Winter 2023 - New adventures, Nine Rules, and Naatu Naatu
What this space has meant to me has changed over the years. When I first began this website, it was a space to exercise my writing muscle as I started thinking about my master’s thesis, and it was a place to bring together my embodied practice with my academic studies, as well as a place to manifest the confidence I wished to possess as a dancer. In the years since, it’s watched me process difficult feelings and periods, celebrate the launch of exciting new ventures, and grow from someone who barely dared acknowledge her alter-ego as a dancer to someone who has wholeheartedly embraced that as a core tenant of my identity.
Over the past year, I’ve wondered how I wanted to use this space as I move forward, and here’s where I’ve landed. Once a quarter, I want to look back on my dance adventures, things I’ve read or listened to that moved me, as well as any idea that has really caught my attention, as well as look forward to upcoming goals. Starting today – for Q1 2023! 😊
Dance Adventures
This past quarter has been a period of searching, from a dance perspective. The big performance is done, and I’m still getting clarity on what I want to latch onto next. In the meantime, I have a lot of mini-projects as well as pokers in the fire between the dance school, podcast, and ICAPS and a lot of gratitude for the family and community I’ve found, who’ve kept me going through this period of searching (and endless bouts of runny noses and fevers, with special appearances by stomach bugs...)
Here are some key highlights -
A Reflection on Nruthyarchana – After postponing for the larger part of 12 years, I finally had my wisdom teeth extracted, and in the forced rest that followed, I began thinking about the program I did last December ended up with about 13,000 words of the stories, lessons, and challenges behind each of the pieces I presented, and how those shaped me as a dancer. This is most definitely not ready for primetime yet, and if anything, it needs a lot of work before it is ready to see the light of day, but I want to remember when I look back that this happened. So, calling it out here.
Roundtable for the EVAM festival – Kiran Rajagopalan and I had a special panel discussion as part of Rasabodhi Arts Foundation’s EVAM festival, and it was a wonderful discussion with dancers across the diaspora reflecting on the conditions that have been supporting dance in their respective communities as well as looking forward into the future, which also became a special episode on Off The Beat Dance Podcast.
A serendipitous, whirlwind trip to Atlanta served as absolute salve to my soul and was bookended by The Dancer’s Voice: Book talk by Dr. Rumya S. Putcha and The Dancer’s Body: South Indian Dance Performance by hereditary Kalavantulu dance-scholar Dr. Yashoda Thakore at Emory University. I’m still making my way through Dr. Putcha’s book, but her talk had me reflecting on my grandmothers, mother, and my journey. After years of not feeling like my story was “typical,” it was a strange, beautiful feeling to be seen and represented. Yashoda m’am’s piece was a study of history through reportoire – so raw and real. She’s a brilliant performer and a speaker, and to be able to be in her presence and just take it all in was lovely – so, so, so lovely.
When I first presented the javali “Marulu Minchera” by Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, Yashoda m’am had challenged me to age my nayika from a lovesick teenager to a woman in her twenties, so the IDEA Abhinaya Salon’s Ashtanayika themed program seemed like an apt opportunity to try it out. My original version was definitely easier for me, I think, but I’m glad I experimented.
We started a new annual event under the ICAPS banner - Richmond-il Thiruvaiyaaru. After a long (pandemic-induced) break, it was wonderful to have an all-day festival where we were immersed in Thyagaraja’s music. I revisited a beautiful Thyagaraja piece that I’d learned while doing my master’s research – Venuganaloluni, choreographed by Sri Vempati Ravishankar, and it just made me happy. That piece feels like a warm mug of hot chocolate with a hint of mint swirled in. Simple, comforting, sweet, with some unexpected joys mixed in.
Things I’m Absorbing
I joined a book club and the first book was Tranquility by Tuesday by Laura Vandermark, which essentially lays out 9 simple rules to bring clarity and structure to life, and I needed this. I need this. Also, it’s a journey, and I’m still on the early steps, since rule #1 is give yourself a bedtime and I’m writing this at midnight (my bedtime was two hours ago). But I cannot recommend this highly enough for other crazy people who’re also juggling family, work, and dance (or their chaadastam of choice).
I’ve been laying off fiction for the most part, because I have a tendency to drop all responsibilities and dive headfirst into fictional universes, but when I had several hours in the airport to and from Atlanta, I asked my brother for recommendations, and ended up devouring Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. At face value, it’s a fluffy fantasy story centered on a coffee shop, but its philosophical cornerstone embodies how I try to live my life, but it gave me beautiful words for it (which I won’t reveal because... spoilers. It’s literally from the last chapter). It’s short. It’s a hot mug of coffee with a pastry on the side. I hear the audiobook is delightful, if that’s your jam. Read it (read it read it read it read it), and then let’s talk about it.
Now, onto podcasts, since I literally how hours-long podcast playlists teed up at any given moment. First, “The Tao of Rick Rubin” from The Ezra Klein Show was so unexpected and validating about the idea of the energy we bring into spaces and how that affects our creative pursuits. Second, “Dacher Keltner – The Thrilling New Science of Awe | The Onbeing Project” made me think not only in terms of how we move through our lives, but also the way in which abhinaya is codified in our texts and what rasa is from a psychological perspective. Also, I just did not expect to hear a Western academic speaking about the chakras in the human body as a valuable perspective on the human physiology. Basically, both of these podcast episodes brought together the things I Know to be true with every fibre of my being with the Scientific things we are taught in schools in a way that they’re not contradictions. I would urge you to take the time to listen to them.
Something that Captivated Me
I know I’m probably late to hop onto the “Naatu Naatu” bandwagon. I’ll admit it – when I first heard the song, I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about, and I only started paying attention to the lyrics after its Oscar win. (Also, what nonsense – having not one South Asian on stage for that performance!?) So, I’m here to firstly, eat crow, and secondly, geek out.
Okay, eating crow part. Initially, my thoughts were “Yay, as a Telugu person, I would’ve never predicted that a Tollywood song would be the first one to make it to the Oscars stage (if anything, I’d have assumed it would be Bollywood), so this is cool... But... y this song tho?” I was wrong. The lyrics are brilliant.
Now, the geeking out part. I came across an analysis by S. S. Rajamouli garu of the video for Naatu Naatu done for Vanity Fair, and like dude! This was a 16-minute masterclass on the chaturvidhaabhinaya! Like, no joke! The setting, the costumes, the postures and stances of the dancers, the spoken words, the visceral reactions... And specifically, the way that vibhavas and anubhavas resulted in the rasa... He made the point that it’s not dance for the point of dance, but dance in service of the story.
I rarely watch recent Telugu movies, preferring the B&W Telugu movies (which I mine for lessons on abhinaya). This analysis made me consider whether South Indian cinema hasn’t wandered as far from its classical roots in the golden era as I’d (snobbishly) presumed.
Speaking of snobbery, I know we tend to draw firm lines of demarcation between classical and not, between performing arts and “cheap entertainment for the masses,” or – to use the technical terms, margi versus desi. I think I find time and again that the frameworks within these ancient treatises apply to arts universally, whether we want to call them “classical” or not. In Season 1 of OTB, I reveled in the “Desi” characteristics of Parsvadeva’s Sangeeta Samayasara and how they applied to my own dance practice, and I found the same joy in finding the chaturvidhaabhinaya applied so clearly in the clearly “not classical” Naatu Naatu dance scene.
Looking Forward
This next quarter is set up. I’m practicing, learning, prepping a couple of students for their rangapravesams. I’m excited for the 2023 Sangeetha Natya Mahotsavam in June, and I’m praying that one big personal project comes to fruitionby then too, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying my ever-growing stack of books, but reality is also, well, real. School, work, home – all these things are taking time and I’m working on being present.
The photo was taken by Periyakaruppan Subramanian at the Richmond-il Thiruvaiyaaru.
