December 2014. The air was filled with excitement as the cultural season breezed in, but it breezed out quietly without any ripples. No new prodigies surfaced nor were there any ‘Oh, you really missed it’ kind of performances. The season was a blend of some good, some bad, some mediocre.

For me, the mood for the season set in with an invitation to attend an international conference on Bharat Natyam in Singapore. Realisation dawned on me, while listening to the informative sessions, that not only has Bharat Natyam become a global art form but the issues and problems that dancers have to contend with – be it future directions, funding issues, or dwindling audiences – are the same in either Chennai or Singapore. This brought me back to the dance conferences of Chennai. Dancers whom these conferences target are conspicuously absent and the regular rasika is not motivated enough to come because the short sessions, packed one after another, leave no time for either the speakers to present their concepts or for interactive discussions on issues. They cater to the speakers, critics and NRI artistes, and also to those who find it the most opportune time to network and be seen at these venues. Artistes must understand that a lecture demonstration is meant to highlight salient features of the subject and not use it as a platform to present mini-performances. The scenario is bleak and organisers need to address the issues.

Dancers today have to contend with the fact that the audience for dance is dwindling. Artistes too find little time or inclination to attend their fellows’ performances. This leads to a narcisstic obsession, as the dancer fails to see beyond herself, and is seldom able to evoke rasanubhava in the rasika, who is therefore not motivated to watch performances. To compound this problem comes the staging of dance performances during the afternoon lunchtime siesta slot! This may satisfy the organiser’s obligation to placate the dancers who seem to be happy with this gesture, as they have been acommodated during the season! With just a handful of friends and relatives in the audience, it does not augur well for the art itself.

However, all is not bleak and there were some memorable programmes. Alarmel Valli’s performance to recorded music was a refreshing change from her routine and captivated the interest of the audience. The couple from Bangalore – Sridhar and Anuradha – proved that the sheer quality of dance without resorting to gimmicks, which would dilute the art, can still move the finest among the rasika-s, who could look at it with a critical eye. The Nrityagram ensemble was flawless as usual with fine coordination and presentation, but the serious rasikas (though smaller in number may be) wanted more than the expected precision, sans the predictability. Srikanth and Aswathy’s production reiterated the strength and future of the younger generation, striving to maintain the high standards of the classical idiom.

The need to reach out to a large audience base and the demand from organisers for novelty has led to a new development – of using multimedia images for dance. As a visual artist, I welcome the move of interspersing other media into the known art form. Visual artists keep abreast of changing times, some learn new ideas and weave them into their own thoughts to spell out a new idiom. However, it is pertinent that artistes seeking these mergers must be conversant with new trends and spend sufficient time understanding, digesting and then incorporating them into their new scheme of things. It is important to understand that one art does not encroach into the space of another. In Malavika Sarukkai’s solo production Vamatara, the intensity and nuances of the artist’s abhinaya, which was very refined, were distracted by the continuous play of a large screen projecting constantly moving images. While the dance and multimedia were by themselves captivating visually, it was the coming together of these two streams that created the discord.

On the other hand, Krithika Subramaniam’s Swapnam was an example of the good use of multimedia, which was the strong point of the production. Interestingly, the abhinaya portions carried only coloured lights to form the backdrop, in order to set the mood, and moving images were cleverly juxtaposed to fit in to the scenes  accordingly to enhance the imagery. So innovation by itself  need not be scoffed at, it only needs to be used judiciously.

Aharya is an important factor in dance and some dancers need to take a relook at their costumes. In the age of cloning, where dancers try to mimic established divas, they must also realise that style is so different from fashion. Just as each artiste finds his or her own artistic expression, it is equally imperative for dancers not to ape the trend but to discover their own aesthetic answers to make it holistic. Otherwise there is a fear of the dancer losing her identity as she disappears behind the many masks that she has created for herself over the years.

And so the season goes on uninterrupted; we are left with some good memories that make it worth the while. We could complain endlessly about the state of stage backdrops, costumes, green rooms, lack of performance slots for the really talented... yet year after year, every rasika, every critic and every artiste waits eagarly for the promise that the next Margazhi season will bring. (The author V.V. Ramani is an artiste, designer and writer) – (Courtesy: Sruti)