Despite the phonological similarities, aesthetics
and acrobatics are quite different things even in the layperson’s
understanding. While every dance form has its own aesthetic, and while there
may be variations in each practitioner’s notion and implementation of that
aesthetic, there is, nevertheless, a common framework and shared language of
dance aesthetics that makes writing about, reviewing and commenting on a
performance possible. The aesthetics of any form articulated in classical
Indian dance in terms of the dancer’s sense of taal, abhinaya, ability to do sancaris,
anga shuddhi, or bhava provides a
collective frame of reference.
While aesthetics pertains to ideas such as beauty,
taste, refinement in articulation, the form, and expressivity and emotion, in
other words, all things virtual that are
conveyed through the body and transcend it,
acrobatics bring attention back to the body and its skills as a medium.
While every artist is expected to be an acrobat of sorts with the medium, the
question I wish to ask is, are performances to be evaluated on the basis of
acrobatics? While a number of artists have beautifully blended the two, so that
a reviewer is not given an opportunity to say, ‘Ah, here is a gimmick for
audience applause!’ others are not equally successful in integrating the two. In
the former case, acrobatics are woven into the movement vocabulary in an
organic way and nothing seems out of place, or a hodgepodge. Artists who
integrate yoga into the classical
dance vocabulary inevitably make changes in the traditional costume to accommodate
the stretching of the form’s movement boundaries.
Having had the opportunity to witness a performance
by a young, globetrotting and award-studded kuchipudi
dancer, my response was a sense of unease – unease with the way, the
performer beautifully dressed in traditional costume, kept breaking into legs
and feet up yoga poses, to the thumping applause of an uninitiated public, but
could not keep up in footwork with the mridangam
and natuvangam rendering in the
recording. I was also appalled by the arrangement of the piece, in which even
the neck and eye-movements, the attami, was
re-packaged as another instance of acrobatics,
that merely seemed to give the dance an opportunity to proclaim, ‘Look at
what I can do with my eyes and neck!’
This is perhaps just one instance, of what packaging
classical dance for a wide public, often by inexperienced dancers can result
in. Publics uninitiated into the aesthetic of classical dance and habituated to
the heart-thumping and heart-racing music and dance in popular media, may be
‘bored,’ watching even the best of artists perform. It is for every artist to
decide on the loyalties and prioritise the variables of tradition, aesthetics
and audience appeasement. In my view, these need not even be mutually exclusive.
It is a challenge to every performer to integrate each of the elements in an
uncompromising way as our great maestros do. The key, as I understand it, is to
first engage the audience’s interest and bring them to a level of sensitive
reception. A great performer need not do a back-bend or a feet-up asana to capture the audience’s
attention, her stillness, or mere glance can be powerful, can speak volumes and
win over the audience.
