Studies in International Performance Published in association with the International Federation of Theatre Research General Editors: Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton Culture and performance cross borders constantly, and not just the borders that define nations. In this new series, scholars of performance produce interactions between and among nations and cultures as well as genres, identities and imaginations. Inter-national in the largest sense, the books collected in the Studies in International Performance series display a range of historical, theoretical and critical approaches to the panoply of performances that make up the global surround. The series embraces ‘Culture’ which is institutional as well as improvised, underground or alternate, and treats ‘Performance’ as either intercultural or transnational as well as intracultural within nations.

Titles include: Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon (editors) VIOLENCE PERFORMED Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict Elaine Aston and Sue-Ellen Case STAGING INTERNATIONAL FEMINISMS Christopher Balme PACIFIC PERFORMANCES Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas Matthew Isaac Cohen PERFORMING OTHERNESS Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952 Susan Leigh Foster WORLDING DANCE Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo PERFORMANCE AND COSMOPOLITICS Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia Helena Grehan PERFORMANCE, ETHICS AND SPECTATORSHIP IN A GLOBAL AGE Judith Hamera DANCING COMMUNITIES Performance, Difference, and Connection in the Global City James Harding and Cindy Rosenthal (editors) THE RISE OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES Rethinking Richard Schechner’s Broad Spectrum Silvija Jestrovic and Yana Meerzon (editors) PERFORMANCE, EXILE AND ‘AMERICA’ Ola Johansson COMMUNITY THEATRE AND AIDS Ketu H. Katrak CONTEMPORARY INDIAN DANCE New Creative Choreography in and the Diaspora Sonja Arsham Kuftinec THEATRE, FACILITATION, AND NATION FORMATION IN THE BALKANS AND MIDDLE EAST Daphne P. Lei ALTERNATIVE CHINESE OPERA IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Performing Zero Carol Martin (editor) THE DRAMATURGY OF THE REAL ON THE WORLD STAGE Alan Read THEATRE, INTIMACY & ENGAGEMENT The Last Human Venue Shannon Steen RACIAL GEOMETRIES OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC, ASIAN PACIFIC AND AMERICAN THEATRE Joanne Tompkins UNSETTLING SPACE Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre S. E. Wilmer NATIONAL THEATRES IN A CHANGING EUROPE Evan Darwin Winet INDONESIAN POSTCOLONIAL THEATRE Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces

Forthcoming titles: Adrian Kear THEATRE AND EVENT

Studies in International Performance Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–4456–6 (hardback) 978–1–4039–4457–3 (paperback) (outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of diffi culty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Contemporary Indian Dance Natasha Bakht, White Space (Photographer: David Hou) Contemporary Indian Dance New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora

Ketu H. Katrak

Palgrave macmillan © Ketu H. Katrak 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-27855-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-32633-4 ISBN 978-0-230-32180-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230321809 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Katrak, Ketu H. Contemporary Indian Dance: New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora/Ketu Katrak. p. cm. Includes index.

1. Dance—India. I. Title. GV1693.K33 2011 792.80954—dc23 2011016929 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 In Memory of Medha Yodh (1927–2007)

My guru who inspired this book and whose creativity continues to stir my spirit.

Medha Yodh (Photograph courtesy of Gaurang Yodh) This page intentionally left blank Contents

Frontispiece iv List of Illustrations xi Series Editors’ Preface xiii Glossary xiv Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xviii Acknowledgments xxvii

Introduction 1 Theoretical frames: ways of looking at Contemporary Indian Dance 1 “The force of heteroglossia”: reference points of Contemporary Indian Dance 13 Rasa: a moving methodology 17 Writing dancing 21 1 Contested Histories: “Revivals” of Classical Indian Dance and Early Pioneers of Contemporary Indian Dance 26 Sadir into bharatanatyam 27 The significant legacies of early pioneers of modernizing Indian dance: Uday Shankar, Chandralekha, and other pioneers 37 2 Abstract Dance with Rasa: Pioneers Astad Deboo and Shobana Jeyasingh 56 Astad Deboo: an “Indian contemporary” dance style 59 Other journeys in abstract dance: Shobana Jeyasingh 75 3 Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Choreography by Masters of Traditional Indian Dance and Emerging Innovators 84 PART I CREATIVE CHOREOGRAPHY 85 Innovations based on 85 Madhu Nataraj 85 Aditi Mangaldas 88 Daksha Sheth 92

ix x Contents

Innovations based on bharatanatyam 98 Navtej Singh Johar 98 Mallika Sarabhai 100 Lata Pada 106 PART II EMERGING CHOREOGRAPHERS 108 A journey of discovery: personal language/s in Contemporary Indian Dance 108 Padmini Chettur: contemporary dancer, not Contemporary Indian Dancer 118 4 Hybrid Artists and Transnational Collaborations: , Toronto, Kuala Lumpur 123 Anita Ratnam: “a contemporary classicist” 125 Challenging stereotypes through hybridity: Hari Krishnan’s signature style 140 Ramli Ibrahim’s Contemporary Indian Dance 150 5 Dancing in the Diaspora Part I: North America 154 Innovations in form 158 The Post Natyam Collective 160 Parijat Desai 181 Sheetal Gandhi 185 Extensions of tradition in the diaspora 187 Canada 193 Workshops and dance festivals 195 6 Dancing in the Diaspora Part II: Britain 200 The dance scene in the m/other country 200 Indian/South Asian/British-South Asian 200 The multidisciplinary and polyvocal new choreography of Akram Khan 207 Conclusion: Ways of Looking Ahead 220

Notes 223 A Selected Bibliography 240 Index 246 List of Illustrations

1 Uttara Asha Coorlawala, “Draupadi” (Photographer: Hans Gerritsen) 11 2 Anita Ratnam (Photographer: Briana Blasko) 15 3 Anita Ratnam, Seven Graces (Photographer: Chella) 16 4 Astad Deboo, Circle of Feelings (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia) 20 5 Padmini Chettur in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson) 49 6 Padmini Chettur and Shaji in Chandralekha’s choreography of Sharira (Photographer: Simon Richardson) 50 7 ContraPosition, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Monica Gurde) 66 8 Breaking Boundaries, Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Haran Kumar) 68 9 Breaking Boundaries (rehearsal), Astad Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Ketu H. Katrak) 69 10 Rhythm Divine, Deboo’s choreography (Photographer: Farrokh Chothia) 73 11 Flicker, Shobana Jeyasingh’s choreography, dancers: Saju and Niku (Photographer: Chris Nash) 77 12 Just Add Water? Jeyasingh’s choreography (Photographer: J. C. Masclet) 81 13 Vajra, Madhu Nataraj’s choreography (Photographer: Ramya Reddy) 86 14 Aditi Mangaldas in Timeless (Photographer: Vipul Sangoi, Raindesign) 91 15 Aditi Mangaldas, Now Is (Photographer: Dinesh Khanna) 92 16 Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro) 94 17 Sarpagati, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro) 96 18 Dancer Isha Sharvani in BhuKham, Daksha Sheth’s choreography (Photographer: Devissaro) 97

xi xii List of Illustrations

19 Devi, Mallika Sarabhai’s choreography (Photographer: Yadavan Chandran) 102 20 Rural Health Project, Darpana with Mallika Sarabhai (Photographer: Jignesh Patel) 104 21 B2 with Shruti Javali and Ballet Jorgen, Lata Pada choreographer (Photographer: Masna) 108 22 Padmini Chettur, 3 Solos (Photographer: Laurent Pillippe) 120 23 Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Briana Blasko) 133 24 Anita Ratnam, 7 graces (Photographer: Avinash Pasricha) 139 25 Hopscotch, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire) 144 26 Owning Shadows, Hari Krishnan’s choreography (Photographer: Miles Brokenshire) 149 27 Meet the Goddess, Post Natyam Collective (Photographer: Lillian Wu) 162 28 Cyber Chat, Post Natyam Collective (Skype telephone call photograph. Courtesy: Post Natyam Collective) 163 29 Sunoh! Tell me Sister!, Post Natyam Collective (Photograph courtesy of Post Natyam Collective) 166 30 Balance of Being, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: David Flores) 173 31 Carrie’s Web, Shyamala Moorty (Photographer: Jen Cleary) 177 32 The Wall, Parijat Desai (Photographer: Rose Eichenbaum) 184 33 Sheetal Gandhi, bahu-biwi-beti (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife) (Photographer: Cedar Bough T. Saeji) 186 34 Mythili Prakash, Stree Katha (Photographer: Rupesh Kotecha) 191 35 Sacred Monsters, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem (Photographer: Mikki Kunttu) 214 36 Vertical Road, Khan’s choreography (Photographer: Laurent Ziegler) 218 Series Editors’ Preface

The “Studies in International Performance” series was initiated in 2004 on behalf of the International Federation for Theatre Research, by Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, successive Presidents of the Federation. Their aim was, and still is, to call on performance scholars to expand their disci- plinary horizons to include the comparative study of performances across national, cultural, social, and political borders. This is necessary not only in order to avoid the homogenizing tendency of national paradigms in performance scholarship, but also in order to engage in creating new per- formance scholarship that takes account of and embraces the complexities of transnational cultural production, the new media, and the economic and social consequences of increasingly international forms of artistic expres- sion. Comparative studies (especially when conceived across more than two terms) can value both the specifically local and the broadly conceived global forms of performance practices, histories, and social formations. Comparative aesthetics can challenge the limitations of national orthodox- ies of art criticism and current artistic knowledges. In formalizing the work of the Federation’s members through rigorous and innovative scholarship this Series aims to make a significant contribution to an ever-changing project of knowledge creation.

Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton International Federation for Theatre Research Fédération Internationale pour la Recherche Théâtrale

xiii Glossary

abhinaya: gesture language conveyed via hand-gestures and facial expres- sion to convey emotions and stories. aharya: decoration including costume, jewelry, make-up. akaram: syllables used in Carnatic vocal music that are rendered without words. alapadma: a hand-gesture where all five fingers are stretched out in a semi- circle. alarippu: an invocatory dance item that usually begins a bharatanatyam recital. araimandi: plié position, basic stance in classical Indian dance. arangetram: solo debut performance. auchitya: appropriate. bais/baiji/: all indicate a courtesan in the North Indian dance tradition. bhakti: devotion. bhava: mood or feeling (accompanying rasa). bols/bol cholum: dance syllables also used as percussion syllables. chakar: circular movements made by the body, commonly in kathak dance. chakras: energy points in the human body. chhau: martial arts of Orissa and West Bengal (Eastern India). : literal translation: “female servant of god”; dedicated to the temple deity. dhit dhit teis: dance syllables (3-beat rhythmic cycle). gharana: a particular school or lineage with its own distinctive kathak technique. gurukul: literally, guru’s house. Also indicates a form of teaching where the student stays with the guru, learns the arts, and shares daily life.

xiv Glossary xv hamsasya: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the index finger touches the thumb and the other fingers are extended out. jati: rhythmic footwork arranged in various patterns set to different time- cycles. (also known as kalari): martial arts of (South India). : classical dance style from Kerala. kriti: song in Carnatic musical tradition. : classical Indian dance style from the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. : gentle, flowing, graceful movement emphasizing the feminine. laya: tempo in Indian classical music. mallakham: gymnastic tradition using ropes (origins in Maharashtra, West India). mandala: universe. manipuri: classical Indian dance style from the state of Manipur (Eastern India). manodharma: improvised music that is created on the spot but that remains within the rubric of the raga (musical scale) and tala (rhythmic cycle) of the song. margam: the complete repertoire of a bharatanatyam performance. mayura: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the index finger touches the thumb and the other fingers are extended out. mohiniattam: a female classical Indian dance style from Kerala. mridangam: a drum played on the sides, used in South Indian Carnatic classical music. mudras: hand-gestures used both in abstract movement without any literal meaning, and for symbolic meaning in telling stories and conveying emotions. mukula: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the fingers come together in a loose fist. nataraj: the icon of the dancing Lord Shiva with one leg raised up and pointing diagonally. xvi Glossary nattuvanar: one who keeps the rhythmic beat (talam) in an Indian dance musical ensemble. nautch: dance. navarasas: nine primary emotions (love, fear, laughter, valor, disgust, sor- row, anger, wonder, peace). nrtta: rhythmic footwork in traditional Indian dance. : classical Indian dance style from the state of Orissa (Eastern India). padam: bharatanatyam item set to a lyric poem, exploring emotions. patakam: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the palm is held tautly with all fingers close together. pranayama: breathing techniques in yoga. rangoli (North India), and kolam (South India): patterns drawn and colored on the ground near the entrance to one’s home as an auspicious sign. rasa: emotion, taste. sabdam: a bharatanatyam item that uses nrtta and abhinaya. sabha: auditorium. sawal-jawab: question/answer. shakti: female strength. shikharam: a hand-gesture used in classical Indian dance where the hand makes a fist and the thumb is held upright. shirsasana: head-stand position in yoga. shunya: zero (in mathematics). Also indicates the void, nothingness, empti- ness. sloka: verse. solkettus: syllables recited in traditional dance practice. sringara: love expressed in various manifestations – romantic, erotic, moth- erly, divine. ta ka dhi mi: dance syllables (4-beat rhythmic cycle). : a set of two drums used in North Indian Hindustani classical music. talam: rhythmic time-cycle set to 7 or 8 beats among other variations. thang-ta: martial arts of Manipur. Glossary xvii : lyrical poem that can have erotic connotations, set to dance in kathak. tillana: the final item, mainly rhythmic, in a bharatanatyam recital. Rhythmic piece depicting the joy of dancing. tirmanams: a dance movement unfolding in three rhythmic time-cycles from slow to fast pace. varnum: the central and most elaborate item in bharatanatyam using nrtta and abhinaya. Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

Our contemporary has to evolve and be Indian Contemporary Astad Deboo1

Contemporary Indian Dance explores a dynamic, evolving and global dance language with multiple idioms since the 1980s (with earlier pioneers). I explore this innovative moving form with striking kinesthetic movement vocabularies unfolding at the intersection of , martial arts (kalaripayattu of Kerala, thang-ta of Manipur, chhau of Orissa and West Bengal), yoga, as well as theatre tools (voice, song, script), pan-Asian (tai-chi, wu-shu) and Western movement forms (modern, post-modern dance, jazz), multi-media and new media (internet used for creating choreography). Contemporary Indian Dance, though different from Contemporary Dance in the West that has its own history emerging from modern dance, shares common resonances in being vigorously multi-disciplinary in its inclusion of visual art, eclectic global sound and multimedia tools available in contem- porary times. In the explosion of creative choreography by Contemporary Indian Dancers in India and the diaspora, artists engage with and transform Indian traditional dance in multiple avenues. The evolution of this form involves what the remarkable pioneer Chandralekha (usually called Chandra) describes as a personal “inward journey, a journey constantly relating, refining the reality of the in-between area; to enable tradition to flow free in our contemporary life.” Such a per- sonal search is not divorced from the artist’s particular society, its values and gender norms whether in India or the global North, as well as her/his loca- tion within national, regional and transnational boundaries. For Chandra, the “in-between” space lay between tradition and modernity; for contem- porary artists this potent space of the in-between involves crossing different movement vocabularies, and other boundaries set up by nationality, ethnic- ity, religion and so on. I work historically from the premise that two characteristics mark the mul- tiple idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance: first, continuity with aspects of Indian classical dance forms (that have their own histories of decline and revival during nineteenth-century British colonialism in India and into post-Independence times), and second, change in the variety of its creative directions that include the reinvention of traditional modes of representa- tion, the evocation of the modern, and the critique of cultural, national and

xviii Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xix gender stereotypes in India and the diaspora. This history provides a signifi- cant context to understand the present and future of Indian dance. In the twenty-first century, intercultural collaborations and artistic exchanges among performing artists in India and the diaspora constitute a significant aspect of Contemporary Indian Dance. However, even in the early twentieth century, global exchanges intermingled Orientalist and European modernist dance idioms with Indian classical dance. Hence, historical contextualization matters to our understanding of Contemporary Indian Dance. I am guided in my discussion of Contemporary Indian Dance by the notion of change. Traditional Indian dance is the thread that underlies the trajec- tory of changes; while some artists stay close to traditional idioms changing the externals such as costumes and music, others transform the traditional vocabulary from the inside, along with creatively bringing in other move- ment styles to make new hybrid work. This entails not simply changing an arm movement, or adding video, or wearing black (as Hari Krishnan once commented to me). Hybrid work involves a reworking from within the traditional dance forms – most commonly bharatanatyam (origins in South India), and kathak (North India) with their shared vocabularies of nrtta and abhinaya – and other movement vocabularies that a dancer has mastered. Multiple movements may flow or be referenced with sharp disjunctures in innovative choreography. Playing with tradition is effective for someone who has mastered the form and can innovate, re-conceptualize and choreograph new dance items. As T. Balasaraswati, one of the greatest exponents of bharatanatyam notes, the tradition itself has so much depth and complexity that it allows a dancer’s “wings [to] soar to the very skies of freedom … It is freedom through disci- pline, not freedom from discipline.”2 A notable paradox is that the very rich- ness of the traditional form allows a certain freedom and “play” from within its parameters. This is parallel to the late Indian-American poet Agha Shahid Ali’s comment that he found the strict discipline of poetic forms such as the sonnet, or the , using strict rhyme schemes and line lengths as more liberating than the supposed freedom of free verse.3 I select established artists working in, and emerging artists dancing towards, this multi-layered form, artists whose work has impact on the dance scene in India and worldwide. This study is not a survey of artists who claim to use this form. Artists make change via choreographic choices to dis- rupt, demystify, even subvert the symmetry of nrtta in contemporary cho- reography conveyed visually via bodies that deliberately break bodylines, or move from one movement vocabulary to another in quick succession taking the viewer’s attention from a recognizable jati (rhythmic foot-patterns in the bharatanatyam of kathak), or mudras (hand-gestures) to a modern dance styled flow. Artists may also parody and reinvent their representations of abhinaya not to tell stories, but to create non-narrative affect. xx Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance

One significant mark of change in Contemporary Indian Dance is seen in a distinctive slowing down of the movement into a minimalist goal (seen clearly in artists like Deboo, whose nearly four-decade journey moves from rapid, even frenetic movements in earlier work to a slow, meditative pace in recent work). This is a change in the kinesthetic of movement patterns in contemporary times and, in fact, fascinatingly goes counter to fast-paced contemporary lives. I am interested in dealing conceptually with this differ- ent way of moving that makes the viewer engage critically, and participate meditatively, with the artist moving at a pace that is radically different from the global reality around us, figured, for instance, in fast-moving informa- tion across the internet, or the rapid movement of capital via computers. Contemporary Indian Dance’s pace indeed offers a critique of our speed- driven lives. Whereas Contemporary Indian Dance shows a slowing down, it is distinctively different from the increasing speed valorized in contemporary bharatanatyam, influenced partly by fast-paced Bollywood style dance. I distinguish Contemporary Indian Dance based in classical Indian dance training (or other classical forms) from Bollywood-style free dance that has an entertainment goal. This is not to deny that Contemporary Indian Dance can entertain, or that Bollywood dancers are not serious. However, Contemporary Indian Dance demands thoughtful engagement (and mini- malism is one movement avenue along with others to inspire thought) on the audience’s part and does not pitch the celluloid escape of Bollywood films. Although both styles work with different movement vocabularies in all their permeability, Contemporary Indian Dancers and choreographers labor two to three decades to develop signature styles from a broad range of ostensibly incompatible genres like bharatanatyam, ballet, kathak, kalari, or modern dance. Change is also visible in cutting-edge contemporary content such as sexu- ality and gender, ethnicity and belonging, especially for second-generation artists with hyphenated or multiple identities in the diaspora who challenge stereotypes of nation, gender and culture in their creative choreography. The innovations in form enable, I contend, the inclusion of such new con- tent since I regard form and context as related dialectically. For instance, choreographing the body to represent female sexuality with attention to female desire and pleasure is enabled by the multiple movements, inventive soundscape, costumes and use of space in Contemporary Indian Dance. I interpret the success of the changes made in this evolving form and in its content (from traditional Indian dance’s reliance on the Indian epic sto- ries and myths) in the evocation of rasa. Although I use the concept of rasa (broadly translated as emotion, or taste) originating from the ancient trea- tise of drama and dance, The Natyasastra (anywhere from the second to the fifth century), I give it a contemporary interpretation. Whereas in ancient times, rasa remains within a psychological-physical realm of emotion and taste, and within an aesthetic-spiritual realm of transcendence (when an Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxi aesthetic experience reaches its highest level in transporting the performer into an extra-human realm and taking the audience with him/her), in contemporary times, rasa, evoked by the self-reflexivity of contemporary artists includes both emotion and thought; the gaps in-between emotion and thought are filled by raising social awareness in certain choreographies about gender inequality, or challenging stereotypes of sexuality or nation. The artist, via rasa, leads the audience into socially located engagements that no longer only have the goal of transcendence; rather, the affect now translates into accompanying an artist’s portrayal of social ills such as domestic violence or the denial of female sexuality. In this study, I share a revelatory scholarly journey that I have been on for several years (informed in part by my prior bodily experience of learning bharatanatyam for nearly 20 years with my teacher the late Medha Yodh), learning about Contemporary Indian Dance from scholars and practitioners, traveling across the United States and India, Toronto and London to view performances, and interview dancers with varying signature styles in this genre. My travels on this road, aimed at sharing the rich and wide-ranging representations of Contemporary Indian Dance, are not linear since many by-roads beckon, fascinating and significant, taking me on diagonal routes to different geographical locations in India, and in the global diaspora of Indians, South Asians, and artists of mixed ethnicities in North America and Britain in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Individual artistic journeys in Contemporary Indian Dancers contour this landscape, including personal histories, dance training, and geographi- cal location and relocation (that may be prompted by choice or necessity) within the global North or South. Change in geographical location may provide a dancer with access to different movement techniques, to new technologies of light, sound and multimedia facilities, to funding avenues and infrastructure support with the presence or absence of rasikas and sahrdayas (art appreciators with a sympathetic heart whether in Chennai or Los Angeles). (Re)location plays an influential role in the direction that Contemporary Indian Dancers take to explore contemporary themes like ethnicity, gender and sexuality, the environment, the use of dance as move- ment therapy for victims of violence, for the representation of social issues such as women’s status and oppression, for the portrayal of political realities in India like communal-based violence, or for dealing with deeply personal matters of sexuality. My study is attentive to geography and location given the reality of Indians dispersed globally. Indeed, in line with geographer, Edward Soja, I regard geography to be as significant as history for an understanding of past and present events.4 Critical theorists Esha De and Sonita Sarkar extend Soja’s work using an evocative phrase “placetime,” “about the radical poten- tial of geography in that it defines the production of new histories from these geographies” and further enable my analysis of geographical location xxii Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance along with historical context for different contemporary dancers.5 The interplay between space and place, and mobility across national boundaries indicate new ways, as De and Sarkar note, of “marking time and territories.” Mobility is reinterpreted to include not only transcending national bor- ders but moving, say, from rural to urban areas, as well as “relational and contextual … links inside and across geographical spaces.”

Personal journey to this project

Bharatanatyam is a magnificent tool to center human beings, to give them an inner sense of being and to teach them focus, poise, discipline and the integration of different arts. (Medha Yodh6)

Tei ya tei as intoned by my teacher, Medha Yodh, a disciple of the legendary bharatanatyam dancer, T. Balasaraswati began my own study of bharata- natyam at age 23 in Los Angeles. The rhythms and sounds of Carnatic music seemed to surface from my childhood memories growing up in Bombay, listening to M. S. Subbulakshmi on All India Radio. In 1975, I came to the United States for a doctorate in English literature. Soon after, I met Medha and began my bharatanatyam training, continuing for the next 20 years. The beauty of bharatanatyam’s movements, its lyrical poetry and Carnatic music all struck a resonant chord in my body and mind. In India, as part of a middle-class, somewhat Westernized Zoroastrian (a minority group) community, I had studied piano and ballet. Now, in a return to roots expe- rience, I discovered bharatanatyam in the United States. It continues to be a life-long passion, though professionally, I remain a scholar-academic in literature and drama and increasingly, with my location in Southern California (since 1996), at the University of California, Irvine, with South Asian American writers and dancers. The roots of this project were sown as I observed changes (as is appropriate for any living art) in bharatanatyam performances in Southern California, and in the many post-show discus- sions with my teacher as we attended dance programs across the freeway map of Los Angeles. I bring my literary, feminist, and comparative expertise into this study of Contemporary Indian Dance – my book Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers (from Africa, India, and the Caribbean) partici- pates in the theoretical discourse of postcolonial feminist theory. My pub- lications in South Asian American literature and culture, exploring notions of home, belonging, the role of expressive arts for immigrant communities, all laid a constructive groundwork for this project.7 I am an insider-outsider to the Contemporary Indian Dance scene. As a deshi (native of India) who grew up in Bombay, I am familiar with cultural codes about interacting with people from India and, in particular, with Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxiii performing artists. My lived bodily experience of studying bharatanatyam enriches my scholarly analysis. My cross-cultural methodology relies on Indian aesthetic theory (particularly the notion of rasa discussed in the Introduction) and dance scholars and ethnographers, Indian and Western, such as Kapila Vatsyayan, Deidre Sklar, Sunil Kothari, Susan Leigh Foster, Uttara Asha Coorlawala, Randy Martin, Ananya Chatterjea, Mohan Khokar, Sally Ann Ness, Priya Srinivasan, Avanti Medhuri, Mark Franko, and Andre Lepecki, among others. Cultural anthropologists George Marcus and James Clifford provide useful insights on integrating “field notes” and “partial truths” garnered from my research. I convey the creative variety of idioms used by performing artists across the globe via “thick description,” Clifford Geertz’s evocative phrase, relying on observation at rehearsals and perform- ances, interviewing major practitioners, and scholarly research. On the Contemporary Indian Dance scene there is no single figure of the stature of a Martha Graham (whose career spanned a long 60-year period with varying emphases responding to personal, social and historical forces at different times in American history such as the 1930s, very different from the 1960s and so on), or Merce Cunningham. However, there are pioneer- ing artists such as the late Chandralekha or Astad Deboo, whose works have become paradigmatic in the field and whose movement tropes, uses of the body, of space, of original music are imitated and refashioned by younger artists. Certain mudras (hand-gestures) from bharatanatyam recur in contem- porary work, as do certain iconic movements pioneered by Chandralekha and that we see in the work of contemporary choreographers. There is a line of connection via such “ancestry of gesture.”8

Naming

A 2009 documentary, Beyond Tradition, showcases the work of four women choreographers in India who work from bharatanatyam (Anita Ratnam, Mallika Sarabhai) and kathak (Dakhsa Sheth, Aditi Mangaldas) to cre- ate a new Contemporary Indian Dance vocabulary.9 Ratnam remarks: “Contemporary Indian Dance is a reflection of India as it is today, living in many centuries together. New movements, colors, sounds” are part of multiple tapestries woven by Contemporary Indian Dances. Mangaldas remarks that she “works with kathak to evolve a contemporary vocabulary, using the strength and dynamism of kathak, its historical and geographical contexts as a base, not a burden.” Sarabhai notes, “We are fortunate in India to have an extremely sophisticated alphabet that has been handed down to us. For me as a twenty-first-century feminist woman to take that alphabet like the roots of a tree and to let its branches go where they want and to let the leaves fall where they will is the contemporary for me …We look into our traditions to create contemporary work that cannot be anything but Indian.” Sheth’s is a somewhat different perspective where she aims to have xxiv Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance her work “transcend geographical boundaries … a personal language that can become universal.” Not everyone accepts the term “contemporary.” Chandra remained fiercely within the rubric of Indian philosophical and aesthetic parameters, rejecting the words “modern” or “contemporary” to describe her choreogra- phy. She did not feel the need to give a new name to her style, or to claim that she was inventing a new dance language. Chandra eschewed “Western” influences even as she recognized India’s colonial past that often prevented Indians from recognizing their own heritage of movement and martial arts. Chandra’s work, in a class by itself, nonetheless has profoundly influenced Contemporary Indian Dancers in India and elsewhere, despite her own objections. Whereas Chandra’s innovations focused on the body and movement thus transforming the language of Indian dance, another significant dancer- choreographer, Mrinalini Sarabhai was a pioneer in including social themes in bharatanatyam-based works such as her 1949 creative choreography in Manushya, and a critique of dowry deaths in Memory Is A Ragged Fragment of Eternity (1963). In an essay entitled “Choreography,” Sarabhai discusses many factors such as new interpretations, new rhythms in dance: “The time factor has given all art a new dimension … Let dance speak in the language of old, but let dancers speak in a contemporary language, but with complete artistic integrity.”10 Sarabhai is co-director of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in , India, with her artist-activist daughter Mallika Sarabhai who carries forward her mother’s initiative of using dance as a tool for social awareness about gender oppression, health, the environ- ment, and other injustices with the goal of bringing about social change. Other Contemporary Indian Dancers create their own names for the genre. Anita Ratnam names her style, “Neo-Bharatam,” in order to evoke something “new” yet rooted in her own base of bharatanatyam. Padmini Chettur would rather belong to the rubric of “Contemporary Dance” and have nothing to identify the work as “Indian” given its limiting stereotypes. Deboo is committed to contemporary explorations that are distinctively “Indian contemporary” and that evoke rasa. Jayachandran Palazhy, Artistic Director of ’s Attakalari Center, remarks that a “remarkable transformation is taking place” within con- temporary dance in India in factors such as “the opening up of the Indian economy, increasing access to the internet and digital technology, enhanced mobility and the increased purchasing power of the populace as well as the changing attitude towards career are all contributing to the new face of contemporary arts practices in India.”11 Audiences are increasing, too, and proving more respectful to experimentation and new styles. Only a few years back, he writes, dance typically was categorized under “classical, folk, or cinematic forms. Today it conjures up a myriad of styles and forms performed in a variety of contexts.” Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance xxv

Contemporary Indian Dancers at times become iconoclasts whose work faces rejection. They break the boundaries of traditional styles, and at times parody or forthrightly challenge them, which is not always well received. This makes it difficult to maintain support for their work and they often struggle from project to project. Yet as true artists they retain the integrity of their work, no matter what kinds of sponsorships they agree to work with. In this spirit, they may put up with uncomfortable spaces that display loud banners of corporate sponsors, not as backdrops, but squarely in the audi- ence’s visual field, as in Chennai sabhas. Along with distinctive contemporary choreography by Contemporary Indian Dancers, I discuss pioneers of a different kind – first-generation teachers of bharatanatyam and kathak in the diaspora who work with what are called “extensions of tradition,” creating dance dramas and new thematic work using only the classical Indian dance vocabulary. Since the 1980s, these teachers have a critical mass of second-generation Indian- American students in metropolitan areas of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago among others. These are the children of first- generation South Asian immigrants many of whom entered the United States after the landmark 1965 legislation that allowed vast numbers of South and Southeast Asians to enter the United States.12 Bharatanatyam dancer-choreographers in Southern California include Viji Prakash and her daughter Mythili Prakash, kathak dancer Anjani Ambegaonkar and her daughter , bharatanatyam teachers Ramaa Bharadvaj and Ramya Harishankar, Chicago-based Hema Rajagopalan and her daughter Kritika, and Houston-based Ratna Kumar among others. To date, there are nearly 300 bharatanatyam teachers across the United States including in states such as Alabama and Kansas. Bharatanatyam today is among the most popular of Indian classical dance styles taught all over the global South and North, in Southeast Asia, North America, Britain, Australia, and Europe. As Anita Ratnam remarks, bharata natyam has become a cultural product, an “India 101” course that introduces students within India and abroad as much to its movement techniques as to Indian heritage and culture. Students today, in India and the diaspora, learn bharatanatyam as an extra-curricular activity along with other interests such as piano or soccer. Twenty-first-century fast-paced lives do not lend themselves to the kind of immersion in the study of bharata- natyam as in a previous era.13 Indian-American parents in the United States are in a hurry to inculcate as much Indian culture via bharatanatyam in their impressionable youngsters via weekly bharatanatyam class with the goal to have an arangetram before their daughters leave for college.14 Bharatanatyam today (as in an earlier era discussed in Chapter 1) is an overdetermined entity that carries cultural and political meanings beyond the technical parameters of a dance style. At times bharatanatyam in India and the diaspora is viewed exclusively as “the dance of India” as though xxvi Preface: Multiple Idioms of Contemporary Indian Dance other styles do not exist, or elided troublingly with Hindu fundamentalism as if other religions are not part of the Indian subcontinent. Among my goals in analyzing selected Contemporary Indian Dancers from across the globe is to give scholarly recognition to this dance language, to strengthen ties among performing artists within India, say, between Chennai and New , and to create transnational links between Los Angeles and Bangalore or . My cross-cultural methodology (using Indian aesthetic theory and scholarship and Western dance scholarship) aims to highlight artists’ uses of common choreographic strategies and affects. As in my previous comparative work, I remain attentive to regional differences of culture, gender roles and histories. Finally, I hope to present a terrain of the most prominent and selected emerging artists that will inspire, I hope, further studies on individual artists, on the many parameters of the “contemporary” in our fast-paced world, and on the relevance of Contemporary Indian Dance in different societies where it is practiced and performed today.15 Acknowledgments

This book has journeyed with me in body and mind, in waking and dream states for many years and in many locations from my base in Irvine, California, to Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi in India and to New York, Toronto, and London. My heartfelt gratitude goes first to the danc- ers who shared their time generously, responding to questions about their individual dance journeys, their understanding of the “contemporary,” of “choreography,” of the parameters of “Indian,” and “South Asian,” among other intriguing discussions of lack of funding, and infrastructure support for artists in India, to the strings-attached types of funding by Arts Councils in Britain and Canada. I am also grateful for observing rehearsals and interview- ing dancers Astad Deboo, Anita Ratnam, Hari Krishnan, Shobana Jeyasingh, Akram Khan, Padmini Chettur, Anusha Lall, Mayuri Udadhya, Viji and Mythili Prakash. I thank the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute for a fellowship (2002) supporting my initial research on this book, and Carrie Noland, who headed the “Gesture as Inscription” Research group of which I was a part. A Fulbright Research Award to India (2005–6) facilitated my research when I spent many hours at Chennai’s Kalakshetra Dance Academy, talking to students and teachers, and reflecting on my discoveries under the shady banyan tree. My thanks to Kalakshetra’s Director, Leela Samson, who made it possible for me to observe classes, use the library, and also have my then 8-year-old daughter Roshni learn bharatanatyam in the part-time beginning classes for children. In this unique atmosphere away from the city bustle, instruction unfolds as the teacher sings and beats the talam (rhythm) with the traditional stick on a block of wood urging the students firmly and gently to deepen their basic araimandi (plié) position, to be expressive as their eyes follow the mudras (hand-gestures) and as they coordinate their body movements with mindfulness, intensity, and reverence. I thank dance ethnography scholar par excellence, and my friend Deidre Sklar most especially, with whom I had many illuminating discussions about movement, the body, and rasa. I gained immensely from Deidre’s incisive intellectual understanding of the somatic and cultural parameters of dance. I also thank my friend and colleague at UCLA, Esha De, for her key insights in strengthening the theoretical aspects of this study. I appreci- ate the invaluable editorial assistance from Danielle McLellan who has the facility to turn my long-winded prose into concise and graceful sentences. I thank Carmen Hernandez for computer expertise, and Natalie Marquez for assistance with the bibliography. Beheroze Shroff’s friendship has sustained me over the years in writing this book. xxvii xxviii Acknowledgments

I thank Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, editors of this Palgrave Macmillan series, “Studies in International Performance” for recognizing the timeliness of this project and accepting it for publication. I thank editorial assistant Ben Doyle at Palgrave and the production team. This book, inspired by my bharatanatyam guru and friend, the late Medha Yodh, is dedicated to her. As a true guru, Medha taught me much more than dancing (she always liked the transitive form of the word, tuning into its movement and rhythm); she taught me many life-lessons as I grew from a naïve 23-year-old when I began bharatanatyam under her caring and incisive gaze, until her recent death in 2007. I miss Medha’s presence, her infectious laughter and her uncanny ability to get to the heart of an issue whether in dance choreography or in cooking. Discussions about dance unfolded in the midst of Medha creating aromatic curries, or green beans with fenugreek and anise. “When are you going to finish this book?” is how she greeted me over the past few years and I hope that she is smiling as this book is published, honoring her spirit that lives on in my heart.