The still centre of movement
ANJANA RAJAN
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Anita Ratnam brought a contemporary if aesthetic light to the Buddhist Goddess Tara.
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NEW PERSPECTIVES Anita Ratnam performing at the India International Centre. PHOTO: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
Rarely is it that a performance of Indian classical dance in one of the Indian metros is watched in pin drop silence. But then, even if it is not, the misdemeanour passes unnoticed, simply because there is so much sound originating from the stage, no one notices a little extra from the audience. Creaking chairs, squeaking doors, even talkative spectators and the occasional biscuit packet opened for the little ones, all of these, reprehensible as some of them may be, can be gotten away with in your run-of-the-mill Bharatanatyam programme, where the mikes are healthy, the jatis are powerful, the mridangam strong and steady, the vocalist confident. Not so in Anita Ratnam `Seven Graces... the many hues of Goddess Tara', which had its Delhi premiere at the India International Centre the other day.
Irreverent it may sound, to speak of the Buddhist Goddess of the seven graces in the same breath as biscuits and urban noise. But Anita Ratnam's Goddess is the fearless product of a contemporary imagination that does not hesitate to place the profound and hoary with the new and tacky. A collaboration between Anita and Hari Krishnan of inDANCE, Canada, the solo production is set to an eclectic soundtrack that includes Carnatic music, the piano and Western classical opera.
Besides Bharatanatyam, the movement is drawn from diverse forms including martial arts, Modern Dance, Tibetan Buddhist liturgical dance and others.
The overall effect is of meditative quietude, as if it were entirely played out in silence, even though there are sections of vigorous dance accompanied by jati recitation. This effect is probably as much due to the unbroken concentration of the dancer and movement flow, as the soothing music scape, designed by Suresh Gopalan, Anil Srinivasan, Hari Krishnan and Anita Ratnam.
In the abstract rendition, the dancer made use of a set of abhinaya motifs that turned into an appealing nritta refrain. In the discussion that followed the performance, the revelation that some of these stemmed from sources like the dancer's hatred of cats or pinching the cheeks of her children, brought these mundane thoughts into sharp contrast with the `Devi bhavas' they looked like when she performed them.
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
