ISSN 2455-7250 Vol. XVII No. 2 April - June 2017 A Quarterly Journal of Indian Dance Features: Dance for Camera & ABU International Dance Festival A Quarterly Journal of Indian Dance Volume: XVII, No. 2 April-June 2017 Sahrdaya Arts Trust Hyderabad RNI No. APENG2001/04294 ISSN 2455-7250 Nartanam, founded by Kuchipudi Kala Founders Kendra, Mumbai, now owned and G. M. Sarma published by Sahrdaya Arts Trust, Hyderabad, is a quarterly which provides M. Nagabhushana Sarma a forum for scholarly dialogue on a broad range of topics concerning Indian Chief Editor dance. Its concerns are theoretical as well Madhavi Puranam as performative. Textual studies, dance criticism, intellectual and interpretative Patron history of Indian dance traditions are its Edward R. Oakley focus. It publishes performance reviews and covers all major events in the field Chief Executive of dance in India and notes and comments on dance studies and performances Vikas Nagrare abroad. The opinions expressed in the articles Advisory Board and the reviews are the writers’ own and Anuradha Jonnalagadda (Scholar, Kuchipudi dancer) do not reflect the opinions of the editorial committee. The editors and publishers Avinash Pasricha (Former Photo Editor, SPAN) of Nartanam do their best to verify the C.V. Chandrasekhar (Bharatanatyam Guru, Padma Bhushan) information published but do not take Kedar Mishra (Poet, Scholar, Critic) responsibility for the absolute accuracy Kiran Seth (Padma Shri; Founder, SPIC MACAY) of the information. K. K. Gopalakrishnan (Critic, Scholar) Cover Photo: Leela Venkataraman (Critic, Scholar, SNA Awardee) Participants at the Asia-Pacific Mallika Kandali (Sattriya dancer, Scholar) Broadcasting Union International Television Dance Festival Pappu Venugopala Rao (Scholar, Former Associate D G, American Institute; Secretary, Music Academy) Photo Courtesy: Doordarshan and Reginald Massey (Poet, FRSA & Freeman of London) K. K. Gopalakrishnan Sunil Kothari (Scholar, Padma Shri & SNA Awardee) Suresh K. Goel (Former Director General, ICCR) Cover, Design & Layout Shakeel Ahmed Annual Subscription: In India: Individual: ` 1000 Institutional: ` 2000 Past issues can be obtained from our office Overseas: Individual: US $ 60 Institutional: US $ 80 @ ` 350/- per copy for individuals (All Inclusive of postage) @ ` 500/- per copy for instiutions Note: Students in India can avail of 25% discount on (Inclusive of postage in India; Subject to availabil- individual subscriptions) ity; Please check with the office.) For all editorial enquiries, sending manuscripts, details of subscriptions, and past issues please visit www.nartanam.in Registered Office: Sahrdaya Arts Trust, 508, Dwarakamai Apartments, Srinagar Colony Post, Hyderabad- 500073 Email: [email protected], [email protected] Phone: 9989314829, 9000020879 website: www.nartanam.in All articles, photographs and other materials, appearing in Nartanam, whether in whole or in part, in any form are exclusive copyright of Sahrdaya Arts Trust unless otherwise specified, and may not be reproduced in any form or stored in any electronic or retrievable format without prior written consent. Printed and published by Madhavi Puranam on behalf of Sahrdaya Arts Trust, Hyderabad Printed at Karshak Art Printers, 40-APHB, Vidyanagar, Hyderabad-500044. (Ph:27618261) and published at Hyderabad. Editor: Madhavi Puranam NARTANAM Volume: XVII, No. 2 April-June 2017 CONTENTS Editorial/ 6 Dance in a New Light KAMALINI DUTT / 9 What classical dancers can learn from film dance V. A. K. RANGA RAO / 47 Trials of choreographing for Indian films ILEANA CITARISTI / 51 Photo Feature - Abu Dance Festival/56 On Building a Virtual Cultural Equity ARSHIYA SETHI / 63 On the Platter of ABU International Television Dance Festival MADHAVI PURANAM / 70 ABU International Dance Festival: An Experience VIKAS NAGRARE / 90 Photo Feature - Abu Dance Festival/95 Uparupakas and Nritya-Prabandhas V. RAGHAVAN / 98 A Nachni and her Rasik: a dancing community of Purulia (West Bengal) SVETLANA RYZHAKOVA / 116 PERFORMANCE REVIEWS Delhi Diary / 128 SPIC MACAY’s tryst with India’s cultural heritage / 141 LEELA VENKATARAMAN BOOK REVIEWS 1. BUNCH OF JAVALIS / 2011/ Pappu Venugopala Rao 2. FRAGRANCE OF PADAMS / 2015/ Pappu Venugopala Rao V. A. K. RANGA RAO / 145 6 Nartanam EDITORIAL On 5 July 2017 Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the IV International SPIC MACAY Convention in Delhi. He, most aptly, spoke very highly of Kiran Seth and his single minded devotion in sensitizing the youth of the country to its classical arts for 40 years. An incomparable crusade. Classical arts should be an integral part of holistic education and a movement like SPIC MACAY should have been steered by the government itself through its ministry and institutions. Kiran Seth is a unique individual and we at Nartanam are fortunate to have him as our sage adviser. The strength of SPIC MACAY is its model of taking great arts and artists to the young in the intimate atmosphere of their schools and colleges. Its backbone is the network of volunteers who run this amazing movement. However, its Achilles’ heel is the volunteers’ deep-rooted feeling that they are the guardians of Indian culture and most others are ignoramuses. This tragic sense of ego often underlies their behaviour. “Selfless service” degenerates to "possessiveness” and this does not permit new blood to sprout and bloom. This inhibits growth in volunteerism which the movement desperately needs at this hour. This is an example of the “Vagaries of Human Nature,” as Bertrand Russell would have put it. The second Achilles’ heel is the unnecessary deviation from SPIC MACAY’s core strength of immaculate small modules to big, not so well organized, international conventions. Having said so, I do not wish to undermine SPIC MACAY for it is the only movement in India that has the potential to integrate culture into the country’s education system. This is precisely why it is important to ponder on the following: Artists, spectators and volunteers who are closely associated with great art surely must experience some elevation in their personas and reach a higher state where trivialities of ego like “mine’, “done by me”, “I am the saint who will lead you to light” etc. are shed. For me watching Kalyanasougandhikam in Kathakali or Bhamakalapam in Kuchipudi is enough to cleanse me of any vestiges of vanity and ego, which of course have the special quality of raising their ugly head every now and then. Even the invocation before the Kuchipudi recital, Amba Paraku, is adequate to Nartanam 7 energize my being with positive energy and ideals. The effect stays for a while before it wears off and all I have to do is to revisit great performances. It keeps me under check. Now moving on to other concerns, plagiarism is a great danger in dance writing. We at Nartanam have faced it from time to time and have discovered to our utter disbelief that it is taken very lightly by some writers who palm it off as a mere oversight in not referencing or quoting others’ writing. It’s high time that plagiarism is treated as a most serious wrong-doing. It is, in fact, criminal theft of intellectual property. The revered scholar Bharat Gupt informs us that the government has appointed a nine-member committee under space scientist Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan’s leadership to prepare the final draft for the New Education Policy (NEP). The panel has been asked to begin work immediately. However, incredulously, the panel does not possess a single Sanskrit expert, artist, musician or philosopher thus excluding Arts and Humanities in toto. Today, when almost everyone of the reigning regime in the country professes to delve deep into our ancient past at the drop of a hat, the NEP is all set to ignore and bypass this country's immense contribution to world culture. This will only harm the NEP. The Indian Council for Historical Research held its first ever conference on the History of Dance, in May 2017 in Chennai. This suggests that History of Dance has never been considered an important enough subject for historical research. Incredible! No wonder we at Nartanam come across conflicting dates of birth for a particular maestro upon which the immediate family and even his/ her disciples or contemporaries cannot shed much light. Reliable records are impossible to obtain. Often the bio data of Sangeet Natak Akademi awardees are incomplete and very sketchy and one wonders on what basis the awards were discussed and evaluated. Oral history, fables, tales and conjectures abound in so-called Indian dance history. Nartanam had to initiate its first ever legal proceedings in the sixteen years of its existence against a government institution, the Kuchipudi Natyaramam in Andhra Pradesh for unduly pending dues to Nartanam and many Kuchipudi artists. It is interesting to note that an ambitious institution/project like the Kuchipudi Natyaramam has no executive committee or a general council and its constitution and operations are not clear while its chairman seems to be unanswerable to any authority above him. Incidentally, the Natyaramam aspires to be a Mecca of arts like the Kalamandalam and the Kalakshetra. 8 Nartanam An important feature of this issue is the focus on “Dance for Camera.” In this context we present a review of the inaugural Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) International Television dance festival, which took place in Hyderabad. This was mounted by ABU with Prasar Bharati, the Telangana government and Doordarshan as the organizing partners. How is dancing for the camera different from just archiving or recording dance for academic purposes? The way a camera can move, shoot and use lighting makes the foreground and background important spaces where dance can be executed. The way every shot is conceived and the editing which makes the final product, which is the dance viewed on a screen, all are points of interest. Can dance for camera capture something beyond a live performance or even add to it? How is shooting dance for movies different? The human eye has its shortcomings; it can only see in ‘sharp cuts’.