Book Review: Indian Contemporary Dance – New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora

Indian Contemporary Dance – New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora is a book authored by Ketu H katrak. Katrak is a Professor of Drama at the University of California, USA. This book was published in 2011 under the label of Palgrave-Macmillan publishers. This book by Katrak is also part of the Studies of the International Performance Studies and edited by Jainelt Reinlt and Brian Singlton. The book as the title suggests, attempts to historically trace down the evolution of dance in the contemporary Indian diaspora. This particular book serves as a potent work on documentation and archival research regarding contemporary Indian dance scenario.

Katrak maintains that she primarily works with tools of history, keeping in mind two important characteristics of Contemporary Indian dance: Connectivity and decline of the aspects of Indian classical dance for; and change and re-invention of the traditional modes of creative movement expressions. While engaging on such methodology of analysis, according to her, she is inevitably harboring a certain critique of the social and cultural stereotypes. However, the study of formal kinesthetic movement vocabularies of Indian classical forms dance, martial arts, yoga as well as theatre practice serves as vital grounds in the formation of this book.

Katrak selectively deals with some of the established pioneers, like Astad Deboo and Chandralekha etc. who have made dynamic choices to alter the perceptions of the traditional choreographic styles by playing distinctly with the Nritta aspects of their respective dance forms. The author points out that the aim of the dancers most of the time seems to be to attain a non-narrative minimalistic goal, even though, we will realize as this review shall progress forward, that such is not the case always.

Katrak states that the innovation in form has also empowered the choreographers to experimentally challenge and change the traditional content as well. Such innovations in content have lead towards explorations in contemporary issues of concern for example, sexuality, gender oppression, ethnicity, violence, environmental conservation etc and even psychic and physical therapy. The author is quick to add that the success of these changed and emancipated thought processes can still be attributed to the evocation of the rasa in the sahridaya towards a goal of self reflexivity in their togetherness.

Katrak begins the introduction to her book by echoing the sentiments of the noted scholar Kapila Vatsayayan, who clearly puts across the concern that Indian dance “cannot be viewed in isolation or distinct from the philosophical thoughts and the physical concerns of the Indian people”. Vatsayayan on her part is attempting an investigative and speculative thought over the “movement in space and time” into the creation of an artistic vision and work.

The author takes up Vatsayayan’s concern further into what constitutes her primary argument ie, “contemporary Indian dance be seen more as a new dance language keeping in mind it’s distinctive proponents, including a vast and varied canvas of movement idioms and multidisciplinary tools.

To understand any art form, one must invest a significant amount of thought into the art making techniques involved. Katrak calls this methodology as the “in-between, and the interdisciplinary theatrical”. This notion of in-betweeness as Katrak mentions is similar to Nietzsche’s scenario of a tight-rope walker “negotiating this in-betweeness and innovating within a new dialectic of form and content.

She moves on and informs us that a contemporary Indian dancer must not be confused with the word “fusion” to describe their work. They refuse to admit that their work is merely a collage of different styles together. Rightly so, contemporary Indian dancers innovate at times by becoming iconoclasts and even by parodying and challenging the established traditional form of dance and its sensibilities. But by emphasizing their distaste for being known as “fusion” dancers, they tend to inevitably become a type of purists. Thus, Katrak, along with these selected few dancers seem to be in emphasis of their own selves as avant-garde and yet upholding the rules and forms of their own practice as the somewhat neo-pure. The mere fact that all the dancers Katrak has considered fit to be represented in this book are those who have had considerable time of their lives devoted to training in a classical traditional dance style. Fusion, the word and the practice then might sound to them as a lower art.

The author now takes the reader into the myriad ways the dancers like to name their form. Katrak serves us with some useful examples like that of Mallika Sarabhai and Astad Deboo’s ‘Indian contemporary’ rasa enriched dance. Sarabhai for example prefers to give all the onus of innovation to the tradition itself. According to her, tradition inherently has the wide scope for all innovations to deal and incorporate contemporary issues. Dancers like Aditi Mangaldas of Kathak, follow suit. Thus, their forms of dance are essentially Indian with Indian aesthetic sensibilities reflected in music, costume etc. Chandralekha, similarly, never accepted the term ‘contemporary’ to describe her dance. For Jaychandran Palazhy, the Director of Attakalari Center, with the advent of globalization, dance is no longer called merely classical, folk or cinematic but now there is a wide scope for experimentation. With such myriad attempts how does one explain what is Contemporary Indian Dance? Other than the examples we mentioned above, contemporary Indian dance also takes from sources which are not of Indian origin, for example, Ramli Ibrahim’s Malaysia based Sutra Dance Company. In order to define the Indian in dance, Katrak takes references from

Dance of any genre cannot be divorced from the social milieu it takes shape in. referring to what was known as the Modern Indian Dance around 1980’s and into post 1990’s, it is difficult to ignore the policies of Indian economic liberalization which certainly had a huge impact on Indian artists from all spheres. Not only did the art forms and technology came to be much more accessible to the larger global audiences, but also significant theorization could be made possible in an evasive field such as dance on a international platform. Besides, inherently became a medium of art that “enriched the viewer by offering imaginative ways of challenging regressive notions of nation, gender and class.

The process and problems of meaning making and reading dance has been theorized by Susan Leigh Foster. She, as Katrak informs us, writes in an active interpretation of dance as a system of meanings. Similarly, even the Natyashastra, the ‘abhinaya’ aspect is basically explaining through non-verbal gestures and body movements. In order to conceptualize the varied vocabularies used in contemporary Indian dance, Katrak mentions Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of “hetero-glossia” asserting multiplicity of forms over unitary meanings; “the dialogue: ‘the open-endedness and the impossibility of closure’”. Bakhtin is referring to what we can understand as the hybrid which has interactive layers of meanings. Hybrid then can be also understood as something which has a possibility of multiple signs and multiple implications and connotations for different persons at the very same time.

Katrak in the first chapter is intervening through an elaborate understanding of dance history in India. She attempts to reconstruct what was nautch-dance for British colonialists by taking out instances of Sadir Dance or the Devadasi system and Sadir’s or Daasiattam’s gradual progression into a full fledged classical form called ‘Bharata Natyam’. Katrak is not being a revivalist but in a way she, in this portion of the chapter, is ruing over the lost sexual freedom of the devadasis. Later, the advent of Rukmini Devi Arundale rendered Dassiattam into Bharatanatyam as a move towards it’s ‘purification’ and to rid the dance form from its vulgar popularity. Kathak, the northern Indian dance form, famously practices by nautch-girls or bai-jis of Lucknow or Avadh also met a similar fate of purification by a dancer called Madam Menka. The cultural patrons of the newly independent Indian state were the government and the several Sangeet Natak Akademis that were instituted. This led to the advent of high art and the notions of Classical culture was re-instated amongst the general Indian masses. At such a time and much before it, dancers like Uday Shakar and Ram Gopal had been exploring the western sensibilities to enrich their repertoire. Shankar’s Labour and Machinery freely infused several dance styles to create a single effect. Previous, research done regarding Uday Shakar’s thoughts and philosophy on his dance indicate that he deliberately wanted to free dance from any one single limiting grammar or style. Then there were disciples of Uday Shankar like Narendra Sharma who worked with Shankar to promote form like Creative Contemporary Indian dance. Narendra sharma, with his own thoughts and acclaim founded the Bhoomika Creative Arts Centre in Delhi much later in 1972. His focus was also to infiltrate dance in education as an integral part.

Last but not the least in the chapter is the “pioneering foremother to Indian contemporary dancers”, Chandralekha. Interestingly, Katrak keeps referring Chandralekha now and often throughout her book. Internationally acclaimed, Chandra was a distinct dancing force in herself. Although she was trained in Bharatnatyam, her works are not limited to it. She beautifully juxtaposes Bharatnatyam, Kalaipayattu and Yoga postures to create slow-paced focused movements accompanied by Dhrupad style(northern Indian) singing of Gundecha brothers. Although religion is never an inspiration for Chandra, spiritual awakening with its aspects of feminine sexuality and sensuality, the male-female union of energies are deeply explored in a spell-bounding fashion, especially in the very widely known piece called Sharira. In one of the scenes, the female climbs on top of the male and assumes the position as in the iconography of the lingam gradually to depict the ever greater energy of Shakti. Her choreographies bear her signature style in form of movements in geometrical patterns. This aspect was highlighted in her choreographic piece called Yantra – dance diagrams. Clearly her work individually has been acclaimed to be much ahead of her times and her legacy in its aspects of body abstractions continues to inspire dancers and scholars alike. [ critique of Brahmin dance form, how chandralekha got into the limelight, the problems she faces of being ”vulgar” ]

Next in line, entering into the second chapter of the book, in Katrak’s list of Contemporary Indian dancers who follow the trajectory of movement abstractions infused with elements of rasa is Mumbai based Astad Deboo. Deboo is primarily layering his movements deeply submerged in emotions and feelings. Katrak notes that even though other dancers seem to be attempting abstractions based on the nritta (technical) aspects of dance, but Deboo defies the conventions by generating movement abstraction involving abhinaya aspect of dance. One can also relate his rasa centric dance to his training initially in Kathak and then in Kathakkali and is known to be a globe-trotter, either in his student days or now when he is busy promoting his dance to international acclaim. Katrak tells us that Deboo work has been noted for being “quiet, introspective, inward-looking, and meditative” in most of his own performances. This becomes quite evident in his choreography called Interpreting Tagore, (1995) a performance based on Tagore’s poem on Mother Goddess where he makes use of familiar chakkars (pirouettes) of Kathak for a couple of minutes without halt and combining with them the hand and upper body gestures inspired by Indian and western modern dances. Astad as a choreographer has triumphed by his work with hearing-impaired children. One of his well known works with hearing impaired students is called ContraPosition. He has collaborated extensively with such children and discovered prodigious talents which also got featured and performed in the Deaf Way II held in Washington DC in the year 2000. (international?? Yet traditional, what is his audiences )

Another pioneer, in the same chapter, in abstract dance who bases her experimentation on her training in traditional dance is London based Shobhana Jeyasingh. She deconstructs the rule bound dance with a lot of dissimilar elements that evokes a sense of enigma and dynamism. She prefers to call herself a dance-maker and is known for her site specific performances. Her earlier works like Romance…with Footsteps (1992) retains basic structural similarities with Bharatnatyam but later performances like Pulse(2009) see her infusing inspiration from science fiction using time body and space.

In the next chapter called Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Choreography by Masters of Traditional Indian Dance and Emerging Innovators, deals with creative choreographers based on Kathak and Bharatnatyam. The choreographers featured for Kathak are Madhu Natraj, Aditi Mangaldas, and Daksha Seth. Noted dancer and scholar Maya Rao’s daughter Madhu Natraj is the founder of Natya STEM and Dance Kampni based in Bangalore. Aditi Mangaldas, former student of Kumudini Lakhia and Birju Maharaj, as a prominent dancer and choreographer of modern Kathak in India basically asserts her own form amalgamated with the Contemporary dance style. She is the founder of Drishtikon Dance Company based in New Delhi. Last under the category of Contemporary choreographers of Kathak is Daksha Seth also a student of Lakhia, merges Chhau and Kathak to create her own vocabulary.

Innovators based on Bharatnatyam are Navtej Singh Johar, a product of Kalakhetra, has been a known figure when it comes to experimental dance choreographies that also involve rasa evocation breaking the age old chauvinistic rigid traditions. Mallika Sarabhai, daughter of the renowned choreographer Mrinalini Sarabhai, is an accomplished dancer, theatre practitioner and social activist based in Ahmedabad and who raises issues against communal violence. In similar tones Katrak mentions Nrityagram, Bangalore’s Neewin Hershell and Delhi’s Anusha Lall and her GATI Dance Forum.

But Katrak makes a clear and elaborate mention of Padmini Chettur’s non Indian Contemporary dance. Chettur began her training under Chandra and kick started her career being a part of her group. Gradually she devised her own vocabulary n delinked herself from Chandra’s style. She devised performances that can be known to have a grammar specific to Chettur’s only. But she makes a clear distinction from the traditional or western references in her dance and choreography. It is rather contentious that Katrak would call Chettur’s style Indian merely because her training has been traditional Indian bharatnatyam etc. whereas she refutes the term “indian” to define her dance.

In the Fourth chapter called Hybrid Artists and Trans-National Collaborations works of Anita Ratnam, Hari Krishnan and Ramli Ibrahim are analyzed elaborately. Katrak emphasizes that Ratnam is a neo-classicist in her form delving upon the sacred and urban at the same time. Hari krishnan’s overt challenging of gender and cultural stereotyping and Ramli Ibrahim’s merging of Bharatnatyam and Odissi with Malay Folk dance and music become transnational collaborations which display the flavour of Contemporary Indian Dance. Yet, Katrak does not focus much on the hybridity issues of their performances which is kind of a lacuna considering that the current breed of performance artists work on greater levels of hybrid art.

As pert of the Fifth chapter, called Dancing in the Diaspora I: North America, Katrak introduces the reader to the world of cyber innovations in the field of Indian dance. One of the significant pioneers in this regard is the Post-Natyan Collective, which uses the cyber space to create ‘long-distance choreographies’ on the computer screen while actually each dancer is situated at very different parts of the world. She also names Shyamala Moorthy’s solo theatre-dance as creating ripple in the American audiences with her abhinaya and nav-rasas. Few more dancers like Parijat Desai and Maithili Prakash find space in this chapter in their attempts to explore the extensions of their dance traditions in foreign lands.

The sixth and the last section is in the same directions exploring dance in the Britain. Dancer Akram Khan’s contemporary Kathak has been included, for its specific features dealing with male sexuality in works like “No Male Egos” (1999).

Conclusion:

Katrak, writing from a foreign land, is somewhat trying to bracket most of the dancers in to the seemingly all encompassing category of ‘Indian’, even those who have been working to evolve their own distinct language and style all their lives. Also, inevitably, there is an attempt to look mostly at the Brahminical natya centered dance forms. For example, there is no mention of Satriya martial art form, now getting featured into the dance practices as well. By restricting her focus towards Bharatnatyam and Kathak dance form only, she has served the readers this work with what we can call as tilting more towards the aim of documentation rather than inquisitive research. 

Katrak at no point on juncture is attempting to explain what is Indian according to her.  Is this certain tradition that is really Indian? So there is a lingering ambiguity about her descriptions of all the dancers. Nor does she explain what have been the influences upon the classical traditions given the parallel modern forces operating alongside the traditional.

Yet the book is very well written and edited for the sake of documentation. This is a significant contribution, keeping in view that the Indian Culture studies and especially the Dance studies lacks books like these in matters of helping record and document evasive movements in the field of dance and performance.