The Other Side

B. Malchow-Tayebi

The East-West Dance Encounter, like the previous Encounters. was planned to provide a platform for a meeting of different styles. forms and theories of dance and their inter-cultural exchange.

But this time things were different. What really took place was meeting of extraordinary human beings and artists, communicating with each other beyond the borders of culture, society and traditions. Confrontation and com­ panionship were not determined by forms and techniques of their different dance styles, but by the differing motivations and driving forces behind the creative process.

Sure enough, traditions in the East and West. the question of choreo­ graphy, style, technique, music and ·stage were discussed at length during the closed sessions. But the moments when the artists and audience in the Little Theatre were moved to tears or carried away by joy came when artists like Susanne Linke, Chandralekha, Kumudini and many others revealed the roots of art and existence with incredible depth and truthfulness.

Suddenly, all the masks that each one of us wears all the time and all the roles which we play vanished. We were aware of a heart and a soul and a being that we all share. Vulnerability and anxiety, uncertainty and failure no longer remained feelings to be hidden. Honesty, compassion and love no longer seemed to be an impossible dream. Our longing for life in our lives became word. Art unveiled that it is nothing else but the real life that we are struggling so desperately to deny.

This collection of some of the statements made during the daily sessions attempts to preserve at least some memories of these glowing moments of a human encounter.

65 Who Are You?

I am an experiencer, I do as I feel: Mrinalini Sarabhai.

I am a radical optimist: Chandralekha.

I don 't hold a flag, I want to use my hand: Kumudini La khia.

I am just a dancer who wants to keep on dancing upto the last day of her life: Ritha Devi.

!like very much to go into the corner: Gerhard Bohner.

I am an Italian crazy: Patrizia Cerroni.

It is alwa ys I. me-you have to get out of yourself: Kumudini La khia. (Photo : Pala sranjan Bhaumick)

66 Why have I been born into this world, ask this question first: Yamini Krishnamurti (Photo : Pankaj Shah)

Attitudes Towards Life

Our brain works very well and people speak about everything, but we have to sweat for the experience: Susanne Linke. To get something of value, it has to do with pain: Susanne Linke. Lots and lots of failure-stories have to be told: Chandralekha. Life is too short to play around and see what will happen: Susanne Linke .

We have to speak the language of truth: Chandralekha. The only thing in life we cannot be tolerant of is if somebody is not honest: Susanne Linke.

You can crack up, but you have to know what you are really doing: Gerhard Bohner.

If somebody has to say something that is inside of him and that is true, the form is not so important. It comes through : Sharon Lowen.

Why Are You D ancing? I have to do it and whether you like it or not, 1 don't bother: Carmen DeLavallade. Dance meant for me to remain a little more human. a little less brutal: Chandralekha.

As you are creating and performing your art, you keep alive: Anne-Marie Gaston. 67 For me any classical dance is a language and the limits you set to it, are the limits of your own mind: Mallika Sarabhai. (Photo: Palasranjan Bhaumick}

Everything in music and drama comes out of the guts: Carmen Delavallade.

At the end you forget about the music and what remains is the pure feeling: Sana/ Mansingh.

Emotions speak and that is what dance is all about: Carmen Delavallade.

With lack o f emotional support. my dance grew cold: Sonal Mansingh.

It is our daily work to polish our insight by improving our dance: Susanne Linke .

You have to find the aroma for what you are going to say, and it's not easy, because there is an awful lot of space here. You can pick from the whole universe: Carmen Delavallade.

68 Why Are You Dancing?

What I am trying to show in dance is the soul: Susanne Linke. (Photo : Palasranjan Bhaumick)

I want to create pools of light: Sonal Mansingh.

We are here to give something to the Supreme: Igor Wakhevi tch .

Some Aspects Of Your Work

The idea of a woman that has something to do with material: it is soft, it gives in. and it is beautiful when it falls : Susanne Linke. A woman living in limbo, coming back everv night to relive the precious moments of her life : Carmen Delavallade. A woman 's life is over. a whole life is over, an earthshaking event and nobody speaks about it. Can we poetisize it?: Chandralekha. I came to a stage in mv life when I wanted a divorce from Krishna : Kumudini Lakhia .

I have not experimented vet - in personal life, ves- but not in mv art: Sonal Mansingh.

I felt a little bit bored after doing the clown for such a long time: Dominique Bagouet.

69 It is just a little sad; sitting on the toilet and being bored. On the stage it had to be somewhat more poetic: Susanne Linke.

A little feeling, that something is wrong with your life: but we never get out: Susanne Linke.

East-West Encount~r

When I come to the West. especially to Germany, and I see the people walk. I feel that they have forgotten to walk. When I see them stand I feel they have forgotten to stand. Then I realise how rich we are: Chandralekha.

After having been to India, you never go back the same person. The most beautiful and the ugliest, India can give it: Susanne Linke.

What is this burden of choreography? There is dance in every movementl: Chandralekha.

Editing, cutting short is a language of numqers. not of dance : Chandralekha.

Western dancers: people with beautiful bodies and their legs sticking out. At my age I don 't have to put my leg up here, I have done that already!: Carmen DeLavallade.

Cunningham can really complicate things so well, that you think you become verv bright!: Patrizia Cerroni.

Dance is not language, it is movement: Kumudini La khia.

East and West are only geographical, but we are all the same: Susanne Linke.

You wanted to have a solution at the end of the week. It w 1J/ never come, because then life ends: Susanne Linke.

Centering, more than structuring as for the Western people, is important for us: Chandralekha. (Photo : Dashrath Patel)

70 People who sit at the desk. thev don't know what the experience was this week: Susanne Linke. (Photo: Palasranjan Bhaumick)

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