28 Significant Issues for Contemporary Dancers in India Ranjana DAVe

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1 contents june SEPTEMBER 2017 VOLUME 68 NUMBER 4 Contemporary Dance in India edited by astad Deboo and Ketu H. KatrAK 14 Introduction AstAD Deboo and Ketu H. KatrAK 18 An Overview of Contemporary Dance in India LeeLA VenKAtaraman 28 Significant Issues for Contemporary Dancers in India Ranjana DAVe 34 Categorizing Dance: A Classic Case of Contemporary Confusion VikrAM Iyengar 44 Some Faces of Contemporary Dance in India Compiled by AstAD Deboo and Ketu H. KatrAK 52 Astad Deboo: Pilgrim, Pathfinder, Protagonist Ramaa BharADVAj 62 Neo Dance in India: A Personal Prism Anita Ratnam 68 Pedagogy, Performances, Festivals Contemporary as a Lens of Criticality Mandeep Raikhy Natya & STEM Dance Kampni, Bangalore Madhu Nataraj Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore Rowshini Karunanithi Prakriti Foundation, Chennai Ranvir Shah Curating Dance: NCPA, Mumbai Arundhathi Subramaniam An Online Resource: narthaki.com Lalitha VenKAt 82 Looking Ahead Padmini Chettur, Chennai Preethi Athreya, Chennai in conversation with rakesh khanna Surjit Nongmeikapam, Imphal profiled by james khangenbam Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy, Bangalore 90 Conclusion AstAD Deboo and Ketu H. KatrAK 92 Book Review Afloat a Lotus Leaf: Kapila Vatsyayan, A Cognitive Biography, by Jyoti Sabharwal Sunil Kothari 94 Contributors

2 Introduction Astad Deboo and Ketu H. Katrak This special issue of Marg probes the many features and challenges facing contemporary dance in India, prominent since the 1980s. What makes this style Indian? How does it differ from contemporary dance in the West which has its own history? How are classical Indian dance styles interwoven into contemporary choreography by India s performing artists? What are the unique innovations in movement, theme, costuming, music, multimedia 14 Marg Vol. 68 No. 4

3 and staging that are visible in this style today? Is contemporary dance in India a predominantly urban phenomenon as evident from the number of major practitioners residing in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata? How do emerging artists in this style train and accomplish cutting-edge work? How is this work supported financially? What are the available venues for contemporary dance in India? Contemporary Indian dancers have training in one or more of the eight recognized Indian classical dance styles, most commonly Bharatanatyam and Kathak, along with other training in modern dance and martial art forms. It remains a challenge for many young artists who wish to learn Western movement techniques, to find ways to bring them into a contemporary dance language in India. Many get this training from artists visiting from abroad, or by travelling abroad themselves to take short-term classes or workshops. This is often not adequate in providing the kind of rigorous training needed to fully integrate a style into one s body, and to demonstrate that with virtuosity in performance. Although there are dance organizations in India that provide training in contemporary dance to students, further immersion would result in a greater number of accomplished performers in this field. A diploma at the end of a short-term study, although a step in the right direction, is often inadequate. After all, our classical dance students take several years to master a particular style whether it is Bharatanatyam or Manipuri. Chandralekha created her works from within the Indian aesthetic and philosophical traditions, rejecting the external accoutrements of silk costumes and jewellery in her choice of brightly coloured cotton saris that her dancers performed in, right from her earliest work Angika to her final work Sharira. She focused on the body in unique ways, exploring male and female energies within each individual. Today s Indian contemporary dance often echoes Chandralekha s iconic choreography drawing from Bharatanatyam, Yoga and Kalaripayattu martial arts along with a growing hybridity of multiple movement vocabularies and interdisciplinary use of multimedia, masks, theatre techniques and visual art. Dancers weave together these performative elements, and arrive after many years at their signature choreographic styles. As Sanjoy Roy remarks, Contemporary dance is by its nature multifarious and many-headed unruly perhaps, but one that values freedom of thought and expression. 1 Contemporary dance showcases innovative use of space and staging (some site-specific work is noteworthy), costuming and lighting design. 1. Chandralekha performing Shakambhari, the opening sequence of her 1991 production Sri. Courtesy The Chandralekha Archive, SPACES, Chennai. Photograph: Bernd Merzenich. 2. Padmini Chettur in Beautiful Thing 2, Courtesy Singapore Arts Festival. Astad Deboo and Ketu H. Katrak Introduction 15

4 3. Writing on Water performed by students of Attakkalari at their 2016 Diploma Graduation show. Choreographer: Attila Egerhazi, Hungary. Photograph: Pratish Narayanan. Among these innovations, the necessity for a creative soundscape, different from the expected rhythms of Hindustani or Carnatic music that accompany classical Indian dance, is highly significant. Many performers create new soundscapes to accompany their movement by combining Western instruments, opera music, folk music, original compositions, along with imaginatively blended Hindustani and Carnatic sounds, at times akarams and alaps, or the recitation of bols and solkettus, altogether creating the aura and affect of a hybrid, even global sound. Some prominent artists in their movement choices remain close to the classical tradition, making changes in externals such as costuming, or an increased use of the floor as in modern dance. Others, like Padmini Chettur and Preethi Athreya do away with distracting Indianness conveyed via elaborate costumes and jewellery. Rather, in the interest of focusing on the physical body s structure and musculature, they select Western-style leotards and tights. This does not eschew their connection to being Indian even as they use abstract movement that can pulsate and engage the audience. Besides looking at these innovations in contemporary dance practice, the articles in this magazine also focus on specific institutions that showcase and support such work. Among these is the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore and the Gati Dance Forum, New Delhi. Besides educational programmes, these groups also organize annual events and competitions such as Attakkalari s Biennial: International Festival of Dance and Movement Arts (since 2000), and Gati s Ignite: Festival of Contemporary Dance (since 2010). Both the Biennial and Ignite aim to connect local performers with global artists, opening up spaces for interesting dialogue and collaborations. In addition to these two prominent venues, a new initiative called the Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards (PECDA) that was launched in 2012 in Chennai, also finds mention in the magazine. The idea of this biennial competition was fostered by Paris-based Kerala-born dance producer Karthika Nair along with Ranvir Shah of the Prakriti Foundation. This competition creates a climate where 16 Marg Vol. 68 No. 4

5 contemporary dancers, often working in isolation, can become part of an artistic community. Nair recognizes that there is a crying need for platforms to present new dance work in India so that it can be seen by promoters, critics and artists, both national and international. There is an even greater need for the dance community to be able to interact regularly. 2 Uniquely satisfying was the coming together of PECDA s contemporary Indian dance with its idiosyncrasies, transgressions and improprieties with tradition as embodied in the bastion of traditional Bharatanatyam, namely the Kalakshetra stage. Here, it bears recalling that Kalakshetra s founder Rukmini Devi was an innovator in her own right, someone who brought skills of lighting and stagecraft into her choreographic productions. A welcome addition to critical thinking about contemporary dance in India is Tilt Pause Shift: Dance Ecologies in India edited by Anita E. Cherian, that was published in November 2016 by the Gati Dance Forum in association with Tulika Books. 3 The publicity material from Gati notes that this book engages the knotty question of dance in today s India. It is an investigation of movement, and, in particular, of a marked subset of that dance. In its many peregrinations it seems to ask, what kind of movement is dance? Most pointedly, it performs the question: What is dance in India? And, relatedly, what is to dance in India? Taking off from these bigger questions, the contributors to this magazine delve into the more specific challenge of trying to define the term contemporary dance. Mandeep Raikhy (Managing Director of Gati) for instance remarks: We have rejected this term and are looking for a new way to describe it but haven t found an alternative yet. It s important for us to make sure we don t define its parameters and box people in or out as a result. 4 Some writers and dancers view contemporary as a reference to a particular period or style. Others also emphasize that contemporary dance in India must be seen as distinct from Bollywood-style dancing, a global contemporary phenomenon, with its own purposes, mainly to entertain. Bollywood dance does require skill and technique undertaken by youthful bodies moving at dizzying superfast paces, including Hip-hop and acrobatic movements that are impressive. Its performers are therefore different from contemporary Indian dancers who aim to make their audiences think and engage with a work s abstract movement or social themes that may not necessarily be entertaining, and may even make audiences uncomfortable in facing certain social realities. Rounding up these debates and discussions, we look ahead to the future evolution of contemporary Indian dance and the creativity of established and promising new artists. We have tried to feature a wide range of performers and productions but apologize for the ones who have been left out. Also, while we recognize the contribution of artists of Indian origin living in the the global South as well as North, we have chosen to focus on contemporary dancers, choreographers, curators and presenters based in India, who foster new creative choreography. 4. Nimmy Raphel in Nidrawathwam, Ignite Photograph: Sidharth Sarcar. NOTES 1 Sanjoy Roy, Something Afoot: Contemporary Dance in India, Pulse: South Asian Music and Dance 128 (Spring 2015). 2 Quoted by Roy, ibid. 3 The project was supported by Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council, Royal Norwegian Embassy, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and Raza Foundation. 4 Roy, Something Afoot. Astad Deboo and Ketu H. Katrak Introduction 17