ISSN 2455-7250 Vol. XVII No. 2April - June 2017

Features:

Dance for Camera&

ABU InternationalDance Festival

A Quarterly Journal of Indian Dance

Sahrdaya Arts TrustHyderabad

A Quarterly Journal of Indian Dance

Volume: XVII, No. 2 April-June 2017

For all editorial enquiries, sending manuscripts, details of subscriptions, and past issues please visit www.nartanam.inRegistered Office: Sahrdaya Arts Trust, 508, Dwarakamai Apartments, Srinagar Colony Post, Hyderabad- 500073

Email: editornartanam@gmail.com, sahrdayaarts@gmail.comPhone: 9989314829, 9000020879 website: www.nartanam.in

Annual Subscription:In India: Individual: ` 1000 Institutional: ` 2000Overseas: Individual: US $ 60 Institutional: US $ 80(All Inclusive of postage)

Note: Students in India can avail of 25% discount on

individual subscriptions)

Printed and published by Madhavi Puranam on behalf of Sahrdaya Arts Trust, Hyderabad Printed at Karshak Art Printers, 40-APHB, Vidyanagar, Hyderabad-500044. (Ph:27618261) and published at Hyderabad.

Editor: Madhavi Puranam

RNI No. APENG2001/04294ISSN 2455-7250

Chief EditorMadhavi Puranam

Past issues can be obtained from our office@ ` 350/- per copy for individuals

@ ` 500/- per copy for instiutions

(Inclusive of postage in India; Subject to availabil-

ity; Please check with the office.)

FoundersG. M. Sarma

M. Nagabhushana Sarma

Anuradha Jonnalagadda (Scholar, Kuchipudi dancer)

Avinash Pasricha (Former Photo Editor, SPAN)

C.V. Chandrasekhar (Bharatanatyam Guru, Padma Bhushan)

Kedar Mishra (Poet, Scholar, Critic)

Kiran Seth (Padma Shri; Founder, SPIC MACAY)

K. K. Gopalakrishnan (Critic, Scholar)

Leela Venkataraman (Critic, Scholar, SNA Awardee)

Mallika Kandali (Sattriya dancer, Scholar)

Pappu Venugopala Rao (Scholar, Former Associate D G,American Institute; Secretary, Music Academy)

Reginald Massey (Poet, FRSA & Freeman of London)

Sunil Kothari (Scholar, Padma Shri & SNA Awardee)

Suresh K. Goel (Former Director General, ICCR)

Advisory Board

Cover, Design & LayoutShakeel Ahmed

Cover Photo:Participants at the Asia-PacificBroadcasting Union InternationalTelevision Dance Festival

Nartanam, founded by Kuchipudi KalaKendra, Mumbai, now owned andpublished by Sahrdaya Arts Trust,Hyderabad, is a quarterly which providesa forum for scholarly dialogue on abroad range of topics concerning Indiandance. Its concerns are theoretical as wellas performative. Textual studies, dancecriticism, intellectual and interpretativehistory of Indian dance traditions are itsfocus. It publishes performance reviewsand covers all major events in the fieldof dance in India and notes and commentson dance studies and performancesabroad.

The opinions expressed in the articlesand the reviews are the writers’ own anddo not reflect the opinions of the editorialcommittee. The editors and publishersof Nartanam do their best to verify theinformation published but do not takeresponsibility for the absolute accuracyof the information.

PatronEdward R. Oakley

Chief ExecutiveVikas Nagrare

All articles, photographs and other materials, appearing in Nartanam, whether in whole or in part, in any form are

exclusive copyright of Sahrdaya Arts Trust unless otherwise specified, and may not be reproduced in any form or stored

in any electronic or retrievable format without prior written consent.

Photo Courtesy: Doordarshan and

K. K. Gopalakrishnan

NARTANAMVolume: XVII, No. 2 April-June 2017

CONTENTS

Editorial/ 6

Dance in a New LightKAMALINI DUTT / 9

What classical dancers can learn from film danceV. A. K. RANGA RAO / 47

Trials of choreographing for Indian filmsILEANA CITARISTI / 51

Photo Feature - Abu Dance Festival/56

On Building a Virtual Cultural EquityARSHIYA SETHI / 63

On the Platter of ABU International Television Dance FestivalMADHAVI PURANAM / 70

ABU International Dance Festival: An ExperienceVIKAS NAGRARE / 90

Photo Feature - Abu Dance Festival/95

Uparupakas and Nritya-PrabandhasV. RAGHAVAN / 98

A Nachni and her Rasik: a dancing community of Purulia (West Bengal)SVETLANA RYZHAKOVA / 116

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Delhi Diary / 128SPIC MACAY’s tryst with India’s cultural heritage / 141

LEELA VENKATARAMAN

BOOK REVIEWS

1. BUNCH OF JAVALIS / 2011/ Pappu Venugopala Rao2. FRAGRANCE OF PADAMS / 2015/ Pappu Venugopala Rao

V. A. K. RANGA RAO / 145

Nartanam6

EDITORIAL

On 5 July 2017 Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the IV InternationalSPIC MACAY Convention in Delhi. He, most aptly, spoke very highly of KiranSeth and his single minded devotion in sensitizing the youth of the country to itsclassical arts for 40 years. An incomparable crusade. Classical arts should be anintegral part of holistic education and a movement like SPIC MACAY shouldhave been steered by the government itself through its ministry and institutions.Kiran Seth is a unique individual and we at Nartanam are fortunate to have himas our sage adviser.

The strength of SPIC MACAY is its model of taking great arts and artists tothe young in the intimate atmosphere of their schools and colleges. Its backboneis the network of volunteers who run this amazing movement. However, itsAchilles’ heel is the volunteers’ deep-rooted feeling that they are the guardians ofIndian culture and most others are ignoramuses. This tragic sense of ego oftenunderlies their behaviour. “Selfless service” degenerates to "possessiveness” andthis does not permit new blood to sprout and bloom. This inhibits growth involunteerism which the movement desperately needs at this hour. This is anexample of the “Vagaries of Human Nature,” as Bertrand Russell would have putit. The second Achilles’ heel is the unnecessary deviation from SPIC MACAY’score strength of immaculate small modules to big, not so well organized, internationalconventions.

Having said so, I do not wish to undermine SPIC MACAY for it is the onlymovement in India that has the potential to integrate culture into the country’seducation system. This is precisely why it is important to ponder on the following:Artists, spectators and volunteers who are closely associated with great art surelymust experience some elevation in their personas and reach a higher state wheretrivialities of ego like “mine’, “done by me”, “I am the saint who will lead you tolight” etc. are shed.

For me watching Kalyanasougandhikam in Kathakali or Bhamakalapam inKuchipudi is enough to cleanse me of any vestiges of vanity and ego, which ofcourse have the special quality of raising their ugly head every now and then.Even the invocation before the Kuchipudi recital, Amba Paraku, is adequate to

Nartanam 7

energize my being with positive energy and ideals. The effect stays for a whilebefore it wears off and all I have to do is to revisit great performances. It keepsme under check.

Now moving on to other concerns, plagiarism is a great danger in dance writing.We at Nartanam have faced it from time to time and have discovered to our utterdisbelief that it is taken very lightly by some writers who palm it off as a mereoversight in not referencing or quoting others’ writing. It’s high time that plagiarismis treated as a most serious wrong-doing. It is, in fact, criminal theft of intellectualproperty.

The revered scholar Bharat Gupt informs us that the government has appointeda nine-member committee under space scientist Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan’sleadership to prepare the final draft for the New Education Policy (NEP). Thepanel has been asked to begin work immediately. However, incredulously, thepanel does not possess a single Sanskrit expert, artist, musician or philosopherthus excluding Arts and Humanities in toto. Today, when almost everyone of thereigning regime in the country professes to delve deep into our ancient past at thedrop of a hat, the NEP is all set to ignore and bypass this country's immensecontribution to world culture. This will only harm the NEP.

The Indian Council for Historical Research held its first ever conference onthe History of Dance, in May 2017 in Chennai. This suggests that History ofDance has never been considered an important enough subject for historicalresearch. Incredible! No wonder we at Nartanam come across conflicting datesof birth for a particular maestro upon which the immediate family and even his/her disciples or contemporaries cannot shed much light. Reliable records areimpossible to obtain. Often the bio data of Sangeet Natak Akademi awardeesare incomplete and very sketchy and one wonders on what basis the awardswere discussed and evaluated. Oral history, fables, tales and conjectures aboundin so-called Indian dance history.

Nartanam had to initiate its first ever legal proceedings in the sixteen years ofits existence against a government institution, the Kuchipudi Natyaramam in AndhraPradesh for unduly pending dues to Nartanam and many Kuchipudi artists. It isinteresting to note that an ambitious institution/project like the KuchipudiNatyaramam has no executive committee or a general council and its constitutionand operations are not clear while its chairman seems to be unanswerable to anyauthority above him. Incidentally, the Natyaramam aspires to be a Mecca of artslike the Kalamandalam and the Kalakshetra.

Nartanam8

An important feature of this issue is the focus on “Dance for Camera.” In thiscontext we present a review of the inaugural Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union(ABU) International Television dance festival, which took place in Hyderabad.This was mounted by ABU with Prasar Bharati, the Telangana government andDoordarshan as the organizing partners.

How is dancing for the camera different from just archiving or recording dancefor academic purposes? The way a camera can move, shoot and use lightingmakes the foreground and background important spaces where dance can beexecuted. The way every shot is conceived and the editing which makes the finalproduct, which is the dance viewed on a screen, all are points of interest. Candance for camera capture something beyond a live performance or even add toit? How is shooting dance for movies different? The human eye has itsshortcomings; it can only see in ‘sharp cuts’. The camera, thanks to technology,can zoom in and zoom out putting us at an advantage when viewing a dancepresentation. A cameraman can exploit this technical innovation to bring aboutincreased appreciation of the art of dance. However, in order to do so both thedancer/choreographer and the technicians of the camera, lights, sets, etc. andabove all the producer and director curating and managing the production need tounderstand the subject. This issue of Nartanam makes interesting reading on allthe above-mentioned areas of discussion with Kamalini Dutt, a veteran ofDoordarshan, opening the issue with her article written from decades of studyand experience.

Another special feature of this issue is the article "Uparupakas and Nritya-Prabandhas" by the great scholar V. Raghavan. It is of great relevance todaywhile debates rage as to what is a classical form and what is owned by whichregion/state. The article enlightens us with the knowledge of how rich the ancientIndian stage was with numerous forms of performances in its repertoire. The artof dance was a flowing tradition adding new forms and the emergence, andestablishment of the desi to even surge beyond the margi completes the picture.Every form in the repertoire is a fragrant flower in the bouquet. Every state orcountry has a vibrant variety of art forms enriching its culture and all forms areimportant irrespective of being classical or otherwise.

We would like to inform our readers of the “Nartanam Conclave” which isdue to take place between 5-8 October, 2017 with a variety of seminars anddance productions as its main features. One may check on our websitewww.nartanam.in and our Facebook page for updates. We also announce ourefforts to bring out the Kindle version of Nartanam very soon.

Madhavi Puranam

Nartanam 9

In a recent event at Sangeet Natak Akademi where I talked on "Power ofclose up facilitated by camera", a member of the audience commented on a clipwhich showed beautiful netra abhinaya (expression of eyes) of legendaryKalamandalam Krishnan Nair. "Kathakali used to be magical in the traditionaltorch light where the flames added so much to the evocative mukhabhinayam.The static studio light has robbed that magic from the Kathakali experience," hesaid. While I agreed with his comment, my thoughts went back to the beginningof the 20th century. Audio recording technology had just arrived in India. The firstrecording was done by Gramophone Company from London in the year 1902.Gauhar Jaan sang for this recording. The wax records could accommodate onlythree minutes. The recording equipment was very primitive. The singer had topush her head into a cylinder and sing the whole song at one stretch. Any mistake,the wax disc had to be destroyed and a new attempt was made. Each disc costmore than Rs 300 which was a huge amount at that time.

The microphone changed the way we sing and hear music. In fact, VeenaDhanammal refused to record for AIR as she did not like the sound of her Veenathrough the mike and the reproduction of the recording. Technology compromisesthe organic quality of art but due to reasons we all know too well, we have cometo terms with technology. However it is constantly improving. Now the audioreproduction is very close to the original. Every microtone is truthfully recorded

Dance in a New LightKAMALINI DUTT

KAMALINI DUTT is the former Director of Doordarshan National Archives. She was withDoordarshan for four decades and specialized in making programmes on classical dance and music.A student of Guru Lakshmikantam of Tanjore and Guru Sikkil Ramaswamy Pillai, she has had anactive performing career in Bharatanatyam for over two decades. She is also a post graduate in Hindiliterature. With her knowledge of dance and her expertise with the technique of camera she hasproduced memorable dance programmes for Doordarshan. Presently, Kamalini Dutt is trainingsenior students in Bharatanatyam and regularly lectures on arts, aesthetics and media in variousinstitutions.

Nartanam 47

The dance seen on the silver screen, even if it has the accoutrements of classicaldance, is only a distant cousin of the real thing. There are many reasons. For onething, if classical dance of any kind is presented as it is on screen, it will stick outlike a sore thumb. One example is from Kinare Kinare (l963, Hindi). To save oncosts, producer Nyaya Sharma and director Chetan Anand decided to use a bit ofrecorded sound from a stage performance, and had Ragini, a stellar dancer, mimeto it. A disaster it was.

There are many ingredients in the dance on the screen which don’t exist onstage. Mainly, the lensing which can vary between a close-up and a long-shot;and the placement of the camera, high, low, moving. Even an overhead shot.Editing is another aspect which can divert attention from, or direct attention to,the subject at hand.

Music, vocal and instrumental, is common to both stage and screen. No matterwhat the intrinsic quality of the song, wrong text and wrong pronunciation arenever heard from the screen. On stage, this happens with annoying frequency.All, teachers, dancers, accompanists and the audience, not to talk of the learnedcritics, should realise the paramount importance of the text, be it sabdam, varnam,padam, keertana, slokam, javali, whatever. An awareness of the exact text, thesurface and implied meaning of the lines and correct pronunciation will make anydancer a better performer.

What classical dancers canlearn from film danceV. A. K. RANGA RAO

V. A. K. RANGA RAO, a renowned critic and scholar, was mentored by Malladi Ramakrishnaand Arudra. Acquainted with dance in childhood through sani Gaddibhuktha Sitaram who servedthe Sri Venugopala temple and the royals of Bobbili, Ranga Rao was further inspired by UdayShankar, Baby Kamala, Sitara Devi and Bhagawan. He studied padams, javalis, ashtapadis and isnow researching the ten incarnation songs of Annamacharya. Documenting film history, RangaRao has a unique collection of 52,000 gramophone records (1904-1973) in 42 national andinternational languages.

Nartanam 51

Dance is certainly a wonderful thing to film because it is all action and motion,which is exactly what film should be. If in the West, Merce Cunningham, thefather figure of postmodern dance – who as early as the 70’s was experimentingwith effects of time and space on the television monitor – is considered the pioneerof choreography staged directly for the camera, in India, even before that, in1948, Uday Shankar, the father figure of the renaissance of Indian classical dance,released his film Kalpana, with 80 dance sequences entirely directed andchoreographed by him.

When films stop being a two-dimensional recording of existing choreographiesand become a creative collaboration between movement, rhythm, camera andediting process, the roles of the choreographer and the film director becomeinterchangeable and often the two merge into the same person. The new genre toemerge from this creative collaboration is referred to as "dance video" or "screenchoreography" in the West; in India, we find this close collaboration taking placefor the production of dance sequences choreographed as inserts of commercialfilms. Apart from this, there are still very few film directors and still lesschoreographers to have ventured into the exciting and highly creative venture ofshuttling from real space to reel space and vice versa.

Trials of choreographing for Indian films

ILEANA CITARISTI

ILEANA CITARISTI , an Italian by birth, holds a PhD in Psychoanalysis and Eastern Mythology.Having worked in the traditional and experimental theatre in Europe, Ileana moved to India in1979. She trained in Odissi under Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and in Chhau under Guru HariNayak. A renowned dancer, choreographer, guru, and scholar, Ileana has authored books on martialpractices of Odisha, and Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra among others. She has many awards andhonours to her credit including the Padma Shri. She lives in Bhubaneswar and teaches at herinstitute, Art Vision.

The article was previously published on http://www.narthaki.com/info/articles/article79.html

Nartanam 63

Opportunity doesn’t always knock. Often it enters on tiptoes, with no fanfareor flourish. So it did for me, with respect to the Asia Broadcasting UnionInternational Dance Festival. A three word email from the then CEO of PrasarBharati, dated 18 September 2015, created the base for an association that wasto give me a chance to build a cultural equity, in one area that I had not workedbefore as an institution builder – the television space. To understand this oneneeds to go back a little in history.

Prasar Bharati is India’s largest public broadcasting agency. It is an autonomousbody set up by an Act of Parliament, and comprises the Doordarshan TelevisionNetwork and All India Radio. In 2014, the DD Bharati Channel of Doordarshan,India’s only 24 hour Channel dedicated to Art and Culture, opened its doors forlateral inclusion of advisors who were domain specialists. In that process, I wasselected as the only advisor for dance. Subsequently other aspects were openedto me as well, but initially my work consisted only of curating afresh fromDoordarshan’s immense archives, thematic series, that were enriched and valueadded by commentaries, superimposed explanatory text, and announcements. Thework gave me immense joy as I was able to call upon a lifetime of engagementwith dance, and use it on a large modern platform to create new viewers fortelevision and a new audience for dance.

On Building a Virtual Cultural EquityARSHIYA SETHI

ARSHIYA SETHI began her association with All India Radio at the age of 16. She shifted toDoordarshan as a presenter and soon found her niche in dance and music. For many years shepresented the National Programme of Dance and Music. Subsequently, she became the dance criticat Times of India, Delhi. She was a part of the team that set up the India Habitat Centre, making ita much sought after cultural centre. She has dealt with many tangible and intangible culturalproperties. She has run several festivals, and curated many more. She runs a dance film festivalcalled DanzLenz and has completed her doctorate on Sattriya, the Classical Dance of Assam.From 2014 to 2016, she was an advisor with DD Bharati.

Nartanam70

The inaugural edition of the ABU International Television Dance Festival on15 January 2017 was a gala designed to introduce the Asia-Pacific region’s culturaldiversity to a world audience through television. This was the first ever InternationalDance Festival mounted by ABU with Prasar Bharati, the Telangana governmentand Doordarshan as the organizing partners. The concert was broadcast widelythrough television. Taking the centre stage were young performers fromAfghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, India, Maldives, Philippines,and Uzbekistan. In the coming years the festival is slated to assume the format ofa dance reality show for television.

A glitzy stage with over ornate lighting and stage design with half the auditoriumreserved for the VIPs, and the staff of Prasar Bharati, Doordarshan and theGovernment of Telangana, with flower decorations at the entrance, and cut outsof dancers of various styles, it was a festive atmosphere at the Shilpakala Vedika

On the Platter of ABU InternationalTelevision Dance FestivalMADHAVI PURANAM

MADHAVI PURANAM is the Chief Editor of Nartanam. A trained Kuchipudi dancer, she haspostgraduate degrees in Business Administration, and Performing Arts. Her book, An IndianAnalysis of Aesthetics: The Dance, the Dancer and the Spectator with a foreword by KapilaVatsyayan, was published in 2015 by Abhinav Publications, New Delhi. She is a recipient of theSenior Research Fellowship, and the Tagore Scholarship, awarded by the Ministry of Culture,Government of India. She is currently working on a book on Arts Management in India.

At the outset it may be prudent to mention that this is a review-article whichprovides a report, analysis, and a critique of the first edition of Asia-PacificBroadcasting Union (ABU) International Television Dance Festival. Ac-cording to Merriam Webster dictionary a 'critique' is an alteration of anarchaic word that referred generally to criticism. However, today, critiqueis a somewhat formal word that typically refers to a careful judgment inwhich someone gives an opinion about something. The intention of this cri-tique is as constructive as it is ruthless in not mincing words. The writerhopes that it will help put together the best practices in planning and execu-tion of the future editions of the ABU dance festival.

Nartanam90

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced atleast once,” Friedreich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet,philologist, and Latin & Greek scholar once famously said. That’s an unexpectedquote from someone who is known for solemn philosophy theories. Dance isindeed a major stress buster and also a medium that portrays the cultural aspectsof a particular land. Cultural diversity is a driving force of development, not onlyin respect of economic growth, but also as a means of leading a more fulfilling,intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual life.

In this age of reality shows, there is a plethora of programs which havesucceeded to a large extent in bringing the audience to television. There arevarious dance reality shows that glitter and shimmer with a horde of TV and filmstars, grand sets, glittering costumes and celebrity judges. The shows are basedon Bollywood, popular, contemporary, hip hop and western dance styles. Theemphasis for the TV channels is to enhance their TRP or viewership whereevery second counts and needs to be monetized. Very few shows or TV channelsfocus on the traditional styles of dances. Thus, there is a potential to come upwith a niche property that solely focuses on the indigenous dance forms, whichrepresent the innate essence of a country.

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) has developed a niche reality showon dance for the public broadcasters in the Asia Pacific Region. The show is

ABU International Dance Festival:An ExperienceVIKAS NAGRARE

VIKAS NAGRARE is a culture, heritage and tourism entrepreneur and is into events and projectsmanagement. He was the key operational coordinator for the grand finale of the Asia-Pacific Broad-casting Union International Dance Festival. He has also coordinated the Naadbhed for SPIC MACAYas its Head, India. He has also served as a Deputy Director, Confederation of Indian Industry. He iscurrently working on the Nartanam Conclave, and the International Street Art Festival, Hyderabad.He is the Chief Exective of Nartanam.

Nartanam98

A study of this subject, Uparupakas and Nritya-prabandhas, is necessary forthe light it could throw on the history and development of many a dance-formprevalent in different parts of the country.

The ancient Indian stage was a growing one and at one point in its growth itwas considered useful to classify the performances into two kinds, the rupakasand the uparupakas. Broadly speaking, the rupakas are major forms of dramaand the uparupakas minor forms of drama in which music and dance predominatedand most of which were forms of dance-drama or regular dances. This distinctioncannot however be strictly enforced because in the rupaka class, considered tocomprise the ten forms – dasa rupaka – not all could be entitled to becharacterised as regular or major dramatic types. Barring the two leading types,the heroic nataka and the social prakarana with their derivative product thenatika and the farce, prahasana, in one or two Acts, the others were lesser orirregular forms. Except probably in the case of the vyayoga, we have no survivalsof early specimens to know what exactly the ancient forms of dima, anka,samavakara and ihamriga were like. The veethi and the bhana, of which latterwe have some definite idea from descriptions and old specimens, were notexamples of drama proper and could legitimately be classified among theuparupakas.

The technical distinction which Natya Sastra works make between rupakasand uparupakas is that while the former present a full rasa with other rasas as

Uparupakas and Nritya-PrabandhasV. RAGHAVAN

V. RAGHAVAN (1908-1979) was Professor of Sanskrit, Madras University. A renowned scholar, hereceived numerous awards and honours, including the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sanskrit researchand a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship. A great authority on Sanskrit, he published copiously andedited the Journal of the Music Academy, Madras. This article was published in Sangeet NatakNumber 76 April- June 1985 and also in Number 2, April 1966. It is being reproduced here withpermission from Nandini Ramani, Managing Trustee, Dr. V. Raghavan Centre for Performing Arts.

Nartanam116

Dance today is undoubtedly a cultural brand of India and “Indianness”. Atboth arrival and departure halls of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhithe very first thing and the last thing one can see today are symbols of dance andmusic: huge bas-reliefs of hand positions (hasta-mudras), dancers' figures, musicalinstruments. No Indian official events now – from a tiny local conference to aregional and national government meeting could happen without dance and musicprograms at the end. Dancers and musicians of all levels hold National awards.

Yet until quite recently, dance and dancers were marginal: only about 70 yearsago social status of almost all traditional dancing communities was very low. Apeculiar feature of Indian social set-up – prolonged coexistence of the manytypes of communities, created the condition for reserving skills, crafts and jobsincluding music, theatre and dance, to the particular group. So as any other job,dance used to be an inherited one, installed in the frame of exchange system(jajmani) between patrons and clients. Musicians and dancers – along with variousservants sometimes – were not welcomed in some houses of upper castes familiesbefore. At the same time dancing – as well as shaving the head, for instance, andmany more manipulations with body – was an important element for some Hindurituals and festivities.

In a short time period between the 1920-s and 1950-s dance went throughtransformation, and from predominantly low and dependant character, it got the

A Nachni and her Rasik: a dancingcommunity of Purulia (West Bengal)

SVETLANA RYZHAKOVA is a leading research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology andAnthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow; a member of Indian Anthropological Society,and the European Association of Cultural Anthropologists. She teaches Ethnography of SouthAsia and History of Indian religion in Russian State University for Humanities. Since 1996, she islearning Kathak from Guru Rajendra Gangani, visiting India for a couple of months every year.From 1998, she is conducting extensive cultural anthropological fieldwork in various parts ofIndia, with the main subject being the local and regional performance traditions.

SVETLANA RYZHAKOVA

Nartanam128

Delhi DiaryLeela Venkataraman

Perhaps to make up for the two lean months of June and July when the holidayseason with schools closed sees a lean period for performance activities fromJune to August, April and May have been frenetic with activity.

The Delhi audience perhaps is one of the most pampered with free performancesthrown open to one and all. A place of distances with public transport hazards,with a dancer community afraid of having to face near empty auditoriums not tospeak of organisers reluctant to grapple with entertainment tax ordeals have allcontributed to a generally held view that dance performances in particular, ifticketed, will have few takers. Not only has this created a feeling of entitlement inaudiences, but it has also devalued the art form. While orating from platformsabout having to change this state of affairs, very little has actually been done.Under the circumstances one applauds the bold step taken by the Jyotsna ShourieDance Society, for making its annual Divinity Series festival, mounted this year atHabitat’s Stein Auditorium, a ticketed event. Contrary to all doomsday predictions,each of the three evenings drew a decent crowd, and this despite the opening dayfeaturing an oft seen local Kathak artist Vidha Lal, a Kathak performer with allthe razzmatazz. Of the other two artists, this was a repeat performance forMeenakshi Srinivasan, who has been featured in the same festival a couple ofyears back. A fast rising Bharatanatyam dancer, her presentation comprised GuruDhandayudapani’s varnam Mohamaginen in Karaharapriya followed by a verysensitive portrayal of Agni Pravesham, with a strong take-off point and evocativesupport in Hariprasad’s score and singing.

With male Bharatanatyam dancers now competing for a place in the top withthe women who till now have dominated the art form, it was wise to have sponsoredthe Bangalore dancer Parshwanath Upadhye. A dazzling dancer to watch with

PERFORMANCEREVIEWS

Nartanam 141

SPIC MACAY’s tryst with India’s cultural heritage

Leela Venkataraman

It was forty eventful years ago that Kiran Seth embarked on his SPIC MACAYmovement with a vision of reaching out to youth in every part of the country –exposing each child to the richness of India’s cultural heritage. It is not unknownthat constant exposure in young age to the harmonious, artistic and creative sideof man in art forms, can sensitise and nurture the more caring instincts therebysoftening the aggressive competitive urges which seem to be overwhelminglybringing out the baser instincts in the young today. And yet this mammoth voluntaryeffort, now comprising 850 chapters spread all over India, is still plodding withoutan annual government grant – the minimum that can be done for an endeavourwhich is really trying to make up for our educational lapse in not being able toinclude this significant aspect in the curriculum. The Prime Minister in his videoconferencing inaugural address to the assembled guests very significantly pointedout, “No country which has forgotten its inheritance has been able to go ahead.”One can only hope that voluntary movement ensuring that this heritage lives onand does not languish, will get the financial succour it needs, to be able to bespread to every corner of the country.

The 5th annual convention of SPIC MACAY mounted in Delhi’s IIT premises,attracting over 1500 students from all parts of the country despite nagging endemicheadaches, and the gruelling daily grind starting in the wee hours of the morningat 4am attending the various Yoga classes, rolled on according to a set time table.Since IIT campuses can be availed of only during the summer vacation, soaringtemperatures have become an inevitable component of every convention alongwith power cuts which are not unusual. Not enough accommodation for far toomany participants and occupancy spread in guest houses outside the campuscreated some headaches in the teeth of which over 40 intensives were painstakinglymounted attracting very enthusiastic participants. Covering several disciplinesand genres of dance and music (organised in the Lecture Hall premises) a peepinto each of these intensives by a visitor yielded a varied experience and occasionalpearls of wisdom, with Gurus trying to inform youngsters about the inner truth ofcertain aspects of their art form.

The music/dance correlation became doubly clear as Guru Munna Lal Shuklaof the Lucknow school of Kathak stressed the fluid grace of hand movementstravelling through the air which he described as ‘meend’ which is a musical grace.It was interesting to watch Rajendra Gangani from the Jaipur school of Kathakshow how in a ‘Kavit’ (dance composition and different from poetic Kavitha or

Nartanam 145

1. BUNCH OF JAVALIS / 2011/ Pappu Venugopala Rao / pp 228 /Hardbound/ Rs.800:00/ US $45/ Pappus Academic & Cultural Trust/ Chennai

(with ACD containing ten Javalis sung)2. FRAGRANCE OF PADAMS / 2015/ Pappu Venugopala Rao / pp 356 /

Hardbound / Rs.999:00 / US $49/ Karnatic Music Book Centre/Chennai(with VCD containing eight padams performed)

BOOKREVIEWS

These two books are the greatestaids ever to dancers seeking a deepknowledge of Telugu songs, throughEnglish. Each book contains short notesabout the composers, transliteration,translation and notation of the songs inEnglish and at the end, lyrics in Teluguand Tamil. Also given is technicalinformation about the different nayikasand nayakas, their mental states. To abeginner, indispensable. For theexperienced dancer, seeking insight intothe author’s intent, a helpful guide.

The javali book has Bhanudatta’sclassifications on nayikas, nayakas andtheir associates. This aspect along withthe kinds of abhinaya is dealt with moreextensively in the book of padams.Essential for erudite discussions andacademic examinations, perhaps. I donot think many dancers who are doinga good job of their javalis and padamswill be able to, after their performance,

nail their delineation to thesespecifications.

One point to be kept in mind.Spontaneous vaggeyakaras would nothave felt the need to tie the hero-heroineinto a neat definitions in his song,specifying, he is a vaisika; she is asamanya etc. Inspired as they were byreal life and leavened with a bit of theirown imagination, they wrote; somesongs might naturally fall into acategory, to some extent. A javali, beingof a shorter span, is more likely toconform. A padam might have moreskeins braided together.

For instance, in the padam"Ninnujooda" (Kshetrayya, page 94)the hero and heroine are together butthe song describes her anguish at hisabsence. My submission: all thesedivisions and classifications can be keptin mind to deepen one’s knowledge of

Nartanam154