Whew! What a month this has been! Seated on the weighing scale in the Kerala temple of Guruvayoor for the ‘Tulabaram’ offering at the crack of dawn and my mind whirled through the past month. Images, moments, memories… Where do I begin to share all that the packed 31 days has offered up to us?

First, a question. Why have we all become like porcupines? Why do we bristle at even the slightest criticism of our work? Not only dance, but music, cinema, art… anything... the artiste has become a self styled, self made genius... incapable of making any mistakes or being simply – HUMAN.

Some recent incidents, two involving this very site has prompted this question at the top of my editorial. First was a book review and then a dancer and guru took umbrage at a critical review of a Music Academy performance. In both cases, the reactions were totally uncalled for. Dancers and critics have a constant dance of war and peace going on. In India they socialize, argue, disagree, agree, praise, criticize, applaud and denigrate one another as long back as I can remember. Dancers hate to see anything but huge praise and so, over the years, dance writing and reporting has become very weak and watered down.

The inaugural performance at the Music Academy, a prestigious slot was given to the usually fabulous Priyadarsini Govind. Innumerable costume and jewellery malfunctions were certainly not part of the choreography but the performance was allegedly less than brilliant. However the review was nothing short of extolling a Goddess on stage. What this does is create an atmosphere where young dancers are subtly told that once you are a star, you can do no wrong even if you are less than inspired on a particular evening. Of course it is entirely possible that the critic DID point out something in the performance and the copy editor chose to remove it. In India anything can happen and the dance critic is not as respected as before when not a single word was changed without the writer’s permission.  The larger question remains whether critics should review ‘legends’ of dance anymore. While so many of these diva/devis disappointed horribly this season, how does one respond to mediocre shows? Can we all learn from the minimalism shown by Vyjayantimala when she stood in a gorgeous Kanchipuram sari, tied loosely at her waist and did subtle but glorious abhinaya while receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award. She left us all thirsting for more and imagining how marvelous she must have been in her prime.

Animated discussions every morning around the Music Academy canteens were the most interesting. Conversations ranged from dance styles, rehearsal tips, fitness and weight loss for dancers, articles, contemporary performances, emerging talents and archiving methods. If only we were flies on the wall or swarming around the steaming idlis, dosas, vadas and sambars to listen in!  And speaking of canteens, the Music Academy watering hole notched up record sales on a single day during the concert of a popular musician totalling 3 lakh rupees while the dance season brought a meager 15,000 rupees daily only. So are music audiences hungrier? Or just much, much, much larger?

After all the numerous performances of Bharatanatyam in Chennai over the past two months, three artistes seem to be emerging with confidence and strength. Navia Natarajan, Janaki Rangarajan and Ramya  Ramnarayan.  All three live in the USA and are on the cusp of important breakthroughs in their respective careers. With Los Angeles born Mythili Prakash’s success story as a signifier, these three women seem bent on committing to a life in dance.  In these times of such cynicism about the ‘margam,’ classical dance and the ‘ennui’ of grinding sandal paste and stringing jasmine garlands, we wish them all the luck and more. As for the UK, the dancers do not seem to want to journey to India to prove anything. The cushy funding situation and the confidence of ‘British Natyam’ has cleared space for dancers in the UK and established a solid context for their continued presence in Britain. Akademi’s seminar ‘LOOKING FOR THE INVISIBLE’ at London’s PLACE theatre later this month will look to explore the difficulty in classical dance training aligning with the notion of the abstract..

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