She becomes the music as her body sways to the rhythm. Flamenco dancer Bettina Castaño’s lighting-like entry on stage is electrifying. She stamps her feet, swirls her skirts, flings her arms and tosses her head as she moves sinuously to the music. One moment she is flirtatious as she daintily taps her feet, the next moment she is aggression personified as she snaps her skirts, stomps her feet and dominates the stage with movements that cover the length and breadth of the performing space. Bettina conquers the stage yet again, but this time as Draupadi, the fiery, proud Pandava queen.
A trained Flamenco dancer from Seville in the south of Spain, “the home of the Flamenco,” Bettina was in the city to enact Draupadi, in a play directed and conceptualised by César Lorente Raton.
‘The Killing of Dussasana’, a melange of Kathakali and Flamenco, enacted the scene of Bhima slaying Dussasana, the Kaurava prince.
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Later, a few hours before flying back to Switzerland for back to back programmes, she talked about her career and artistic sensibilities, while Anand of Zenzerro restaurant and Cesar cooked a spicy Spanish omelette.
“When César approached me to act in this play, I tried to read up all that I could find on Draupadi and the Mahabharatha. She is a proud woman who is not willing to suffer meekly, the humiliation that she is forced to endure. I could understand her feelings and her sense of outrage. It is a play that talks about upholding the dignity of women. But I am not new to the rhythm and cadence of Kerala’s percussion music,” says Bettinna.
What makes Bettina different from the many leading performers of Flamenco is her willingness to experiment with new ideas, streams of music and art forms from different cultures.
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In fact, it was during one such fusion performance in Germany that thavil maestro Karuna Moorthy happened to see her recital. “I had choreographed a piece with Arabian percussionist Hakim Ludin and Karuna saw it. He invited me to design a piece with him and that was how ‘Pulse of India’ was created,” says Bettina.
Her scintillating performance with Karuna and chenda great Mattannoor Sankarankutty became a crowd-puller that also showcased the artistes’ ability to cross cultural and linguistic borders to create pieces that had universal appeal. Tapping to the rhythmic tapestry of Indian percussion required Bettina to tap in to the rhythmic base of flamenco and explore how to weave that to create aural images.
“Like Bharatanatyam, Flamenco has its own language and form. To transpose that to the beats of the chenda and thavil is not easy. I saw it as a challenge. The konnakkol – the language of the beats of Indian percussion – was used to create the rhythm for my performance,” says Bettina with a smile.
Using castanets, the stick, her arms, wrists and shoes, Bettina melds with the music to create riveting images on stage. She says it is because she is able to feel the music that becomes her muse. In fact, that is the tag line of her website. But perhaps that sense of rhythm is innate, being the child of musicians who send their daughter to learn the cello.
Her instinctive sense of rhythm and tune seems to be derived from that training. Later on, discovering that she had dancing feet she relocated to Spain, where her father hails from, to train in the Flamenco.
“I began learning the art form when I was six. That was in Switzerland. At the age of 18, I moved to Seville,” she says.
Music and any art form inspire her and so does emotions and life itself. That has motivated her to perform and choreograph pieces with musicians and artistes from all across the world, such as Turkey, Brazil, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Switzerland, and Germany.
She has also danced to the classical strains of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Bettina adds that she choreographed a piece involving six finalists of the Spanish version of the dance reality show So You Think You Can Dance last year. It was done in eight hours.
“I like different music streams from all over the world. I am sorry that life is not long enough to learn and create what I would like. It is happiness to dance with great musicians from all over the world. They inspire me,” she explains.
The omelette comes hot and fluffy from the skillet. Time to do a tango with Spanish flavours.