Spotlight
Myth Embodiment

We all know that myth embodiment is the life and soul of Bharatanatyam as we know it. The techniques of actualising old myths and archetypes have undergone tremendous changes, as also the approach towards myth embodiment. Let me start with Balasaraswati whom I have seen frequently as a teenager. Take the famous Tamil padam Teruvil vaaraano. By the time she arrived at the crucial line in the charanam, the dancer had established the various shades of the nayika's longing for union.
In retrospect I realise how balanced and restrained
Balamma's myth depiction was. And in proportion to the requirements of the
nayika's feelings of nostalgia and longing. This auchitya (appropriateness)
also prevented rasa virodha (conflict of successive sentiments). A detailed
expansion of the Tripura myth here would have been antithetical to sringara,
and raudra and bhayanaka would have swamped the delicate mood of love. Again, a
lengthy expansion of the scorching of Manmatha 'incident' would have brought in
too much karuna. Balamma handled the tales in a way which accented veera, and
adbhuta, which are rasa-s complementary to sringara.
I mention this
because, recently I saw a young dancer, intent on highlighting the glories of
the town where the nayaka lived, scattering blood and gore with the story of
Manuneedi Chozhan. After that jugupsa, there could be no return to rati.
Balamma achieved her sadharanikarana (universalisation) with
a fine sense of balance. She did not offer detailed narration as we have in
current practice, nor did she rely on realism. Instead of narration, she
offered suggestion; instead of drama, only lyricism. She achieved this by the
use of a highly charged imagery and many symbols.
I have not seen Rukmini Devi on the stage, but I deduce from
accounts of those who have seen her dance that she too retained a subtlety of
expression. Her choice of songs like Ananda natana prakasam made her utilise
angika abhinaya to the utmost in embodying the myth of the dancing Siva. In her
later years, she made powerful and imaginative use of the nritta in her
dance-dramas to depict mythic situations and characters.
As a viewer, I have
seen a progressive attrition in the quality of dhwani the connotative content of the dance. While,
in the past, realism was used minimally and for variety, now it is the staple
fare. And while, at one time, imagery set up concentric circles of meaning for
the audience to ruminate over, today's dancer relies on narrativity.
Practical reasons have dictated this change. The discerning
viewers have decreased in number. The same Mylapore mama or mami who sighs over
a subtle phrase in Sahana, is blind to the suggestive motifs in a padam.
The halls are vast, the proscenium does not provide intimate
space for bonding between artist and viewer. How can the spectator in the back
row see an eyebrow movement? Or the twitch of the lips? Narration of well-worn
myths with lots of description has been the answer. The aham, the interior
landscape, has to be expressed through large sweeping gestures and lots of
energetic movements to gain attention.
Today's viewers have been conditioned by the fast-moving
slickly cut visuals of the cinema, by the close-ups and melodramatic images on
tv. Their attention span is limited. They have little time and even less energy
to put in the effort to understand subtleties. The performers belong to the
same generation. We see the impact of the big and small screens in the dancer's
aharya, angika and satvika abhinaya. They have to appeal to tv-inured viewers
whose response is passive reception, not active participation.
Narrativity and realism do provide easy access to the myth
for both performer and viewer. Whether old myths or new myths or old myths
interpreted anew. But they tend to make the myth static. In sacrificing the
rich range of ambiguities, multiplicities and suggestions, the dancer finds it
difficult to contemporise the old myths and archetypes as she could, earlier,
with the use of indirection, lyricism and imagery.
The challenge faced
by the young dancers in this period of transition is to strike a balance and
finding an inner artistic truth to satisfy herself and her audience.
Past
Present & Future
Even a highly codified form like Bharatanatyam gives
enormous freedom to a creative artist to experiment and innovate. And I am
happy to see this freedom being exercised by several of our talented artists.
By doing so they are neither perpetuating the past nor defying traditional
values but are only contributing towards the growth of the tradition through
change and innovation.
We often hear complaints about the repertoire of
Bharatanatyam and other dance-forms. 'If you have seen one varnam, you have
seen them all'. But we cannot altogether ignore the fact that there have been
several meaningful innovations and experimentations, both in thematic content
and aspects of pure dance. Issues such as environmental pollution, atoms for peace,
wildlife, deforestation and women's empowerment have been adapted by well-known
dancers. There have been commendable reinterpretation of mythological
characters and stories in a manner relevant and meaningful to contemporary
situations.
We are at the threshold of the new millennium and we are
going through a period of transition with all its attendant restlessness and
pressures from all sides. There are conflicts of ideas, misalliances as well as
happy marriages, honest experiments as well as cheap imitations, genuine search
as well as commercial vulgarisation. The old and the puritan moan the loss of
traditional values,- the young and the enterprising cry out for new worlds to
explore and conquer. We are in the midst of an exciting era of change and revaluation.
We should certainly not abhor the idea of change but we should demand of our
innovators that their attempts be guided by great intellectual perception and
artistic integrity. The whole process can be frustrating and enervating at
times, but it is a sure sign of a rebirth, the transition from the past to the
present.
And now to the question: What is it going to be in the new
millennium? Past perpetuation or present continuum? These terms and concepts
are not mutually exclusive. The past supports and supplements the present. The
present is a product of the past and a pointer to the future. What is important
is the manner in which we adapt the mould of the past to meet the demands of
the present and to shape the future.
Of course, there are conflicts, but then conflict is energy and it is out of conflict with oneself that true art is born. Conflict with others results only in rhetoric.
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN