‘Bharatanatyam is an inherently inclusive art’: Swarnamalya Ganesh

Swarnamalya Ganesh emphasises the need to re-contextualise the dance form.

May 05, 2016 09:50 pm | Updated 09:50 pm IST

Swarnamalya Ganesh

Swarnamalya Ganesh

At a time when the idea of dance mostly limits itself to the idea of performance, artiste Swarnamalya Ganesh is a breath of fresh air. Having been trained in Sadir as well as Bharatanatyam and being a dance historian as well as a choreographer, Swarnamalya’s ideas lead to a fresher, broader and contextualised perspective. Having received her doctorate in Dance History from the University of Madras, the Grantha and Chola Tamil scripts are not unfamiliar to her.

As part of the World Dance Day celebrations, organised by dancer Geeta Chandran’s Natya Vriksha Dance Company, Swarnamalya delivered a performance-cum-lecture series called From the Attic which showcased the lost repertoires through the centuries. “In a world where we are talking about increasingly partisan faith and antecedence, From the Attic becomes a concept that allows me to declare that Bharatanatyam is an inherently inclusive art. It is a hybrid of many cultures that we often are not aware of,” says Swarnamalya.

“I became a performer much before I became an academician. I decided on the path of research based on sheer curiosity and the need to question. Most of us, including me, do not see beyond our gurus. They are complete in the way they train us and we become full performers. But the fundamental curiosity about the origin of the art form led me to understand the faces and voices that prevailed behind this great dance form. For instance, Bharatanatyam and Sadir are two different things, one may claim. But they are essentially the same,” she elaborates.

Speaking of Bharatanatyam as a dance form, Swarnamalya states that there is an enormous disconnect between what existed in the 10th Century and now, a gap that needs to be bridged. “When I was researching, I was inquisitive in learning about what exactly is Sadir. The Cholas are one’s holy grail as a dance historian. But the immediate cultural memory which guides the Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam we witness today stems from the Nayak period, lasting beyond 200 years of rule. One can say that Bharatanatyam is 2000 years old but we cannot be sure of the form in which it existed because there is no documentation. The current form, however, has only existed for the past 450 years or so,” she claims.

“In today’s world, it is extremely relevant to place your dance in context, which is your way of bridging this gap and communicating with the audience. If one knows the context, one does not require subtitles. The reason Bharatanatyam has become so distant is because it is de-contextualised. As performers, we need to re-contextualise and make it the people’s art,” she adds. Swarnamalya runs the Ranga Mandira School of Performing Arts in Chennai which trains its students in dance, music, folk culture, apart from conducting heritage camps and site visits.

During her performance, Swarnamalya delivered choreographies in Tamil, Marathi, Persian and Telugu, with a brief contextualising and placement of the piece in history. “One may have observed that every item one performs these days, there is a need to explain the meaning of it in English to the audience, which was not required here because the context is clear, regardless the language. It is a simple art form in which everyone’s culture has a role to play,” underlines Swarnamalya.

With changing priorities and limited awareness, Bharatanatyam has become the art of the privileged, one that is closely connected to economics. “The privileged need to create space and look at making dance sustainable for everyone. When I interact with the traditional artistes, I realise that there is a need to reinstate their social status within their own community. Bringing them into the urban space is not enough, it means nothing to them,” she sums up.

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