An ode to Protima Bedi and Nrityagram

Twenty years after Odissi exponent Protima Bedi’s demise, her vision and dream live on at Nrityagram, the dance village she set up in the 90s

March 17, 2018 03:40 pm | Updated March 18, 2018 01:53 pm IST

Bijayini Satpathy taking a class at Nrityagram.

Bijayini Satpathy taking a class at Nrityagram.

The aborigines of Kakadu, an Australian province, believe life began when a woman, Warramurrungundji, emerged from the sea and created a space with trees and streams. She then taught the people who inhabited the space to paint on rock. After her job was done, Warramurrungundji turned into a stone.

Nrityagram in Hesaraghatta near Bengaluru has a similar story. Of Protima Bedi, who turned a barren 10-acre patch given to her by the Karnataka government in the late 80s into a village where Indian classical dances could thrive. Once she built and nurtured it, she left for Kailash Mansarovar, where a landslide killed her in August 1997.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

Hesaraghatta may not be as barren now. But the road to get there — through the hubbub of suburban real estate activity that tries to accommodate a swelling Bengaluru and then through a stretch of ochre-tinted soil — has hints of that barrenness.

Act of refinement

At the entrance to Nrityagram stands a stoic sculpture of three women holding a pitcher. On the stone pathway that leads inside, lined with pale ferns, walks a girl dressed in practice attire. There is a graceful silence around, broken only by the intermittent sounds of a dance class in session.

Bijayini Satpathy is taking her regular morning Odissi class for resident and workshop students. Her students take postures of Swastika, Kumbha, Chauka (leg positions in Odissi). Just before that, they practise the torso movement that accompanies the tribhangi (body bent at three spots) posture. All of these seem picture perfect. But for Bijayini, the eyes can do a lot more talking. “What about the intent in your eyes,” she asks a student.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

Nrityagram stands for perfection, according to senior teachers Bijayini and Surupa Sen. “When I came here in 1993, I had already trained for 12 years. But what I had learnt matched what the then students of Nrityagram had learnt in their three years here,” Bijayini, who now manages the training at the village, says. “It is about refining what you learn over and over.”

Nrityagram’s birth in 1990 is a story of passion, a leap of faith, and, as Protima herself said, ‘destiny’. Kathak exponent Daksha Sheth, who joined Protima for about four months when Nrityagram was being built, says: “At first, there was nothing; we stayed in tents and a caravan. There were just four ‘mad’ people — Protima, my husband Devisarro, the architect Gerard Da Cunha, and I — building, planting trees and working.”

To make Nrityagram a reality, Protima (as she said in an interview a few years before her death) turned herself into a labourer. She became Protima Gauri, shedding her old surname and taking on the one given to by her guru, Kelucharan Mohapatra, who had helped transform her from an unfettered soul with a penchant of notoriety into a dancer for whom her art was nothing less than worship.

Protima’s natural cheer fetched Nrityagram many friends, funds and goodwill. Her meeting with Shankar Nag and his Malgudi team led to a deep friendship with Nag and his wife Arundhati. To Hesaraghatta villagers, she was ‘Gauri amma’. Dance exponents like Mohapatra, Mohiniyattam veteran Kalyanikutty Amma, and Kathak expert Kumudini Lakhia came to teach at the village. She even reached out to the villagers, taking free classes for the children. The community’s outreach programmes gave Nrityagram one of its stellar ensemble performers, Pavithra Reddy.

As Nrityagram grew, Protima took its work overseas. The challenge was to present classical dance forms as an immersive yet pleasurable art to the MTV generation. Soon, Nrityagram’s ensemble performances began to be noticed and much appreciated. The school’s Vasantahabba, Bengaluru’s first all-night festival, held to coincide with the onset of spring, became the art aficionado’s staple.

And then in August 1998, the Malpa landslide claimed Protima’s life. “After her death, there were many questions about Nrityagram’s future,” says Lynne Fernandes, now the managing trustee of Nrityagram Trust. She still remembers the day she got the news of the accident. “I rushed to the spot. Here, at Nrityagram, the press was at the gates. Arundhati had to come over to stay with the girls.”

For Lynne, Protima’s death was a personal loss. She had come to Nrityagram to help during one of the Vasantahabba fests. And when she finally moved in, Protima wanted her to manage the show.

“I couldn’t let Nrityagram go; it was one of Protima’s purest parts,” says Lynne, recalling the press conference held after Protima’s death. “I told them if anyone wants to take over, they can. Nrityagram is more about its people than the land.” The rumours died slowly. Nrityagram was left alone.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

Scenes from Nirtyagram.

With Lynne at the helm, and Bijayini and Surupa in charge of training and art, Nrityagram chugged forward. “Surupa and I literally deconstructed Odissi down to independent units of movement. Our dance had to be flawless; it had to be our style,” says Bijayini.

Surupa probably gained the most from this unlearning. Her craft soared and gained a masterly finesse that helped her translate abstract ideas into chiselled movements. Her choreography, starting from Sri in 2000 to the recent Sriyah , bears an architectural character. The use of space and pieces with lines and forms while being loyal to the technique weave simple designs that transform the stage from a performance venue into a surreal experience.

Surupa says she works with the essence more than the content. “It is about aligning myself with the art and its deep connect to life and nature. We then begin to speak in a simple language the audience can understand because it is the essence that is being conveyed,” she says.

But to get to that simplicity, it takes complete submission to the art. Surupa’s story is one of such submission. She came to Nrityagram in 1990 as one of its first students. “I never left,” she says, recalling the number of buses she had to change before reaching Nrityagram from her home in Delhi.

Body and soul

Those who collaborate with Nrityagram claim the experience frees their mind from set patterns. “Surupa opens you inside out as she choreographs,” says Heshma Wignaraja, art director of Sri Lanka-based Chitrasena Dance Company. Heshma calls the eight months she spent with Nrityagram to produce Samhara her transformative phase. According to some Lankan dance critics, Samhara opened a new chapter for Chitrasena Dance Company, set up by Heshma’s grandparents to reinvent the traditional Lankan dance form of Kandyan.

In Samhara , the sensuous grace of Odissi comes face-to-face with the vigour of Kandyan. The art forms are presented as challenging yet subtly complementing each other. “When Bijayini and Surupa dance together, it’s the same feel one gets. One is the body, and the other the soul,” says Arundhati.

Surupa’s compositions form part of ensemble performances, a Nrityagram hallmark, which have fetched the community global acclaim. For two consecutive years, 2015 and 2016, the performances were listed in The New York Times under The Best Dance of the Year. Reviewers call it one of India’s most sought-after dance companies.

Yet back home, Nrityagram faces the occasional odds. Like last year, when there were reports of a possible takeover by the Karnataka government as part of its culture policy. “I preferred to not comment on it. Later, some newspapers carried reports denying the news,” says Lynne.

Over the years, Nrityagram had to close the other dance gurukuls it ran and focus only on Odissi because of a shortage of teachers. Also, Vasantahabba had to be stopped after 2005. “We need ₹25 lakh to organise it,” Lynne says. But Nrityagram’s other annual cultural event is still a crowd-puller.

Apart from the outreach and resident programmes, the teachers travel to Bengaluru once or twice a week for city classes. The village also opens its doors to those who want to know about a life lived in tandem with nature and dance. There are short-term workshops for professionals, children and enthusiasts, and writer residency programmes.

As one leaves the village, the sculpture of the three women no more seems just an artefact but speaks of Nrityagram’s journey so far. “Protima used to say the land’s destiny was to become Nrityagram,” Surupa recalls. And Bijayini, Lynne and Surupa made Nrityagram theirs.

aparna.sg@thehindu.co.in

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