IN SEARCH OF BALANCE: HOW DO WE STAND? – 28 March 2011

[Ranan is working towards a new experimental production to premiere in May 2011. Tentatively titled 'Conversations', the production emerges out of a year's work with the Ranan Repertory playing with elements of Kathak, spoken text, music impulses, movement, song and more. 

Over the next couple of months this blog will carry rehearsal notes from director Vikram Iyengar, responses from performers / co-creators, photographs and video clips of the creative process - a lot of work flavoured with an indispensable touch of madness!]

A response to a piece of text by Debosmita Roychoudhury – Ranan Repertory member and Brindar student.

- Vikram Iyengar

      Debosmita's text:

"The world comprises various diversities. Each race has its own language to connect to the rest of the world. But Art is the only language which is perceived by the whole world as one.

Onto that I hold, Dance is the one through whom I can connect myself to the world.

A little girl who was gifted by the Almighty so well that she couldn’t even stand on her own feet, but dreamt of making a stand among those who touch the sky. Well, that’s me.

It was the word ‘Kathak’ that brought me from being a no one to being a someone. 

It was a time when I was too little to even know the meaning of Kathak. But it was the only petrol which could boost my passion. And above all it was the heavenly blessing that all children are entitled to – my mom, who carried me all the way from that dream to reality."

Process Photographs: 28 March 2011

A text from a dancer with one false leg, a text which addresses something that most of us take for granted: how do we stand, how do we balance?

For dancers, for Kathak dancers in particular – how do we stand? Where is the centre of balance for each stance, for each small movement? How and where do we hold our bodies?

I thought of thaat – the intraform unique to Kathak, where the slow pace sees an unfolding of the dancer through typically Kathak poses and graces, defining a very particular concept of the body and its balance. What did the dancers think of when they thought of thaat? Immediately, a technical and telling definition: “daranor bhongi” – ways of ‘standing’. Associations beyond that? A slew of words: precision, peace, patience, sama (the first beat and  fulcrum point in a rhythm cycle), nagma (a rendition of the whole time cycle on a musical instrument), therav – how does one translate that – to do with slowness, but not in a negative way: with depth, patience, dignity and maturity, an internalisation of sorts, an inner silence and balance…

And of course, the word that never emerged, but that was a central ingredient – ‘balance’.

Asked the four dancers to separately select five unconnected movements predominantly used in thaat pieces. String them together in a loop. Performed together with the dancers juxtaposed against each other in a cluster, there was already a sense of design, patterns, touches of relationships. But rather technical, almost military like – “we have been told to dance thaat, ours not to reason why…”. What was the sensibility of thaat, hold on to that – regardless of tempo, regardless of music, regardless of the fact that you’re not dancing a full thaat, but just a random snippet. Keep in mind the words we came up with, keep in mind therav…

[Watch related video]

Introduced a loop of music. Nothing at all to do with the world of Kathak, but seemed to me to have a parallel sensibility to thaat – with its fluidity on the one hand and seamlessly worked in pauses and silences on the other. The five movements were placed on this audio framework – immediately there occurred an instinctive equilibrium between music and movement. Now to be aware of the visual relationships, the little stories that the juxtaposition of four dancers created among themselves and with the music – what did the audience read? Which movement of Dancer A seemed to be instigated by a movement from Dancer B? What did a particular movement of Dancer C – only when performed to a specific phrase of music – communicate about her possible relationship with Dancer D?

[Watch related video]

Now suppose we were to perform the same movements to the same music over and over again – starting with 20% of the movement, moving through 40%, 60%, 80%, finally arriving at 100%, the full movement. And then going beyond 150%, 175%, 200%? What does it mean to minimise or expand an accepted dance movement or pose? How far can one push it in either direction? Does it make us think anew about how many muscles and sub-movements and sub-gestures go into each executed movement, where are the balance points, where do we pull to reduce or push out to expand from? Not just think anew, but actually deal with our own bodies which perform for us literally without a second thought. What does it do to our sense of time, our sense of balance, our sense of what is beautiful in dance, what makes dance and what un-makes it … where is that balance for each of us?

- Vikram Iyengar