Dance As Yoga and for Fitness

PAPER 8 DANCES AND DANCE DRAMAS OF SOUTH EAST ASIA MASK DANCES OF SOUTH EAST ASIA /ASIA-PACIFIC COUNTRIES RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES FOR PERFORMING ARTS (DANCE) DANCE THERAPY MODULE 35 DANCE AS YOGA AND FOR FITNESS According to Indian philosophy, the practice of an art is considered as a form of yoga. When an artist creates a painting or music or dance, the thought process and the meditation that goes into creating the final tangible outcome is akin to maintaining a yogic posture and transcending from the mundane world. Due to this, Indian art had reached a pinnacle of perfection and in Hinduism and Buddhism, the monks and saints saw artistic creativity as part and parcel of their journey to salvation. 1 Coming to Dance, in India, it has been described as a Natya yoga as the dancer while dancing is able to bring all her physical activities to align with her mental state, as dictated by the character. In other words, when the dancer remains in the sthayi bhava of the character, the dancer becomes the character and they become inseparable. Just as a Yogi undergoes physical and mental penance to align with the axis of transcendence, a dancer aligns his/her body, mind and soul through practice and during dance to the axis to achieve transcendence. During this alignment, the dancer takes the audience as well in his/her journey and makes them realize that dance is a form of yoga. 1 As one browses through the pages of Natyasastra one cannot miss the various permutations and combinations Bharata had devised, methodically systematized, and codified making Indian dance as a good exercise for the development of the body. As Sudharani Raghupathy lists the benefits of dance for a child, dance helps in (1) Concentration; (2) Exercising the limbs; (3) Acceleration of circulation; (4) Correcting certain faults; (5) Growth, physical and mental; (6) Relaxing the body and mind and (7)in the Imagination of the child, which is the most important aspect of growth.2 If we look at any Indian classical dance, we notice that the dancers use various parts of their body to create the art on the stage, just like an artist uses his brush and colours to paint a canvas. Until unless, the artist has a good brushes and sharp colours, any painting he conceives does not reach high quality. Similarly, the body needs to be in good shape (not in terms of figure) to be able to perform dance and invoke various rasas. Bharata of Natyasastra knew that the body has to be conditioned properly in order to achieve the objectives. Thus, through the various movements described and codified in Natyasastra, one could achieve the maximum conditioning of the body. Current practitioners of Indian dance follow a warm-up routine before they start the performance or even for regular classes. Warming up of the body is important, as much as cooling down after the performance. In Kuchpudi, gurus make the students to jump, stretch and make their bodies supple and keep the heart at a rate where complex rhythmic patterns can be executed at ease. In 2 Bharatanatyam, slow stretches of thigh muscles, ankles, and biceps are done as warm-up exercises. Also, Bharatanatyam dancers use bicep toning so as to maintain the Natyarambhe position or the pose at the beginning of the dance. Many dancers include leaps and jumps that are inspired by other forms such as Kalaripayattu, Chhau, etc. This intermingling of movements helps in toning and strengthening the breath control in dancers. It is also a common practice among dancers to calm their mind before a performance. In order to do that, many spend time in the green room doing prayers and meditation in seclusion to achieve the tranquility. Dancers such as Shanta Rao have been known to spend hours in meditation in her green room before coming out for her performance. Others take a break a day from rehearsals and before the performance by doing powernaps or conscious sleeping to calm their minds and recover from the fatigue of rehearsals. Indian classical dance offers multi-layered approach to a dancer’s physical and mental well-being. First and foremost, the dance is physical and exerts a physical strain akin to someone who jogged or underwent exercises. Also, in Indian dance, the dancers are trained to breathe out only through their nose and not from the mouth. Thus, over a period of time, the breathing becomes easy even when executing a complex rhythmic pattern, making the dancer develop breath control. Such breath control increases stamina and endurance. Just like a good exercise, Indian dance strengthens the heart, improves blood circulation, increases lung capacity, and involves every muscle of the body.3 3 Additionally during all these physical activities, the mind is aligned and in tune with the song and the tala that is being performed. Hence, Indian dance challenges the brain and keeps it sharp. Such combination of activities involving brain, mind and soul helps a person to a joyful experience and also to relax. 3 Dance as Yoga Dancer Aparna Ramasamy postulates that Bharatanatyam embodies the principles of Ashtanga yoga/अष्ट車गयोग. In Ashtanga yoga, the asanas/आसन and pranayama/प्रटणटयटम combined with the mental outlook paves the way for immersion in dhyana/鵍यटन and leading to Samadhi. Due to regular practice, at some point of time, the dancer becomes the dance. And every dancer after that point of time becomes a yogi. To become a perfect dancer, Bharata in Natyasastra says that the dancer cannot be egoistic, arrogant and should have self-discipline, self-restraint, self-transcendence, and humility. Thus, a dancer can achieve transcendence and bring out the true rasa in the dance, if and only if they dancer has become a true yogi. 4 Using the vocabulary of Ashtanga yoga, one could understand how rasa is created in Bharatanatyam, or for that matter any dance. Thus for any dance until unless the mind and body are integrated it cannot become a yogic method. Aparna Ramamswamy stresses that Bharatanatyam qualifies as an Ashtanga yoga, as the dance can be self-oriented for self-cultivation, self-enjoyment and self-enrichment. In the privacy of the dancing space, it can be a practice only for the 4 dancer, where the dancer can invoke the experience of oneness or rasa. 4 Navtej Singh Johar, a trained Bharatanatyam artist, has used yoga and still continues to teach yoga in his Studio Abhyas. In the last ten years, he has dovetailed yoga in Bharatanatyam along with a multilayered approach with aesthetics, poetics, politics, history, and philosophy. He says that he is drawn to the rasa and dhwani as expounded by Abhinavagupta. While keeping the theme of eroticism as central, he believes that a dancer is not only a vessel but also a recipient of what he or she produces. Similar to what Aparna Ramaswamy says in her thesis, Navtej reiterates that a dancer not only expresses bhava but also experiences rasa. He further adds “I am very clear that I am not a carrier of any message nor a propagator, advocate or ambassador of any culture. My job is to orchestrate experience in which I, the performer, remain central. Music continues to play a very vital part in my work; almost all my works hinge on a padam, javali or a thumri, and of late I have also started to use voice and singing in performance. My work is almost always making a comment on dance, its inherent eroticism, its fabricated histories which I find problematic, and the controlling hierarchies that prevail within it; so the targeting of reconstructed narratives, both political and philosophical, has become central in my work over the last few years. To me Indian dance is not an innocent affair: it is hugely complex, politically driven, problematically defined, and projects an “idea” of India that is neither historically sound nor secular or democratic. My continuous attempt is to find some 5 autonomy for dance as for the body within a context that has been hugely manipulated, and is manipulative and oppressive in turn.” In his dance he has relied majorly on yoga and its principles. The breathing technique of Ujjayi/उ煍जयी has helped him significantly. This method of breathing or pranayama, where the inhalation is through the nose and while exhaling the epiglottis is partially closed thus making a gentle hissing sound like the hiss of a cobra. Hence, this is also known as Cobra breathing. Ujjayi technique increases oxygenation and builds internal body heat. It also awakens the spine and due to the audible sound in exhalation, the practitioner can auto-engage in the process. According to Navtej Johar, yoga and its breathing techniques teaches him to remain as the primary recipient of the after effects of what he is physically generating. This has a lasting effect of centering, and a sweet deeply satisfying state. The direct bearings of yoga in his dance is that the body are also becomes available to receive and absorb the echo of the movements the body generated, to begin with. The result is that the dancer is in a state of tranquility, or itminan/इत्ममनटन as they call it, which is palpable and audience notices it. According to Navtej Johar this tranquility or peace is a great asset in every performance. It is important for dancers to realize their body, anatomy, and the physical extremes that they can push themselves. Since the body is the instrument a dancer uses to dance, understanding their body type helps in identifying which type of warm-up exercises can be more suitable.

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