Art for my sake!

When the rebirth of Bharatanatyam (as we know it today) and redefinition of the ‘Bharatiya naari’ is coloured with so much propaganda and political motives, it is hardly possible that in its evolution, development and modernisation, it becomes mute or apolitical, writes Priyanka Chandrasekhar

Many a time in my 30-some years, I have wished I was a man, so I could walk the streets at night. Many a time in my 25-some years of practising Indian classical dance, I have wished to be that heroine we portray, to have that eternal love story myself. Despite my 10 years as a law student, I could hardly argue without an apology for my intelligence. Many a time in all my living years listening to popular stories and myths, I have had the urge to change it… just because it is not supposed to be. Art can often become an instrument of empowered aspiration or enabled resistance. I find my purpose for art as an audience, facilitator and as a performer trying to walk this road (often not taken) where I learn about people (me, included) through my practice and reflect about the world with my audiences through my performances.

The Bharatanatyam training, through the stories we tell in our bodies, and what we put our bodies through to tell them, has a menacingly similar voice. Through this training which starts in the early years, a little too soon, a young girl gladly assumes the role of preserving culture, protecting respectability and being productive for the sake of tradition and values. Her life starts to look (depressingly) predictable and her destiny mostly pre-decided. For instance, I knew that I would marry because all the respectable women I portray in dance were married; I knew I would marry a man and a family who would ‘allow’ me to dance because all the popular dancers around me had rich ‘supportive’ husbands working in IT; I knew I will top my college but not pursue a job because I should be taken care of like all mothers dominatingly take care of their daughters who take up dance; I knew I will be liked by boys and their mothers because as a student of dance, discipline, obedience, politeness and pleasing is imbibed to perfection. I knew but I didn’t oblige and therefore I can see the not-so-often-said truth is that Indian classical dance training for a girl is really to score brownie points for her in the marriage market. This becomes clear only later through hushed yet proud conversations that happen during that dreaded marriageable age.

Only upon severe introspection forced by personal upheavals connected in so many ways to this upbringing bestowed by the form (which I hope for nobody), in hindsight, am I able to realise — Bharatanatyam along with its culture, pedagogy, practice and aesthetic, adorns the role of the Indian mother. She is a victim in the hands of the State, almost leashed and put to use but trained to be the upholder and defender of the system that diminishes her potential. Of course, when we say Bharatanatyam we must acknowledge that it cannot and does not exist in thin air by itself. It is through the various practitioners, gurus, students, institutions, systems, structures, almost unchanging content, and through the bodies, their choices, their actions or inactions (including mine) that this form can continue to enable and disable. It is common knowledge that histories have a deep impact on the present. When India was gaining independence, both ‘women’ and Bharatanatyam were used as a tool in the nationalist agenda. When the rebirth of Bharatanatyam (as we know it today) and redefinition of the ‘Bharatiya naari’ is coloured with so much propaganda and political motives, it is hardly possible that in its evolution, development and modernisation, it becomes mute or apolitical. The Indian woman and the form of Bharatanatyam are like a vessel. Though in drought, they seemingly preserve the water for greater good and in playing that altruist role find enthusiasm for their parched survival. They are like a puppet performing Indianness, culture and values. Like that trophy on the showcase, there is a quiet in their existence. Through that silence, they make problematic political statements which are hard to access and articulate but easy to acquire and assume. Occupying a position at the precise intersection of a marginalised gender but practising a marginalising form, can lead to a very disorienting experience of the self. This is perhaps because both of these are constructed and grafted onto a person and stitched seamlessly with the skin, with a subconscious and passive consent, leaving no provocation for questions or doubts.

I realise that when all parts of my being (education, gender, training) are in conversation with each other, there is a complex completeness. There is a defiance to the masculine capitalist world which is waiting for the sale of my multiple identities.

For me, contemporising stories is a personal act of honesty and bravery. It allows us to be true to ourselves and the time we live in. Most of all, it reminds us women, carrying the creation of the world in our little wombs that we can create stories (we already do in another way) with a lot less blood, pain and effort.

Adding this drop of (human) self to the mixture of myth and story results in a new compound, a new narrative, a new text. This then automatically challenges not just patriarchal text written with an agenda but the almost static Bharatanatyam pedagogy disallowing questions and discouraging change. When our questions translate into a work of art, we become capable of making the invisible, visible. Through this act, we experience great power. This is the power we crave for and it makes us realise ourselves. 

Owning stories, telling them in our own right and will is the only sure way to own our existence. In a country where history is being erased from the history textbooks, retold selectively but surely, where geography is modified unconstitutionally, where civics is managing to create an army of angry children, it is an urgent need for us as artists to document the mundane, the regular and the everyday. For me, this is feminism. If the Indian woman can bring herself together, stand as a whole and resist and refuse to pass on the violence and struggles she underwent, the story has been created.

If myths can be the voice of reason to hint at solutions for our present political environment and adapt to the needs of the community today, the story has been told. If the Indian classical dance movement through its pedagogy can speak its own truth, stop living in the past or its own bubble and create pretty/happy dances, the story has been owned. We need not agree but may protest — not art for art’s sake, not art for god’s sake, not art for our sake but art for my sake!

(Priyanka is a Bengaluru-based performer, choreographer, facilitator, theatre practitioner and the founder of ‘The Nirali Collective’ which reimagines Indian classical dance through political and personal work to expand the boundaries of the form and deconstruct the culture of its practice. She is also a lawyer by education.)