the panel

A panel followed the Berlin Margam performance. Chaired by Dr. Avanthi Meduri (dancer/scholar) it included Ashish Mohan Khokar (dance critic/scholar), Prof. Martin Puttke (ballet director), Prof. Phillip Zarrilli (actor/director,) Rajyashree Ramesh (Bharatanatyam dancer/teacher/movement researcher) and Eva Isolde Balzer(actress/dancer). Excerpts from this session are presented here.

A short contemporary dance piece called Historicity (excerpt from Hybrid Identities) by Eva Isolde Balzer based on the sentence "In my dream Pina Bausch asked me to dance Balasaraswati" ushered in the discussions about historicity, art and embodiment.  

Introducing the piece Avanthi Meduri explained:

So we asked Eva: What does this mean for you, this tradition, what are we doing, and questions like that. It is about Eva’s struggle with history, her questions about tradition. This is a large tradition with many histories, so you can pick it up at any place. You can tell the history of Bharatanatyam from the sculpture, from the teacher, from the temple dancer who was the dancer, you can tell it from the Natyasastra – and all these histories will be right, there is no right history, because there are multiple episodes, multiple histories. 

So she wanted to then perform for you her response to this question of history. She articulates this from her hybrid location, as a German Indian dancer.

Ashish Mohan Khokar: 

„It is very meaningful to see a same tradition in a totally different geographical context. 

Earlier if geography decided history, for many of us, in many cultures, today history is being made because of geography too. And Berlin Margam is a good example of that.“ 

„...a big hand first of all both to the teacher and the taught.(applause)..the clap is not just for her skill in learning or the acquisition of an art form which may be alien, transported, whatever, it‘s also the depth and the purpose with which one approaches these very ancient traditions“

„today what we saw as a margam - it is amazing because this quality and this depth and this purpose of dance we do not see even in Bangalore or Madras. That‘s why Berlin Margam will go down in history, whenever the history of Bharatanatyam is  rewritten or written again.(...) Because this is also a point of reference of how a culture transmutes and

develops and grows and progresses in a culture which is giving it more serious purpose and more serious thought in its practicing and in its outcome.“

„speaking of historicity, these are very serious words (...), for a very vast audience, historicity would mean something that has happened, that is history, But each day contributes to that.“ 

„where is the starting point for tradition, what is classical, what is identity of an art form? When we say Indian dance forms today, is Berlin Margam, which we saw today, anything less than Bangalore margam (....) or whichever margam one would wish to call it. It is the same form... Within the confinement of a form ... what works. We have contemporary response to dance (...) But then what happens to the structure of the form, what happens to its basic grammar?“ 

„such meaningful and dance of depth and to see such clarity of grammar and structure 

is very very difficult to achieve. Forget that she is a German. It is difficult to achieve even for an Indian.(...) To see that she has not only partaken of a tradition, used her skill and training very very ably given by guru Rajyashree Ramesh and to have furthered it and maintained it. It is very heartening to see that it is no more the physical or geographical boundaries. It is the form itself which reaches all.(...) And for having such quality in this milieu, in 7 years, one can only say hats off to you both...“  

Phillip Zarrilli:

„This has been a fantastic evening. Really fantastic.“

I want to go to Eva’s second part piece. Because, a part of what we see happening tonight, is this meeting point in Evas previous other trainings with the bharatanatyam. This is where the transformative potential of these traditional forms really comes into contemporary practice, where we see someone who is embodying and has the ability to allow those different trainings - multiple trainings -  to work inside and produce both the traditional and something else.“

„Those of us who did not originate  -  first grow up in India but spent lots of time there or in its genres, as you have here in Berlin, in that serious training, there is already always this place of transformation that is happening. Unless one chooses to just attempt to freeze something like a traditional training. And that‘s when it is unfortunate in some ways.  

Those of us who know any kinds of traditional practices know that they are constantly changing (....) Westerners sometimes have wanted to freeze and romantize the genres. And the ways in which they are represented for westerners in India and other places has often to do with that. A part of the work of this evening is exploding those caricatures, those half baked truths and allowing us to see this as a working living tradition in its embodiment and in its practice.“

Martin Puttke:

I am a German, working in Berlin, making classical dances and had no idea before what is Indian dance. And .. dance, Indian dance by a German Berlin girl. I was really very  curious how it will be, I have to say. And I am deeply impressed of what I saw. It‘s incredible. 

And of course I was looking to Eva very carefully(...) I was very much impressed by the clarity of the movements. (...) Clarity is a question of technique. And maybe when we discuss this problem, we start to find a way to explain what is classical. (...) But I think the way of manifesting, physical manifesting, so ideas fuse with the body, with the human body, which works through all the generations in the epochs, we could call classical. And this where I got the link from the Indian dance to the classical dance. 

To go down into the - we call it the grandplié, in a very deep plié, getting up immediately, turn around and showing a fantastic narrative pose movement, which makes absolutely understanding what happens. 

I got a contact to Madame Ramesh and we were talking about the artistic movement (...) and you can’t believe we got friends, because we found out - she is talking about a different dance, I am talking about a different dance – but we are using the same technical principles, because we are working with human beings, with two legs, a body, two arms and a head (...) I try to work out the universal principle of the human being when its moving and I saw (those) fantastic in the Indian Dance. (...)

The way you could express absolutely precise your fantastic movements was done by one principle - her mass centre(...) her mass centre was absolutely perfect placed in any movement, without this she never could do this fantastic movement and she never could tell the story, or the dance or the idea. I could follow through her whole body with these principles (...)

It is fantastic how she got this lightness, this clarity by using universal very simple principles of moving your body. So thank you very much for this „maratona di danza“ we saw tonight. Thank you so much, so much. I loved it. 

Eva Isolde Balzer: 

About my training .... which I think comes very close to what you said, because Rajyashree uses these sentences like „sit in your pelvic floor“,  „your wrist“... But it is so hard to learn this and I need to hear it thousands of times, otherwise I am not able to do it.  (....) How I came to learn this at all...I saw an Odissi performance by Illeana Citaristi that really touched me, and at this time I was so moved and felt so light and happy but I was already a contemporary performer, and I thought, „well this feels good but it can‘t be right as an art“  because I learned kind of that as an artist I should trouble the audience and put in something new and strange. And I was so closed by those ideas that I never allowed it really to touch me. But I improvised a lot and it happened that whenever I improvised I remembered that dance and it somehow came into my body, and I thought „wow, whenever I think about it my mind is changing so much and I feel so calm and light and precise then I thought I have to look what this is all about.“ (...) Sometimes in Europe we are so closed by certain ideas about art and I am so happy, it is such a nice process to open and listen to other ideas. 

(...)

(I tried to analyse the things that I really like or are useful to me whether I dance Classical or Contemporary or whatever I do:)

One thing is this really clear spacial relationship... with the eyes and something about the space which (..) I think is really great and I would love to understand more about it. Another thing is, there is a specific vulnerability that I have to learn to place myself in and in the same time  (...) I have to be very clear outward ,clearly thinking of the audience. And this is something I am really grateful to learn. 

A third thing is that I feel what is really healthy for me : I get a different feeling of identity when I train this, because I feel I am a specific person and I play something daily-like, but one second after I have to find something in myself which has a divine aspect in my body. And it is this playfulness, this  lightness, this play between feeling pain and sorrow but never taking it so seriously that it brings you down. ( ...) I feel it changes me as a person in my daily life. (...) and these are all things I don‘t find them specifically culturally Indian, or I don‘t worry whether it is or not, I am just happy to learn this. 

Phillip Zarrilli:

„What Eva is referring to and what I found (....) is through the form it was taking me in a very deep way into an inner connection into what I call a psychophysiological process that is so complete, that‘s so deep that I don‘t have to try to manufacture some kind of emotion. Something will come with it in that moment. It finds its way into the expressive form, if we are so completely inside that expressive form with a kind of complete body-mind engagement. This is where again when you see really good training happening, and which we were able to see tonight and the depth of that work, or in Yogas singing - the way in which one is psychophysiologically moved and being moved at the same time.“

Martin Puttke:

„That is exactly the problem we have especially when we are talking about technique – in any kind of dance. The psychophysiological influence and reaction. Because sometimes when you are forcing too much technique, when you ask for too much force – you are losing this moment and it means you lose art.“ 

Avanthi Meduri:

„But just to give another point of view (---) When I was studying in India, we were taught in another way. You don‘t start with the form, you start with the feeling. So both approaches: You and you are saying, the form will lead to the feeling. But equally valid is another approach. That the feeling could lead to the form. You can go from outside in, or from inside out, but the outside and the inside must meet in some sense.“ 

Rajyashree Ramesh: 

The process of learning, which is what became evident in Eva’s performance today...that‘s what we wanted to make transparent, and that‘s why we had this event – calling it „Art and Embodiment“. And also particularly saying „Looking beyond exoticism“, knowing the kind of receptivity these non-European forms,- and especially from a ‚bunte’, colourful, fascinating India - you know and there is always this sense that it is exotic. And then people come and ask you: ‚ But you seem to have learnt this art form properly in a real manner?’ after a performance. I mean wouldn’t the artist first learn before going on stage? Why do they expect us to be different? Just because we are from India? And the lovely colourful costumes do not carry us to that domain, where I can go and jump around on stage without learning it. So this whole process of learning is so important. 

And, all the dancers who have learnt from me I must say, have had the same experience - they have watched somebody dance Indian dance and the next days they started looking for a teacher for that. (...) this is why they came to it, because they got this different kind of an experience with it. So but then what happens with the dancer is, is she ....... is that student ready to go through this grinding...We grind the dancers you know like diamonds and then you polish them after that, until they shine. So is the student ready to take that - is the big question today. 

And very often this hours and hours of sitting down and learning... ..  You know she (referring to Eva) would sit there and I would ask her ‚look straight’ ..... and then I would say ‚soften your facial muscles’ and then I would watch to see what is coming out of her, and then I would say ‚stretch the back of your head’ (laughter), .... and this is how I started, let her first try it. Then I would give her images. So I said now: ‚You cannot believe what you see’ --- ja (laughter again). So one hour long, one rasa, one sentiment.. it is love, it is fear, it is anger - one whole 60 minutes class, and she would sit down and do it... This is what I want to say today. This is a student who took that, and didn‘t say, oh those classes are so boring, and stopping it (applause)...But I could do it with her. I could explore all these different ways, to get to that essence of Indian dance. What is it? How do I define? From all these different perspectives? Is it as boring as sitting into the pelvic floor? Where is the imagery gone? I have broken a tabu by saying that, because all the exoticism is gone, when I talk about the pelvic floor, isn’t it?

Avanthi Meduri: 

Well, this is the other interesting thing, isn’t it? While you as audience see the exotic dancer in costume, with beautiful eyes etc  ....what the teachers sees is bare bones, is this ordinary dancer. In the everyday practice there is no exoticism. The everyday practise is just about bone and structure, and alignment and geometry and symmetry, and all this question of myth and story and imaginary, did you say?.... The arduous training – in that place there is no exotica. So it is the spectator (...) who sees, and who is living in that image of the exotic.