Joining the dots with dance

This year’s edition of the Mudra Dance Festival emphasises the deep connections between dance and other forms of artistic expression

April 12, 2018 08:56 pm | Updated April 13, 2018 03:22 pm IST

Odissi by Sujata Mohapatra on the poetry of Jayadeva and Salabega during Mudra Festival of Dance and Bhakti Poetry at Experimental Theatre,NCPA on 25/04/2013.

 Photo by : NARENDRA DANGIYA

Odissi by Sujata Mohapatra on the poetry of Jayadeva and Salabega during Mudra Festival of Dance and Bhakti Poetry at Experimental Theatre,NCPA on 25/04/2013. Photo by : NARENDRA DANGIYA

The concept of pratityasamutpada (interdependent co-arising) is central to Indian philosophy emphasising on the interrelationships between a chain of causes; a transformation in one element can impact the entire chain, illustrating the causality that governs human life. The arts are similarly interlinked in their imagination; for instance, classical dance doesn’t emphasise on movement alone, but situates itself within a framework of influences that include sculpture, painting, literature, and music. At the Mudra Dance Festival this year, these ideas manifest themselves in the notion of ‘oneness’, where everything comes together because it is interconnected. These connections are then made between forms of art and in the philosophical imagination of the dancer as a coming together of the mind, body and soul. What the festival seeks to discover is the moment at which one arrives at these connections or is made aware of them.

Mudra kicked off last week with a series of lecture demonstrations around the city. Over the next week, the festival includes performances and workshops by a range of artists from classical and contemporary practices. The participating choreographers and artists include Bharatanatyam dancers Sanddhya Purechha, Lata Surendra, and Priyadarsini Govind – each of whom bring solo or group performances to the festival, contemporary dancer Astad Deboo, who collaborates with rudra veena player Mohi Bahauddin Dagar, Kathak exponents Uma Dogra and Aditi Mangaldas, Odissi dancer Sujata Mohapatra and Kathakali exponent Sadanam Balakrishnan.

Bound by imagination

The first day of performances, April 13, includes works by Purechha, Deboo and Surendra. Purechha and her troupe perform The Speed. Pureccha works with the charis (gaits) specified in the Natyasastra and Abhinaya Darpana which specify different ways of moving across space in connection or opposition to gravity, or as distinct stylised gaits ( sarana – leech-like, or kuttana – by pounding or striking the floor with emphasis). Pureccha explained that the piece would be performed by dancers taking on the personas of mythological performer figures like apsaras and gandharvas. She says, “Paintings and sculpture are like rocks. How does one find the speed or the movement in these still images? Therefore, how does one illustrate these connections between sculpture and dance?”

For young students, Purechha emphasises, these connections to sculpture and painting are often not crucial to the study of dance.

To broaden the scope of learning, she organises tours for her students, travelling to places like Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, where the Nataraja temple is a key visual repository of the Bharatanatyam physicality.

On the same evening, Mumbai-based dancer Lata Surendra presents Sethu , a collaboration that emphasises on a philosophy of interconnectedness in the arts. “When we look beyond and outside, we come face-to-face with our smallness, but with awareness, we realise the inner sky. A drop of water reflects the characteristics of the entire ocean. (On realising this), you then become a living bridge – a sethu – one that has existence flowing from you,” she said about her choreographic vision.

Surendra’s collaborators include Manipuri dancer Latasana Devi, Kathak dancer – duo Sunil Sunkara and Mayur Vaidya, and soloist Tina Tambe with her students, sattriya dancer Prateesha Suresh, contemporary dancer Deep Mehta, and Bharatanatyam dancer Asha Sunilkumar, accompanied by their troupes. Surendra’s students also perform alongside her.

Visual poetry

The second weekend of the festival sees Priyadarsini Govind dancing in Sahahridaya. Govind uses the Bharatanatyam margam to illustrate the connections that dance forms with society, music, rhythm and sculpture.

For instance, she treats the alarippu , the first piece of her performance, as a space to explore a seven-count rhythmic cycle and illustrate the various ways in which dance speaks to rhythm, as opposed to merely being complicit in the act of keeping time as a dancer. Her tillana, the concluding piece of the performance, which is a pure dance piece accompanied by a musical landscape of notes or sung rhythmic syllables, is dhrupad-inspired, infusing a flavour of the gravity and majesty of this Hindustani musical tradition into her Bharatanatyam movement. “Each composition is seen as movement through the lens of a particular concept rather than looking at merely an alarippu or thillana. Dance is visual poetry. Through dance, you can explore space, understand lines in the sculpture. The physical dimensions of the form don’t restrict this kind of engagement,” says Govind.

On the final evening of the festival, which features two performances, Delhi-based Aditi Mangaldas presents her solo, Widening Circles. The piece draws from several references, including the idea of pratityasamutpada and poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke and Rabindranath Tagore. Mangaldas treats the blossoming lotus as a metaphor to traverse the interconnected circles of the universe – as inscribed by the sun, moon and earth – in an essentialist interpretation of the theme. Mangaldas’ company is regularly invited to stage group productions, giving her an equal experience of the solo and group formats of performance. What are the relationships she then traces, in the absence or presence of other bodies on stage? Playing the dual yet overlapping roles of dancer and choreographer, Mangaldas often finds that she enables separate strands of presence and performativity for herself, even within group work. This sometimes tends to happen when the pieces stem from an autobiographical enquiry – such as her preoccupation with aging in her recent production, Inter_rupted .

With classicism and stylisation in dance practice often being reduced to extremely insular notions, Mudra perhaps offers us an opportunity to reflect on the porosity of the arts. In emphasising a history of treating the arts as linked, interdependent forms of practice, there may be space to think of ways in which dance can be imbued with the spirit of ‘opening it’, of curiosity and a willingness to engage with the unknown.

The Mudra Dance Fetsival 2018’s performances are scheduled for this evening, 21 and 22; for more details on the festival check bookmyshow.com

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