Kalanidhi Narayanan

Kalanidhi Narayanan (b. 1928) is recognised with the highest of national and artistic awards for her recovery of methods of abhinaya, particularly, padam and javali forms that celebrate human love. She was ferreted out from retirement in 1973 by dance connoisseur Y. G. Doraiswamy to teach young woman dancers today.¹ What she gave us were ways to reconstruct historical poems by studying their contexts, while relying also on imagination and human observation. Thanks in large part to her mentorship, we are now treated to woman-to-woman interpretations unlike earlier post-Independence performances, which had already been inflected by the male and colonial gazes. All this is referenced in a series of three recorded interviews with her during her first visit to the USA in 1989. The interview selections are arranged here by topic, in two segments.

The first segment is mainly an introspection of Narayanan’s student life, her teachers and the cultural environment of her early training period. The second segment is about her teaching methods.

As I listen to these tapes today, twenty six years later, I hear how ignorant we were then, (1989) of the past of dancers who bequeathed to us what we do. Yet, in this I was not alone. Protima Bedi’s life changing accidental experience of encountering Odissi dance for the first time, was in Bombay as recently as 1974-5. And so it was for many of my generation. For those of us, who sought out and studied Bharata Natyam² in the 70s, many questions arose, but the answers did not fit our experience. And this is one reason why I sought and recorded these interviews, and value them. People seemed to accept the blank space shrouding lived past, and those who knew would not speak. Dance in India was a blank for most of my family and persons of their generation, where Urdu poetry, the Shah Namah, Science and English literature were the markers of educated cultural value. Having grown into dance in an environment of aspersion and contradictory claims, I deeply appreciate the honesty and generosity of Narayanan as she delved into her own past to help us fill the blanks. We witnessed her struggle to call on what she had learned, from whom and how, despite her own strict traditional Tamil Brahmin past. Her voice was of someone struggling (like myself) to understand the changes.

Where Kalanidhi Narayanan, or Maami as she is affectionately called, speaks about her own training and teachers, we hear a patient woman sharing memory across generations and cultures. Then we are left to fill in from her allusions the how and the why of what she had to forget and unforget! I hope as you read this transcript of our exchange, sometimes direct and sometimes circumspect, that you too will hear her refusal to accept given social categories of personhood; her refusal of notions of authenticity, exclusion and inclusion. And you will almost hear her questioning herself when she says she cannot argue. [Why? ‘Good’ women do not argue.]

On the subject of teaching abhinaya her voice is clear, and if she is unsure of how to explain her process, she is firm in her recognitions of what is appropriate, useful in stagecraft, with faith in the traditions of performing abhinaya and in her cognition of the logic of its conventions. She acknowledges her interventions.

With great respect and admiration for the practice and life experience of Narayanan, and with care not to interject my views on her words, I submit that this is an edited version collated from several conversations over three locations.

My friend and dance afficionado Geetha Rao, Mohiniyattam dancer Shyamala Surendran, and I, met with her at my apartment in Greenwich Village; at a workshop later the same day at Lotus Fine Arts, attended by Professor Richard Schechner, and his many students from the New York University Performance Studies department on September 27;³ and one more meeting with her in an apartment in Queens on September 29, 1989.

Keywords: Gauri amma, devadasi act, Shyamala surendran, dance tradition, devadasi women, drama, hand gestures

On Her ‘Life in Art’ and Her Early Training Period

Kalanidhi Narayanan: When I was 7 years, Gauri Amma was introduced

to us. Whatever I say about that age is only what I presume. I do not remember a thing. She was my first teacher and started me on thai-ya-thai. I remember the house in which I learned. I remember her coming, but what I learned, I do not remember. After about six months of her classes they thought I should continue so they introduced Kannappa Muduliar to me. Kannappa was the co-brother of Ellappa. Everybody would have heard about Conjeevaram Ellappa! My master also belonged to Conjeevaram. He was also a cousin or near relative of Kandappa, master of Balamma. They were all from one family.

Uttara Asha Coorlawala: Did they have the same repertoire? Or each had their own?

KN : I do not know.

But the style was the same, it was Conjeevaram style. So I was learning nrrta [dance] from him. I remember having learned up to two or three varnams⁴, two or three thillana. It is only when I see that varnam that I recognise that I have learned it – but I do not really know how I learned.

After a year or two having finished the varnams and all that, the same people thinking I had good potential for abhinaya, introduced Chinnayya Naidu to us, and also Brinda-Mukta’s mother, that is veena Dhannam’s last daughter (Kamakshi Ammal) to teach us padams and javalis

UAC : How many were in your class? (KN appears surprised) you said “Us?”

KN : “Us” means myself and my mother or my family, I mean. My mother basically learned music. Chinnayya Naidu started teaching me only in weekend classes, the full day of Saturday and Sunday. I think in those days he had no other student. We were paying him Rs. 15 a month. He used to come by bus and my mother would send him back by car because he was very old, and lived in town. On Saturdays and Sundays he would come in the morning, and wait, wait, wait till I was in the mood to learn. Poor old man! He would go shout amma . . . The nrrta master used to come every day at 6.30 in the morning and taught till 7.30. Then I would bathe and go to school. That was for every day. I do not think I had a holiday even on Sunday. On Saturdays and Sundays, I would be just waiting for him to go.

Geetha Rao : That is the way I felt about dance too – not interested.

KN : Not only that, but in that period, I was the only one learning dance. There was nobody with whom one could share, or feel competitive, or jealous or anything like that. After some time,

maybe six months or two years of learning, a few others also wanted to learn and my mother introduced my master to them. But nobody reached the performing level. Or nobody performed. Still my mother was bold enough to put me on the stage.

Gauri Amma continued to come to my house regularly. Whenever she was short of money, she used to come here, have some food, see me dance, show me something. My mother would give her Rs. 5 or Rs. 10 and then she would go home. She was a regular visitor. She loved me very much. I remember that well. I learned from her for the first six months. Afterwards I don’t think I learned from her, but I remember seeing her do a lot.

UAC : Why is it that you did not continue with Gauri Amma?

KN : She was basically a very great abhinaya teacher. She was a dancer. [But], you see, for teaching nrrta, always men were supposed to be very good. Actually in 1943, after my master died, – (he also died very young), Uday Shankar had come. He wanted to make that Kalpana film and so came and asked my father if he would allow me to go, because there were not many dancers in those days. My father said “I am sorry. We are not teaching her to be a professional.”

But he (Uday Shankar) said “I heard that your daughter is a good dancer. I would like to see her dance.” At that time we were living in a palatial house between Murrays Gate Road and Eldam’s Road. It was a huge house. So my father arranged a program. Dhana Manikamma, a dancer, did nattuvangam for this event. Certain things I do remember well

Once when I had gone [to dance] to Kumbhakonam, we had requested Ganesan, Kandappa Pillai’s son who was doing nattuvangam for Balamma, to come with us. He came and did the program. Afterwards, he stopped doing nattuvangam for others. you know, I met him very recently, before he died, about two years ago. It was in 1943. I don’t think he danced after that.

My mother’s teacher was, Kamakshi Ammal⁵. She was veena Dhannam’s third daughter, and the mother of Brnda and Muktha. That lady (Kamakshi Ammal) was you can say ‘kept’, because there was no marriage for devadasis, by an Ayengar. She was his permanent mistress. She used to consider him her husband. There was no other man in her life. All her six children were born only to that one man. In the same way, Muktamma had only one in her life. Brindamma too had only one man in her life.

GR : But they were not married . . . .

KN : Actually Abhirami (their younger sister) married. Their mother did not approve of Abhirami marrying, because it was not in their tradition.

GR : I see. But for example, I remember my father’s generation, they would say sadir Jayalaxmi aah!

KN : Yes, . . . because they are dancers. When my niece asked where is Maami, my husband used to say (gone to do sadir )

UAC : Was that a ‘bad’ thing? GR : But why was it bad?

KN : Because some of the people due to the circumstances became prostitutes.

GR : Did they really become prostitutes?

KN : Some of them, some of them. Not all.

GR : What percentage?

KN : I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

GR: Why did they have to become prostitutes?

KN : For money?

GR : No, patronage.

KN : The kings were no longer able to sustain arts and only the zamindaris were able to sustain them. And among Zamindars, there were good and bad men. There were men who had one mistress. After Ramnadamma Raja saw Pandanallur Jayalaxmi dance, he made her his mistress or wife, I don’t know which and he told her she should not dance any more. She gave up dancing. She was from a dancing family! She was a dancer by tradition, such a beautiful dancer. She must be two or three or four years older than me. I have seen her dancing. you are asking me, a family girl, what is it like to get married and give up dancing, but what about that girl coming from a dancing family ? Even today, she is alive in Madras, she has a son, but if you go and ask her something [about dance] she says . . . I don’t remember, it is all old story. Don’t ask me anything. That is what she says.

GR : Why did Muthulaxmi Reddy wage this battle about the devadasi act? Or you feel that the number of prostitutes was much more than what was made out to be?

KN : No, no, no! Not at all.

The number of dancers who became prostitutes were, maybe increasing. I cannot tell you the percentage. At that time I was still young. The only thing I know is that my mother had five or six devadasi friends. That was because of her interest in music and art and she would not care who talks what, so long as my father (her) husband did not say anything . . .

GR : What a woman!

KN : Yes, she was a very daring woman. yes. When I see some of you these days, I remember my mother but at that time to be like that, was another matter. She found it very difficult to get a bridegroom for me. She died when I was nineteen.

UAC : Did you agree or disagree with Dr. Mutthulaxmi Reddy’s anti- nautch campaign?

KN : At that time I was seven or eight years old. What do I know? I heard about it.

UAC : Are you still in touch with those devadasis who used to come to your mother’s house?

KN : No, after my marriage, I was not allowed to go even to my music teacher. I met Muktamma only after twenty or twenty-five years.

Nor did I see dance or even look at a review in newpapers.

GR : Oh My!

KN : My husband thought I should not have anything to do with those people. (pause) M. S. Subbulaxmi was such a good friend of my mother.

GR : Really?

KN : If I did a program, she used to take me to their house, do arati, give us dinner, and then bring us home. Even today, whenever she sees me, she talks to me.

GR : But Maami, (means aunt, this is an address of respect in this context) what is your opinion? Historically, do you feel that the Devadasi Act was good, or was it bad ? you have also studied, you have analysed.

KN : First of all explain to me the Devadasi act.

GR : The Devadasi act of 1936 abolished dancing in the temples. With that, dance as a tradition in the temples, came to an end.

UAC : One more thing happened. In 1947, there was another act. This is in the Amrit Srinivasan article. According to that act, previously in devadasi families, the devadasi women inherited the property, but from 1947 onwards the devadasi women could no longer inherit property.⁶

GR : Because the Hindu marriage act was applicable I suppose. UAC : The inheritance hence went to the male members of the family.

When that happened, the devadasis were deprived of the fruits of any of their work.

KN : All these things I don’t know at all. In 1947, I got married. In 1947 my mother died. So after that I know nothing of anything, except about my husband, my family.

UAC : And of course these people are no more?

GR : Are they all dead, all these devadasis?

KN : Some of them are still alive.

GR: Would you say Brindamma and Muktamma are devadasis? Or how would you classify them socially?

KN : They are of devadasi family. They belong to the devadasi families.

GR: If the act had not come, would they have continued to dance in the temples?

KN : Yes, they might have. For instance, Gauri Amma, belonged to Mylapore temple. The Kapaleshwar temple [speaks in Tamil]

GR : What does that mean?

KN : In a family, if you have three or four girls, at least one of them will be dedicated to the service of God. When she comes of age, they take the girl to the temple, and she is married to God. That means she is a nitya sumangali. She has no widowhood at all, because God is always there.

GR : As her husband!

KN : . . . .Kamakshemma⁷came, when my mother died. She was at my mother’s bedside.

GR : And that was considered very auspicious?

KN : Yes, because they never become widows. When you are going out, if you see a devadasi coming from the other side, it is a good sign. They are always mangala (auspicious).

GR : (sighs). How Beautiful!

KN : Auspiciousness is there with them! That is why I feel very bad when people talk. I know of so many family women who were thought of to be very er ..er

GR : pure

KN : and all that, but who were in fact such ugly people! Whereas I have seen among devadasis, women who were really pure. Muktamma, Brindamma, used to sing every Friday in their house. People used to go and listen to them. My grandmother and all used to go there, sit down, listen to their music. Whatever each one could afford to, [he/she] would give. Some people would not be able to give anything, they won’t give. Such friends who were going to those people were connoisseurs of art and who had no other physical relations with any of those people. It was just enjoyment of art. There were no sabhas. So music was given like this, and people used to go to listen to that. It was those people who brought Kamakshi Amma to me, introduced her to us and said you must learn padams from her. She does them so well! And, my mother started learning.

UAC : Who?

KN : Kamakshema was Brinda Mukta’s mother. Also Balasaraswati’s aunt (mother’s sister), and veena Dhanammal’s daughter. She had six children,- three sons and three daughters. The two daughters were singers, the other daughter played violin for them. One son used to play mrdangam, one son was in AI and one son was an engineer. That was the family. She was so conservative and religious. On certain days, she wouldn’t eat in her house. She used to come and eat in our house on religious days. Even today, Muktamma is so religious. When people talk about their customs, I feel so very bad but I don’t speak out.

First of all, I can’t argue.

I don’t know how to argue.

GR : I am interested in knowing what happened during Balasaraswati’s time, before they all came on to the stage. They came on the stage after Justice Krishna Iyer came, more or less at that time. So where did they perform?

KN : In those days, there were so many connoisseurs of art who would visit the houses of these people -Balamma, Swarnasaraswati, Hamsa Damayanti who was a dancer and also a mrdangam player, Sharda-amma. A lot of devadasis used to dance then. The two who were most popular were Balamma and Swarnasaraswati. They gave programs in several aristocratic mansions, and connoisseurs’ houses. As for sabhas at that time, there was only one, Egmore Dramatic Society. There they used to dance once in a while. I remember seeing them mostly in private homes.

Balamma performed as I told you in a zamindar’s family. I can remember how I went there and how the hall was but where and whose home it was, I do not remember.

GR : So they were performing in zamindar homes.

KN : Yes, I have seen them in such places. I have not seen temple performances. Maybe it was already stopped when I was old enough.

GR : So after the temple dancing was stopped, they performed in zamindars’ homes?

KN : I think so.

GR : And then she came onto the stage at the Music Academy?

KN : The Music Academy and the Egmont Dramatic Society, these were the only two places. When she danced in the Academy, I know because I also danced in the Music Academy at the time. I do not remember the years. Arudra⁸ found out from the manual there and told me that I danced in ‘38 and ‘39.

GR : The Marg issue says that you danced in 1938, and 1940 or 1939.

KN : It was one of those years when Gopinath Thangamani did the Narasimha Avataram. In those days we use to sit in the wings. What happened was that the artist got possessed. He really started . . .

GR : Oh my God!

KN : So immediately the curtain was pulled down. I was young and I got afraid. I just ran off the stage. [laughing]

GR : That is what it says in Drama theory, Stanislavsky’s or so, of getting lost in identification?

UAC : He got possessed and he thought he was Narasimham? GR : The emotion overcame him.

KN : He was dancing with so much devotion that he was really going to tear apart the man. Immediately, people around him realised it and took care of the situation. In abhinaya, this is one question many people ask. How much of you should be in the art?

GR : That is the point.

KN : My answer is, you must be like water on a lily leaf, or a lotus leaf. you are in and out of it. you cannot be the character as in drama. In theatre, you are the character. Here, you are projecting a character.

GR : You have to come out of it at the right time.

KN : One line will give you so much sorrow, the next line will bring you happiness. Remember the song I spoke of the other day? -”I was in tears all the time, when I saw that you were not there”.

GR : The Meera Bhajan? Ashta Nayika? Ninuu Joochi?⁹

KN : No, immediately she says I was in such a state but I do not know whether you remembered me or not. So how do you come out of it, if you get involved? My answer is that the dancer must always realise that she is only acting a part, that she is not that part.

UAC : Because there are so many emotional transitions in dance?

KN : Also the system itself is such that you only have to make the others believe that you (roles) are real, but you are not real.

UAC : Do you think that today people who learn dancing have a different relationship to dance than those old time dancers and connoisseurs?

KN : I cannot say.

UAC : Someone who learns from a teacher and goes home to a different lifestyle, is

in a very different situation from someone who grows up with a family, singing these songs, as you are, with your mother, knowing these people. When I see gurus dancing and the young people dancing, I see such a difference! Can you talk about that? What makes the difference?

KN : This art is a beautiful art! It is a truly devotional art. I might do the worst of

javalis but when I do javali, my dedication is to art and God and not to the words of the song. you understand what I mean? So this is how every girl should take the art.

UAC : What is wrong with the words of the song? KN : That won’t do.

GR: Javalis are sometimes a little risque, Uttara, a slightly naughty.

UAC : But my question is, when one is devoted to an art, then one has to reflect the

art in all its nuances, whatever it is portraying, isn’t it?

KN : Exactly! We have to portray all that is there in the dance.

GR : But the controversy is whether that is spiritual or not.

UAC : It is spiritual to give yourself to art regardless whether you are doing the role

of a sexy woman or a non-sexy woman!

GR : That is a controversial point Uttara.

KN : Yesterday you saw me dance. I do songs of a very sexy nature also. But,

when you see me do that song, you must tell me how you feel.

Art has to elevate a person. If you have to elevate somebody, you must be elevated within yourself. you should be really a devotional artist. I do not mean you should be thinking of God all the time but you should give up everything for the art and nothing else should bother you. I earn money out of it, I spend money but my mind does not dwell on the economic aspects. That is not my focus, otherwise I would not do these tours, spending more than what I earn.

UAC : Do you think the young artists today have the same feeling? KN : Many of

them, or at least, the ones who come to study with me.Whether they change after they come to me or whether they are themselves like that, I do not know but if you see a few performances, you can pick out my students.

UAC : In the transition from temple to stage, has anything changed in terms of

technique, attitude or relationship?

KN : I don’t know. I have not seen that dance. Recently I was speaking to Kapilaji

(vatsyayan) and I told her I was applying for this Fellowship for nine months. She told me, Kalanidhi, I am very keen that you take it up. I want to tell you about the temple performances. Everybody talks that it must have been like this or that but what it was, nobody can say.

GR : This is what we too have been asking. What was going on then?

KN : Nobody can say and we have no real proof in books. No person can tell you

what exactly was happening. Other than Kapilaji, nobody would have gone to all these devadasis. She has met all the devadasis of South India, and perhaps the whole of India. She has gone to their houses and asked them questions. But what research can go beyond the nineteenth century? And, beyond that where do you go? We do not have any proof. Anybody can claim anything. What you can collect from the books is only a reproduction of what you think about it. Just as Padma says, this is what it is. Well, you can take it or leave it. It is her interpretation of the sloka, that is all. If you like it, you accept it. If you are going to interpret it differently, go ahead, do it. That is all. But you cannot say this one is authentic or that one is not authentic.

Shyamala Surendran: As far as Kerala was concerned, it was outright prostitution.

GR : Outright? Are you sure, Shyamala? You have studied that?

SS : There were the Nair family members who were not allowed to dance after marriage. Kalyaniamma’s daughter said that they never saw their mother. She was a divorcee and her three children were brought up by the grandmother. The lady used to go off and came back only after two or three weeks, and that too just for a short stay. The children did not learn dance. They were ashamed to say that their mother was a dancer. They said they had never seen her dance. The elder daughter was very beautiful. In that area, if you said you were going to that family, everyone thought why you were going there.

KN : Just like going to a red light area…

GR : But it was not so in Tamilnadu.

Teaching Abhinaya

Kalanidhi Narayanan explains her method of teaching abhinaya to students and accomplished artistes of different styles and genres of Indian dance. She also spoke of the relationship between text and performance; the ideal dancer; the need of explanatory notes for understanding the dance and so on.

UAC : When you teach abhinaya in master classes at NCPA, I heard that you teach people trained in different styles together. Can you explain how you structure your workshops? Which students do you put in which class ? How do you decide who is going to learn what? What is your method of teaching ?

KN : I interview prospective students, learn their names, learn about their expertise. The thirty to thirty-five-year-olds who are really mature and who have studied for a long time, I group together. The younger ones are grouped separately . . .

UAC : By age?

KN : Experience and age.

From me, dancers learn varieties of emotions, the way ideas can be developed out of poems, and expressed in situations. I teach as I would teach a Bharatanatyam dancer but I encourage them to adapt specific movements and hastas [hand gestures] according to their own school but we discuss and exchange possibilities. For instance, in a mixed group, I taught a Swati Tirunal bhajan in Hindi, chaliyey kunjanam—where (sings) Radha invites Krishna to come and make love to her. When many Odissi dancers come, I group them together and use material that would work well in their style. For them, I try to select Meera bhajans or ashtapadis, songs in Hindi. It is not that I like to teach different songs, but that I select content that works [for the participants.]

When a dancer comes and sits in front of me, ideas come to me. If you come and sit before me, certain other ideas come to me. I do not know why and how. It all depends on the capacity of the artist. When some girls sit down ten, fifteen or twenty ideas just pour out of me. Sometimes, I have to think and think to get ideas.

UAC : With the same student do you have both experiences, or is it always related to

particular students?

GR : I am sure it also changes from day to day, according to one’s mental state.

KN : And from song to song, day to day, person to person, there is so much

difference.

UAC : Would you say that you teach how to express the emotions in different, more

real, deeper ways?

KN : Yes, we consider different ideas and different situations (sings and

demonstrates) even though I do only Bharatanatyam. It may be Kshetreya padam, Hindi bhajan, or ashtapadi.¹⁰ For each song, the way of projecting becomes different. The language, the music everything changes, and that changes me. My body reacts according to the language and the music.

GR : Very interesting.

KN : When I taught Damayanti Joshi, a senior Kathak artiste, I had to work with

only Sanskrit or Hindi. Of course my repertoire in Hindi is very limited and I rarely have the opportunity to work in Hindi. Usually I do not teach javali to Kathak dancers, but last time in the workshops at NCPA, they wanted to learn the same javali I was teaching to another set. Though I teach different groups the same thing, with each group or person, the way of expression and everything else changes! I cannot explain why.

GR : It is the language, perhaps?

UAC : The language and maybe the way people express themselves in different

languages.

GR : You would say ‘why?’ [showing Shikhara hasta] in south India, but in north

India you would say why [showing Alapadma] Kya? kya ho gaya? [What? What has happened?]

KN : We say ‘no’ like this in the north but we say ‘no’ like this in the south. Different head movements [nods/shakes] Why does Odissi or Kathak look different from Bharatanatyam? The south Indian way of movement, way of using the hands, is different. Even within India, we have lost a lot of the differences between the north and the south. In our work we use our fingers, our words, our body, everything. All that is influenced when you take a different language. I think your body reacts to that language. I have experienced these things. I am sorry but I cannot explain these things.

UAC : So there are different hastas in Odissi, Kathak, Bharatanatyam but you see a common factor across styles?

KN : There are so many differences due to place but the idea, the emotion, the

situation, is the same everywhere- whether you are European, American, French, North Indian, whatever it is. For abhinaya, it is your mind that works. It guides your body.

UAC : Would you say that one thing common in all these styles is the use of the

face?

KN : Face? What does face do? It just reflects your mind. We are not trying to do

Kathakali, where you try to do your eyes this way, and the nose that way with muscles. That is a different style altogether. Normally, when you have a feeling, immediately your body reacts. That is what I do. That is what every dancer has to do. It was like that when I worked with Rohini Bhate, senior Kathak exponent. We worked on a number of songs for nearly twenty days from 10 o’ clock in the morning till 5 in the evening.

UAC : If you are performing an abhinaya item, and if you are experienced enough,

you can change it according to your mood and audience. But if you are teaching someone who is not experienced and she wants something more structured, do you do that?

KN : When I start with a new student, I always go with the angika. I always choose songs where you have lots of possibility for acting. For example, ‘last evening at dusk’. To show dusk you have variations of hastas – when the cows were returning home, when the birds were flying to their nest, when the light was lit for evening prayers or when the moon was setting, when I went to the temple and so on.

UAC : So you select texts according to the situations that are described in it?

KN : Situations which can be described by hastas. I start only with such songs. I

never go immediately to a kshetraya padam where there is too little for the hands but too much for the heart. Gradually, as the girl learns a few more items and she comes to grips with my way of teaching, gradually, even within the same song, I might slowly reduce the number of hastas and increase the emotion.

UAC : In this descriptive approach, where hastas describe the cows going home, etc.

how do you see the role of dance in making the poem come alive? I could read the same poem and imagine it just as well?

KN : Your imagination is abstract. Here you are turning it into a physical action.

GR : Take the word dusk in the poem.

KN : The word is only ‘dusk.’ What are the things that happen at dusk, that is

sanchari bhava. ¹¹ That girl signalled and invited you. Who is she?- how would she have signaled to him? That signalling can be imagined in so many ways This is real sanchari, not the doing of stories though doing stories somehow got that name.

UAC : So then, why do we see so many of these very abbreviated stories with no

juice in the telling?

KN : In bhakti [devotion] rasa, the emotions are very few. In bhakti, what do you

do? you say “O Lord who protected everybody, who protected Gajendra…” etc. you can do only two hand gestures there– protection and requesting protection. So how do you elaborate that? you start showing the story of Gajendra moksha.¹² That is why sanchari is being used like that. In bhakti, or kirtanas, [collectively expressed songs of devotion] where you don’t have the man-woman relationship, there is no other alternative. For example, take ene ramune [I must always be at your feet]. How do I elaborate this? you can say, day and night I would like to be there, in every birth I would like to be thinking of you, now and always- maybe four or five variations. And then? After that you are lost.

UAC : So, what do you do?

KN : I do not do it, it is too limited.

GR : Whereas sringara [love] is boundless?¹³

KN : Life itself is interesting only because of sringara. In the interpretation of the Kirtanas (sings devini) in the charanam it says “you are the daughter of Malayatulaja who got married to Shiva.” So what happens. you do the whole story of Meenakshi Rani, how she was born, how she grew up, the whole story is elaborated so that you can make that song last for ten to twelve minutes. Otherwise, that song will be over in three minutes. This is a question that many girls come and ask me- “Can you make this a little longer?” I can’t do it for I do not dramatise.

Even when I do dramatise, there is a difference. – demonstrates – I will always go with the word. Normally in dramatisations, the singer will be singing a line but the dancer will be performing a whole story. Krishna tells the story of Ramas, “panchavati te dei vviggara thei hai.” So word and action cannot be co-ordinated. It is as if some background music is going on. If I were to do the same song, I ask the orchestra, to keep repeating that same part of the line, for example if you describe panchavati, only that word is appropriate. If you sing “panchavati te dei vviggara thei ha dau pi turvataa panchavati te he’, there is a discrepancy between the words and acting. I have started doing this now in padams. I just use one or two words and elaborate.

UAC : This is something you have thought out or something you learned?

GR : That is her way of looking at it.

KN : When I teach, my rule is that the first time you do a sentence,

you do it.

UAC : Exactly as the text.

KN : Because, first you have to explain the words to the audience.

UAC : So everyone knows what the rules are?

KN : Everybody does not understand the language. If you do the entire line first and if the audience are used to dance performances, they would more or less understand it. It is important to explain at the outset, how the sentence is formed. After the sentence is given, you go on elaborating on the idea.

UAC : Just now, for the second verse when you were doing the elaboration – you were doing it to the sakhi ye, it was as if you were talking to her.

KN : [Agrees] In abhinaya, you have to visualise the other person. There are always two or three persons in any song. A sakhi (female friend), you and a man, or . . . .

UAC : You imagine that you are directly addressing somebody?

KN : The first time when you do it you show the sakhi, but after that you start talking with her. you imagine she is there.

UAC : So it is as if you are speaking directly to her?

KN : Yes, I speak but I do not speak words but enact emotions.

GR : I still find it difficult to understand some of the sanchari bhava in the padams unless I have the notes with me. It is so complicated. I must be a very poor rasika.

KN : I know people object to explanations but I think you need explanations. Even though I know dance, when I see a new padam being done, I might get a gist of it but the nuances one might not be able to understand unless one knows the text and recognise the variations.

UAC : The reason why people say you should not have an explanation, at least in the western countries where I have performed, is because they feel that the movement itself should convey the meaning.

GR : Not in Indian dance, anyhow.

KN : It is all so complex, so very complex.

GR : As Kamala Cesar was saying the other day, every little idea is so complicated. For example, birth. How do you show birth, Maami? [KN demonstrates the gesture for birth]. If you do not already know what that concept is, you will never understand what she is doing over there. So don’t you think it is a good idea to give the audience notes?

KN : Notes alone are not enough. I think even the sancharis should be explained, at least after it is done.

GRR : But if you do it after it is done, it is lost Maami.

KN : Some people say it becomes repetitive if you explain in advance.

One difficulty for me is that I do not know what sanchari I am going to do. I might explain to you something but when I start, I do whatever comes to my mind at that moment.

GR : That day when you explained “Chakkani”, the whole thing came alive, the red of the leaves . . . you would never understand otherwise. I get very frustrated when I am unable to understand.

KN : When the girls are performing, I comment on what they are doing through the mike.

GR : You do that? I have not seen that.

KN : Yes I do that. For instance, when they do different sancharis for one word, people who are not aware of those, cannot really understand what the action relates to.

GR : In a performance, it becomes difficult. I do not know what the solution is.

UAC : Well if you have to co-ordinate commentary and dance, then when everyone is improvising, how do you co-ordinate?

GR : At least you should have the libretto program notes.

KN : Sometimes interpreting these poems is very complex. The Creator of the world was the child. yet she teased him! – that is a literal translation. God plays with us. He makes us and teases us but here the mother teases God! This is where Maya comes in. At one moment, the mother knows that He is God incarnate, the next moment she forgets that and treats him as her child. Maya is all the time in that song. All the three charanams speak of the greatness of God, — but she teases him.

GR : I did not get that somehow, it is very abstract.

KN : Sometimes I say, although this one (Krishna) has been lying on a snake yet she says ‘O the snake is coming, come inside.’ She tries to protect this child knowing that he is one who sleeps on a snake. She knows He is the God Incarnate and that she does not have to protect him. Still she protects him from rain!

GR : When He is the Govardhana Giridhara!

KN : You see?

GR : There’s a subtle juxtaposition of ideas.

UAC : And you really have to know the references to appreciate the subtleties. Thank you! This discussion of how you present abhinaya has clarified for us the distinctions between different approaches.

What do you look for, in a dancer?

KN : She should have love and devotion for her work. Whether she is good looking or bad-looking, too short or too tall or whatever she is, you will not see that. She will capture you. After she starts dancing, you would not see her but you would see only the art. In Jamuna you would have seen that. If, you do have everything like Mala – well that is how Mala has come so high, because she has all the requisites (Malavika Sarukkai). She has the right body, beauty, figure, hard work, devotion, everything.

GR : Ideally, what is the best kind of figure?

KN : That is given in the Natyasastra itself. you should not be too tall, too fat, too dark, too thin, what everybody would expect. And eyes! Many think that if you have beautiful eyes you can express well. Not so. A dancer, however beautiful, if she does not know how to use the eyes, her performance fails. This I have found from experience.

UAC : About structure and communication – and I speak from my experience (pause) – when I perform in India people don’t distinguish between the emotions and choreography. When I perform in America, people primarily look at the choreography as structured movement. They don’t see emotions as structure. Is that a difference of aesthetic appreciation? What do you think makes dance interesting?

KN : If you ask me that question, what will I say! you know the answer. (laughter SS)

SS : It is not right to ask you that!

KN : I think that without emotion dance is not complete — whatever dance you do . . . even in nrtta, we are not supposed to do what we do for abhinaya but when the eyes and movements are there, there is a feeling of aliveness.

UAC : Then you do not distinguish between what the performer brings to the dance, and what the tradition contains? you do structure the abhinaya, don’t you?

KN : Every dance has a structure, you cannot have a dance without a structure, then it won’t be art.

KN : The dancer needs to know more than just the text of the poetry. She has to understand the situation, what has brought about the situation, and what will be its consequences. What is the status of the man and the woman? To build variations, she also needs to know what commentators have explained.

I approach the sahitya on the human level. All our scriptures have been told as stories because they would be understood easier. Philosophy is easy to preach but difficult to practice. So let us continue on the human level but when exposing the idea of love, it should not be physical love. Every moment you think in a spiritual way, the exposition is raised to a spiritual level. If you start thinking about the human anatomy, then the whole thing comes to a grind!

UAC : There is another question, I know you do not want me to ask it, and you would rather that I ask someone else but I have to ask you. How do you think what you do in workshops is different from what these girls learn from somebody else?

KN : (Pause) you see. I talk of tradition. I am also doing it from whatever I have learned. I think, (from what my students and the people around me say) I put a lot of thought to my work. I do not blindly do anything. Whatever I learned is not fresh in my mind to reproduce. Another dancer, is still dancing, whatever she has learned. But because I had forgotten it all . . . .

UAC : You dig deeper to recover it!

KN : Yes, it comes out and so I really do a lot of thinking. When I teach, I think, “Is this right?” I converse with my students a lot. Sometimes we change our practice. Every class of mine is a workshop, as you call it these days.

UAC : Most people do not work that way.

KN : I think they set a practice first. After they have taught the first student and created it, all the subsequent students will learn the same thing. I am not able to set a fixed dance even if I want.

At this moment I will teach you one hand, and by the time, you think and you write and you come back to it, I will be doing something else. It might only be slightly different but even a slight difference becomes very significant.

GR : Basically, you have trained your students to think for themselves through the dances. That is what happens when they perform. They are not just reproducing what you have taught. That’s a big difference, between your students and others.

KN : The same with Priya [Priyadarshini Govind]. I give only ideas.

UAC : You take them through the whole process of creating the abhinaya, not just the final part of the process. You are giving them the ability to do it on their own.

GR : Absolutely. It is a skill.

UAC : But did you learn it that way?

KN : I do not know how I learned. Again you ask the same question. [laughter] I do not remember how I learned at all. Thirty years have passed . . . .

GR : How did Gauri Amma teach you? What did she teach you ?

KN : I think she taught me Krishna ne begane baro¹⁴ and some adavu (step) and others but I do not remember exactly. What I remember is that basically I was not very keen to learn. I learned because my mother wanted me to learn, just in obedience. Balamma and all were quite elder to me. I never used to see people of my own age dancing.

UAC : My questions are . . . .

GR : Answered [laughter].

NOTES

¹ By this time Balasaraswati (whose repertory and abilities were backed by six generations in her family of court musicians and dance) was already teaching in the United States and to a very few select students in the Madras Music Academy. While the transformative effect of Balamma’s abhinaya on any sensitive (sahrdaya) audience is now almost mythical, she was not interested in sharing her knowledge with the then superstars of Bharatanatyam. (conversations with Balamma’s students, Sonal Mansingh and others.)

² “In the mid or early 80s by which time several dance forms had identified their lineages to the Natyasastra, the separated words Bharata and Natyam were conjoined so as to clarify that Bharatanatyam indicates a very specific regional (desi) dance form, rather than a generic dance, Bharatanatyam, that subscribes to Bharata’s canon. Recently, dancers in Britain, have contested the capitalisation of Bharatanatyam, since modern dance and ballet are not capitalised. Thus, how you spell the term clearly indicates your political location in the discourse. See Coorlawala, Uttara Asha “The Sanskritised Body” in Dance Research Journal 36/2 (Winter 2008) P54.

³ This workshop on the presenting nayikas or female protagonists of the poems was recorded in the NyU archives. It is also supplemented by Narayanan’s own article on the subject.

⁴ Allarippu, jatiswaram, sabdam, varnam, and tillana are generic names for the dances on a ‘standard’ program of Bharatanatyam as prescribed by the Thanjavur quartet. This sequence often referred to as the margam is not necessarily observed today in performances.

⁵ According to Douglas Knight (259) the famed vocalist veenadhannamal, (1867-1938) was Balasaraswati’s maternal grandmother. veenadhannamal had four daughters, (Rajalakshmi, Lakshmiratnam, Jayammal, Kamakshi) who were exemplary vocalists.

Thanjavur Kamakshiammal ( 1892 – 1953 ) was the youngest of veenadhannammal’s four daughters. Kamakshiammal studied with her mother and from violinist Kanchipuram Naina Pillai. Two of her daughters (grand-daughters of veenadhanamal) often referred to as Brnda-Mukta because they would sing together. Thanjavur Brnda (1912-1996) Thanjavur Mukta (1914–2007).

Jayammal (1890–1967), third daughter of the famed veenadhannamal, and the mother of Balasaraswati and her brothers, T. viswanathan, T. Ranganathan. Jayamma’s partner and father of her children Modarapu Govindarajulu was from a prominent dubash (shipping) family. (Knight p.47)

⁶ Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy’s Bill No.5. Fort St. George Gazette to ban temple dedication was not passed into law until 1947 by the Congress Ministry of Madras Act No.31. By this time dedication was dead and official patronage of dance arts was revived. The Revival of sadir as Bharatanatyam was well under way.

⁷ Kamakshi + amma (epithet amma, literally mother, is used to indicate respect) = Kamakshemma

⁸ ‘Dr. Arudra’ known among dancers for his erudite knowledge of sanskrit, aesthetics and cultural history, was a nom-de-plume for Telugu literary writer, Bhagavatula Sadasiva Shankara Sastry (31 August 1925 – 4 June 1998). He resided in Chennai, Tamilnadu.

⁹ Meera Bhajans refers to devotional songs by the woman poet-saint Meerabai and addressed directly to Krishna. Ashta (or eight) Nayika (Female protagonists) are identified in the Natyashastra and in bhakti poetry and art according to the context in performative situations e.g. She who is angry with her Lover, (kalahantarita nayika), she who is setting out fearlessly to meet her Lover (abhisarika nayika).

Ninnu Joochi is a deeply affective Telugu poem (padam) by Kshatrayya where the woman longs for the return of her absent Lover (proshitabhatrika nayika). It was associated with the repertoire of Balasaraswati and her lineage.

¹⁰ Here Narayanan is referencing the nuances of language and style that would inflect a performance of a padam (usually in Bharatanatyam), bhajan (genre for collective devotion usually in Kathak) or ashtapadi (most often in Odissi). This references enactments of the Sanskrit Gita Govinda which is set in eight line stanzas.

¹¹ Here Narayanan is distinguishing between convention of elaborating texts by narrating (external) actions such as climbing a mountain, killing a demon, being pierced by arrows of love, versus the technique of excavating inner landscapes of emotion etc . . . She sees the performance of external actions as dramatisation or mime. She sees sanchari, as the development of fleeting personalised (as opposed to generic) responses. Because the responses can be individualised, within each style of dance, each dancer will nuance the narrative as she/he experiences the bhava. [Skilled performers trust their knowledge enough to allow themselves to improvise responses that are tuned to the moment and sensitivities of the audience.] This notion of sanchari as technique of spinning out streams of reflections, is not so specified in the Natyashastra of Bharata where sanchari are equated with fleeting emotions, vyabhicharibhava. In dance, many current usages of terms in the Natyashastra reference current praxis rather than their hypothetical historical significations.

¹² The spiritual liberation of Gajendra, the elephant is an oft- told story originally found in the Bhagavad Purana of how vishnu frees the elephant from physical danger (the jaws of a crocodile) and confers liberation or moksha.

¹³ Geetha Rao is also referencing the post-bhakti, and post-Abhinavagupta notions of sringara.

¹⁴ “Krishna! Come here,- quickly.” This dance is closely identified with Balasaraswati’s acclaimed renderings of this line.

REFERENCES

Bala, Douglas M. Knight Jr. Wesleyan University Press; 1st edition June 15, 2010.

“Devadasis and Muthulakshmi Reddy” Sruti 149 Feb 97, 5. “Kalanidhi on Abhinaya” Sruti35 August 87, 26-7.

Kalanidhi Narayanan Sruti 171-12/98, 55-70. (Here she speaks on the early performances of the Madras Music Academy.)

“Kanchipuram Ellappa Mudaliar, Udupi Laxminarayan” in Sruti 167 Aug 98. Narayanan, Kalanidhi “Padams, the Lyrics with Reference to the Nayikas” in Rasa

Eds. Bimal Mukherjee, Sunil Kothari, Ananda Lal,Chidananda Das Gupta. Anamika Kala Sangam, 1995 163-170.

“Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance” Amrit Srinivasan, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 44 (Nov. 2, 1985), 1869-1876

KALANIDHI NARAYANAN

TALKS TO UTTARA ASHA COORLAWALA, GEETHA RAO

& SHYAMALA SURENDRAN