POSTSCRIPT FILMS | CONTEMPORARY DANCE

India Aditi Mangaldas, Anita Ratnam, Daksha Seth and Mallika Sarabhai for a lm I made on contemporary dance in India, titled Beyond Tradition. It was interesting to note the existence of certain commonalities, alongside many differences, in the approach and works of these dancers. All of them are trained classical dancers who imbibed their inspirations from Indian traditions, be it in form or theme. Each dancer boasts a collection of works which are universal in Sudarshan Ramani (sudarshanramani@gmail.com) is the Editor of Projectorhead appeal and of international standard in terms of presenta(projectorhead.in), an online film magazine. tion. And yet it takes just one look at their work to realise that it cannot stem from anywhere else other than India. This is one aspect common to all four dancers, whose productions are markedly different from the works of many dancers of Indian origin settled abroad. A prime example of the latter category is Akram Khan, the UK-based, kathakContemporary Indian dancers are drawing on trained dancer who is making waves in the international classical traditions to craft a new aesthetic and dance circuit. Akram uses a lot of Indian elements in his vocabulary of dance that reflect current sensibilities. dance, especially the fast rhythmic footwork and pirouettes of kathak, yet his work is more reective of the diaspora. Sharmistha Mukherjee While lming Beyond Tradition, I also realised another common point that binds the four women dancers at some very art form reects the sociocultural milieu of its point or the other, they have worked with feminist issues. existence. For any creative artiste, it is extremely But there the similarity ends. Each dancers strong individual important to imbibe the nuances of her times and personality and approach make her works unique. As a interpret them through her art. Towards that end, practisocial and political activist, Mallika Sarabhai reects sociotioners of contemporary dance in India are demonstrating a political themes in her works. Daksha Seth, on the other remarkable nesse. hand, is focused more just on the art of dance per se, and India has an immensely rich heritage of classical dance. her concern is to create a different movement vocabulary Timeless in its beauty and appeal, Indian classical dance that challenges the limits of physicality. Anita has already won global acclaim. The biggest Todays dancers challenge for many Indian dancers today is how are highly creative, Ratnam delves deeper into Indian myths and trato dive deeper into that reservoir of tradition to thinking individuals ditions, re-interpreting them in a contemporary light. A stunningly beautiful woman herself, she draw inspiration, and yet transcend and go bewho incorporate is not overly bothered with the physical attributes yond conventional practices to create a new dance new themes of of a dancer. In fact, I was surprised to nd a aesthetic which is more reective of the concerns contemporary slightly overweight dancer in her group. She disand sensibilities of contemporary India. relevance like missed the issue, saying as long as a dancer is t The trend started as early as the 1920s with those related to enough to dance, nothing else matters. On the Uday Shankar, who is considered the father of gender and the contrary, Aditi Mangaldas is extremely particular modern Indian dance. Todays dancers are highly environment about being overweight. One of the ttest (and creative, thinking individuals who incorporate slimmest) dancers of her age group, she is known to tick off new themes of contemporary relevance like those related to her own dancers if they tend to put on weight. gender and the environment. They do not shy away from In making Beyond Tradition, I missed having a male experimenting with different types of music, and creating a dancer in the lm. Without the participation of Astad Deboo, new movement vocabulary and completely fresh forms of who unfortunately was not available for the lm, the nal presentation, be it multi-media or cross-cultural fusions like a mix of kathak and amenco. Some dancers, like Astaad Deboo and Daksha Seth, had their training in various forms Web Exclusives of classical dance, but journeyed away from it by creating a The Web Exclusives section on the journals website (http:// novel vocabulary of movement. Others, like Aditi Mangaldas www.epw.in) features articles written for the web edition. These articles are usually on current affairs and will be short pieces in kathak and Geeta Chandran in bharatanatyam, have offering a rst comment. worked within the framework of their respective forms, yet The articles will normally not appear in the print edition. expanded their boundaries to create refreshingly startling All visitors to the website can read these short articles. Readers of the new horizons. print edition are invited to visit the Web Exclusives section which Last year, I had the opportunity to work closely with will see new articles uploaded every week. four of the renowned contemporary women dancers in have expected from these two artistes, given their rened sensibilities. The Wolf of Wall Street attacks the lifestyle of the middle-class, the world of advertising and consumerism, the lust for the good life and the protection it offers. The visible surface and texture of contemporary life corrupts us all, making us wolves thronging the pack of the alpha male rather than being benign, though gullible, sheep.

Pirouetting Skywards

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january 25, 2014

vol xlix no 4

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly

POSTSCRIPT CONTEMPORARY DANCE | FOOD

debate remained inconclusive, however. One could see why two women who had probably tried and failed to cut down on junk food were tempted to bait the one who obviously did not need to lose weight. Someone should do a survey on the frequency with which the subject of food crops up in the daily words and thoughts of todays urban middle class. I never cease to be amazed by how a world of ration cards and square meals, a world where hotel food was a term of abuse and the rare dieter who bashfully admitted to the practice was mercilessly ridiculed, has surrendered to a world where food looms like Godzilla in the urban consciousness. Food in mesmerising abundance and variety spills out of supermarket shelves, multi-cuisine neighbourhood restaurants and vast food courts in malls; it is showcased on TV cookery shows in every regional language and aunted on the pages of every Sharmistha Mukherjee (mukherjee.sharmistha@gmail.com) is a kathak dancer based in newspaper supplement. An equal and opposite force is the New Delhi. calorie-counting diet-and-tness brigade that demonises trans fats and cholesterol and valorises probiotics and anti-oxidants. Giving a further twist to the confusing glut are the ndings of diet-related scientic studies, each one contradicting the next. The 1990s era of globalisation and subsequent raging consumerism seems to have come to a head with this explosion of food in our urban areas. Small eateries cram streets The Indian middle-class obsession with food, and bylanes, bakeries no longer sell just bread and confecweight and body image can be traced to the tionery but tea-coffee-samosa, and fast-food outlets and 1990s era of globalisation and consumerism. cafes are dotted across our metros. Supersize America may nd a rival among the new Indian middle class in another C K Meena 10 years. The obsession with eating starts early. Consider the relentless marketing of junk disguised as nutrition, and wish I could have recorded the conversation I overheard the horrifying ads peddling chocolate-coated cornakes on the metro in Bangalore when four women in their as healthy breakfasts for children. Since lunchboxes have early 20s debated the meaning of junk food for the entire been replaced with lunch money, it is easy to predict the 13-minute ride. One of them was a silent observer, passing kind of food that children, and, later, college students occasional wise remarks; two had joined forces to needle and young ofce workers will buy when the choice is the fourth, the centre of attention, whose resolution to left to them. This might explain the growing number of eat junk food only once a week had provoked the debate. traditionally built (to quote Alexander McCall You may have guessed that the centre of Supersize America Smith) youngsters of both sexes Ive been attention (lets call her CA) was fairly lean, while may find a rival noticing in my city. the two who were pestering her with one voice among the new Those who obsess over what they eat and (call them P) were endowed with a certain Indian middle class how much they weigh are primarily, though not embonpoint. Does that mean you wont eat out in another 10 years only, the young and young women in particular, on the other days?, P asked. CA vigorously argued like the four I overheard on the metro. But I have no beef that restaurant food like samosas and chaat was not junk against market forces; if we are educated, we should know but real food. P taunted her: All that fried stuff, the oil, of better than to succumb to them. Therefore I am not particourse its junk. Oil, fat, sugar, chocolate, butter, cheese, cularly sympathetic towards the average middle-class girl ghee, all qualied as junk, they said. How can you say ghee trapped in a cycle of over-eating and guilt. My worry, pecuis junk? CA snapped indignantly. My grandmother makes liarly enough, concerns the young feminist. I think she is in nice bhendi fried in ghee, and the next time she makes it for a genuine quandary. She has read Naomi Wolf. She is me and I call it junk shell give me two slaps! against everything that endorses an ideal of female physical The to-and-fro continued until the silent one chipped in beauty. Sickened by the overdose of media coverage promotwith Junk is processed food. The others pounced on the ing crash diets and skinny gures, she eats heartily and word processed with evident satisfaction. Thats right, heedlessly. There is no way she will slave in the kitchen, so processed food, they repeated, nodding several times. The product was not totally reective of the contemporary dance scene in India. No discussion on contemporary dance in India would be complete without a mention of Chandralekha. A true revolutionary in the eld of dance, she deconstructed and de-contextualised bharatanatyam and elevated it to iconoclastic and completely different levels, much to the wrath of purists. Contemporary dance in India today reects the spirit of a contemporary, modern nation that is proud of its wealth of cultural diversity. Yet, Indian contemporary dance has been bold enough to question and re-interpret the old in the light of modern-day sensibilities, remaining rmly rooted in tradition even as it seeks to y high in the sky, which seems to be the limit for todays pirouetting contemporary Indian dancers.

Supersize Us? Give Us Another 10 Years

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

january 25, 2014

vol xlix no 4

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