Initially, I was apprehensive about being the nattuvanar for senior artists—there were hits and misses too. But since I’m a dancer, I can try to offer the comfort that a dancer needs while she is on stage,” says Preethi.
That said, not all freelance nattuvangam artists in the field today are dancers. Prasanna, for instance, is a mridangam, ghatam, morsing and khanjira exponent. And, he has been a nattuvanar for 15 years now. What is the perspective that he brings to the programme as a nattuvanar? Prasanna’s association with a particular dance production, for instance, begins sometimes at the conceptual stage itself, he says. “Not everyone is good at everything. Dancers ask us nattuvangam artists to create jatis for them. They describe their choreography and ideas and ask us to help with setting the jatis for the same. Nattuvangam’s sollukattu is based on a mridanga’s or broadly, a layavadya’s. A mridangist is likely to know this sollukattu well and his command on laya too is a given. The challenge, therefore, is to adapt it to enable the dancer to do the adavus and the jatis. Then the singer contributes his bit with the composition and raga. So, ultimately, the entire production is the child of a collaborative effort. Won’t the production itself gain more from so many diverse ideas and expertise? In my opinion, dance would become richer with so many expert inputs. And collaboration is the in-thing today,” feels Prasanna. Then there is also a need to present different and newer ideas on stage to attract audiences, say artists. The erstwhile simple dance jatis will no longer do and more complex ones are in demand and that is where these new specialists come to play a role, they say.
A reflection of the times
Naturally, there are advocates as well as critics that see the emergence of these specialists in opposing ways. Critics argue that this is a mere reflection of the time we live in, an age of excessive specialisation that is unavoidable. “Today, everything is broken down into smaller bits, there is a kind of segmentation that has happened that allows each of these sub-skills to be taught separately and pursued, perhaps,” says Khokar. “Back in the day, a nattuvanar would have composed the jatiswaram itself! He would play the mridangam, sing and do the nattuvangam—it was a complete skill. Today, instead of nattuvanars, there are tattuvanars. It is like how we have specialists for the jaw, the gum and so on,” says Ramani. “Take music recording today, for instance,” Khokar continues. “You can record your track today and fed-ex it. It is the age we live in. It will compensate and cover up the performance but may not contribute to the overall rasa,” he adds. Gayathri Keshavan feels that ultimately it is a choice. “I’m perhaps old-school. But I wouldn’t like to work on something for a few weeks or months and then move on to something else. The difference is between a flash of light and a burning lamp. My approach to dance is like the latter, a constantly growing engagement, not a periodic one,” she says.
Like Gayathri says, it is a matter of preference and often of logistical convenience as well.
“Some of these freelance artists are doing so well. Even if they are hired separately, they work with a lot of dedication and I’ve seen them give their hundred per cent,” says Minal Prabhu.
Prasanna and others like him have also taken efforts to institutionalise the art of nattuvangam. “We have tried to teach nattuvangam as part of the M.A. in dance programmes in colleges and through workshops. That it cannot be learnt is an absolute myth. Everyone can learn it. As a form of knowledge, it has immense scope to develop,” he says.
