Safety In Numbers

Visualise it: The whirl of a single Kathak dancer in a silk skirt versus the pirouette of 20.

Tune into: The footwork of a Bharatanatyam virtuoso versus the synchronised steps of a group of 30.

Visualise again: An intimate 200-seater auditorium versus a 52-feet open-to-sky platform, with a monument in the background.

Now, make a choice between the scenarios.

If you happen to choose: “Move over single-star-on-stage; bring on the rhythm regiment,” you’re probably part of a chorus. It’s a fairly loud chorus comprising dancers, dance gurus, wannabe dancers, impresarios, sponsors, and yes, the spectator, nee the audience. All of them have synced their psyche to make classical dance a spectacle. Today, group choreography is what people want to put their money on, while the solo acts come in as also-rans.

“There are connoisseurs who know the grammar of classical dance, and the mythology associated with it. But there is a much larger community out there that is not aware of this. I want to cater to that lot,” says an emphatic Bijan Mukherjee, founder, Impresarios India.

It is for those who look askance when names such as Pandit Birju Maharaj and Kelucharan Mahapatra are evoked that group dances provide an easy ride for shaking hands with what is classical dance. “If you want to grab the attention of a person who has no awareness of traditional dance, the best way is the visual,” Mukherjee says.

So the recipe for success in serving the ‘visual’ has the following ingredients: elaborate colour-coordinated costumes, young lithe bodies (in generous quantities), top-of-the-line lighting and acoustics, audio-visuals that can dazzle, and synchronised movements. Where then, can there be room for a solo act, with its emphasis on abhinaya (facial expressions), mythology, and technique?

As Bharatanatyam performer and teacher Justin McCarthy observes:

If group performances brought grandeur centre stage, it also ensured an audience strength going up from 600 to 2,000 in 15 years for Ananya, the dance festival that Sanjeev Bhargava conceived and nurtured with funding from the Delhi government.

As for what was on offer, Bhargava says he went to well-known solo artists of the time (Madhavi Mudgal for Odissi, Geeta Chandran and Leela Samson for Bharatanatyam, Bharati Shivaji for Mohiniyattam, etc) and asked them to choreograph short pieces of not more than 15 minutes, which could be woven into an hour’s performance. 

Recalling her experience of performing for Ananya, dancer Geeta Chandran recalls:

However, not everyone has had a smooth ride when it comes to choreography. Kathak exponent Aditi Mangaldas, who maintains a company of nine dancers and three musicians, recounts how some organisers approach her just a month or 15 days before a programme, saying:

The general dearth of eclectic curators who encourage risk taking in classical dance notwithstanding, group choreography looks like a win-win for most of the players in this game. Gurus who are past their prime take to choreography as student support on stage gives them “breathing space”. It also helps them “fit in” all those students who may not have the talent to be solo performers, but who have a burning desire to be on stage. Organisers are happy when they see a show of shapely bodies which of course is an eyeful for the audience too. Add to that the promise of new themes, such as gender parity, conservation, health awareness etc, which break the monotony of seeing yet another Radha pining away for yet another Krishna.

A group show is also easier to figure out for the following reason: When a solo dancer performs, say in Kathak… one whirl… she (assuming she is female in this example) is the heroine (predictably, Radha)… the next whirl, she’s the Gopi (the heroine, Radha’s friend)… the third whirl, she’s the hero (no prizes for guessing, that’s Krishna)… the fourth whirl, she becomes a tree… and yet another whirl, she becomes a deer in the forest. One dancer enacts five roles within the span of a couple of minutes. For the uninitiated, this can be quite confusing. However, when these five roles are enacted by five different dancers, as is the norm in group choreography, it becomes far more easily comprehensible. “Almost like reaching out to the lowest common denominator,” as dance scholar Arshiya Sethi puts it.

That being said, there is choreography and there is choreography. As cultural commentator Sadanand Menon observes, group dance has been around in pre- and post-Independence India, in Rukmini Devi Arundale’s and Ram Gopal’s ballets (both having had solid grounding in their art forms), as also the Gotipuos performing together.

Speaking about her journey both as a soloist and a choreographer, Odissi dancer Ileana Citaristi, based in Bhubaneswar, says she never dances in her group shows. This is quite unlike many aging star performers who stubbornly hold on to lead roles, while their students do the peripheral ones. Speaking about her fascination for fluidity, geometry and the abstract, Citaristi explains:

Continuing on the artistic experience, Chandran adds:

As for the economics, that too seems to work just right. Sponsors—corporates who would otherwise have not been interested—are willing to splurge on classical dance as showbiz. So what better way to bring the art form out of mothballs than to wrap it in group glitz? Besides, parents are also willing to fund group shows, just to see their children perform. After a hard day’s work at the Shiv Nadar School, where Sneha Chakradhar works as Arts Coordinator (to fund her dance), she acknowledges that she couldn’t have come this far in dance but for the financial support from her parents. The struggle continues, however, as she reflects how after a solo Bharatanatyam performance, she was in the red by several thousand rupees as she had to pay for live music. By contrast, in group shows, they make do with recorded music, which, once worked on in the studio, remains forever.

Long years of training, stage presence, artistic sensibilities that can hold an audience, stamina, and many more factors make a solo performer. It is what any dancer would aspire to become. But for those who are still on the journey to become, there are always interesting options in group choreography. And an audience out there to applaud.

This article was published in the May 2016 Issue of Swarajya Magazine. To subscribe, click here.