How Indian classical dance celebrates love

On Valentine’s Day, 4 classical dancers — Navia Natarajan, N. Srikanth, Divya Devaguptapu and Amrita Lahiri write about how they’ve explored and interpreted Sringara Rasa, the expression of affection

Temper and metaphor

Navia Natarajan | Bharatanatyam dancer

“Her lips are recent pink buds,

Her arms are tendrils,

Impatient youth is poised

To blossom in her limbs “

[Shakuntala and the ring of recollection

Translated by Babara Stoler Miller]

When one reads these traces by Kalidasa, one experiences a dwelling, respiration presence of affection. That is sringara.

Poetry, sculpture and portray can evoke pleasure, even exhilaration. Sringara, one of many Navarasas, is layered and profound. To outline it in English could be to restrict it. Whereas typically translated as ‘romance’, it’s rather more nuanced — it encompasses magnificence, longing, ardour, separation, sensuality, eroticism and divine love.

Whether or not in Kalidasa’s works, Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, Tamil Sangam poetry, or the Amaru Shataka, sringara’s essence is evoked via Nature, emotion, and delicate imagery.

The Khajuraho, Konark and Belur temples stand as among the most interesting representations of sringara rasa in Indian artwork. As artistes, we observe and take up these impressions, permitting them to settle in our unconscious, just for them to emerge later within the items we create.

Even early Indian cinema showcased sringara. My choreographies, particularly varnams, have been formed by moments when my mom spoke concerning the lyrical classicism of sure movie songs. For me, sringara isn’t just about lovers — it’s a full aesthetic expertise.

The great thing about many literary verses lies of their openness to interpretation, permitting the reader to seek out their very own that means. In one of many Amarushatakams (compilation of affection poems), 4 traces seize the delicate but inevitable drift in a relationship. Seen otherwise, it turns into a narrative — of affection eroding over time, of silence changing intimacy. For a efficiency, I interpreted it as the lady now not feeling the need to remain, recognising the burden of what was misplaced. With quiet resolve, she chooses to maneuver on, with the readability that some departures aren’t endings, however beginnings.

Divya Devaguptapu 
| Photograph Credit score:
Ramanathan Iyer

For the nayika inside

Divya Devaguptapu | Bharatanatyam artiste

Sringara is rasa raja (the king of rasas), as a result of love is all encompassing.

In a lot of the poetry we sing and dance to in Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam, the poets properly understood that true success can solely be present in journeys that lead inward in the direction of the infinite. The nayika or heroine stands as a logo for the seeker that exists in us all.

They expressed this knowledge as life being a looking for of the jivatma (soul) eager for union with the parmatma (divine) and the nayika (heroine) a logo for the seeker that exists in us all.

The female is our means to really feel and categorical emotion (bhava) and the limitation a nayika experiences inside is her viraha (separation), and her state of pining. To me, a nayika is probably the most lovely metaphor for an emotional state inside — for, she is the divine female no matter gender.

Self-love is about full acceptance of who we’re 
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

At present, the concept of ‘self-love’ is in all places. Self-love is about full acceptance of who we’re with out judgement. Our vaggeyakaras wrote about this wholeness of life, love and relationships — be it on a regular basis life in humour-laced javalis, or the final word love play between the divine female (Radha) and divine masculine (Krishna) within the Ashtapadis, or the emotional states of mature relationships in Kshetrayya’s padams.

To really admire and perceive our poetry requires give up and a logic transcending acceptance of all feelings — anger, jealousy, sorrow, despair, concern and extra. Although we expect we expertise love due to one other human, our notion of the opposite is definitely our internal expertise. Our final happiness or ananda doesn’t occur due to the presence of one other, it occurs as a result of we discover that internal lover inside us! And, that’s the essence of our poetry, a eager for a union with our lover inside.

In as we speak’s world, women and men have been conditioned to analyse every little thing from an area of questioning and insurrection, quite than feeling.

As a girl raised within the twenty first century, I too was topic to this. Nonetheless, the apply, exploration and changing into varied nayikas in these compositions gave me a chance to attach deeper with my internal female self. To develop into susceptible and really feel, serving to me discover knowledge to navigate my relationship with myself with kindness, compassion and acceptance.

For me, the varied nayikas are the numerous emotional states we expertise every single day. Some days we’re ‘Khandita’, on others we’re ‘Svadhinapatika’. Once we cease hustling, maintain house inside and really feel our feelings, we develop into the nayika, the place there isn’t any morality, judgement or relevance. Solely love, inclusivity and acceptance. To me, that is self-love..

Srikanth with spouse and dancing associate Aswathy
| Photograph Credit score:
SHAJU JOHN

Inventive bond

N. Srikanth

Bharatanatyam dancer

My early years have been spent in Melattur and the summer time holidays have been full of Bhagavata Mela coaching. I began performing once I was six and my first function as heroine (Chandramathi) was on the age of 12. Some performs had characters brazenly displaying sringaram. My first Bhagavata Mela guru Krishnamoorthy Sarma would educate the Sambhoga/Rati hastas and ask me to repeat his expressions. After I couldn’t perceive a few of them, he would smile and say, “You’ll perceive with expertise.”

Speaking about or explaining these items was type of embarrassing for lecturers at the moment, probably as a result of Bhagavata Mela is a ritualistic artwork type to which a specific amount of sanctity is connected.

As a scholar of Bharatanatyam, my first guru was a nattuvanar who solely taught age-appropriate gadgets. Thus, sringara needed to be learnt from life expertise.

The Ashtapadi of Jayadeva, ‘Sakhi he’, is a favorite piece of Srikanth and Aswathy
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

Aswathy was first my scholar and we used to carry out collectively lengthy earlier than we received married. At the moment, I used to show her plenty of Khandita nayika padams. I used to tease her that she’s good at chiding her lover. It’s ironical that the sparring hero and heroine later grew to become life companions. After marriage, we started to discover extra of sringara on stage and one in all our favorite items is the Ashtapadi of Jayadeva, ‘Sakhi he’, which we first introduced as a duet.

At present, we educate college students who’ve publicity to myriad types of sringara — from the delicate to the intense — and it’s typically tough for them to narrate to the psyche of the heroine/hero who behaves in a sure method. We’re typically requested questions as to why she is all the time ready for her lover, and why she ought to ship her good friend as messenger. Whether it is an outdated composition, we can’t tamper with the sensitivities of that period and people characters. To painting progressive ideas, it’s higher to decide on up to date poetry.

Whereas acting on stage, our gurus taught us to keep up a sure Oucityam (decorum). The road between vulgarity and sensuality is a really skinny one. Whereas it is a matter of subjectivity, we favor to maintain the depiction of sringara delicate on stage.

Amrita Lahiri
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

Saying it via dance

Amrita Lahiri

Kuchipudi dancer

Discover me any facet of affection and there might be a dance that may categorical it. Whether or not it’s longing, jealousy, unrequited love, telling a good friend the main points of a clandestine assembly, gossiping about somebody’s new romance, or a lady who just isn’t ashamed of her emotions, classical dance has the repertoire and the method to specific all of it. Vulnerability is what makes for actually thrilling artwork and that’s most evident in sringara — love.

Sringara is taken into account the Rasaraaj, and for good motive. There isn’t any rasa extra fulfilling to look at and expertise, but additionally as tough to navigate. In any case, artwork displays life. Curiously, the songs of viraha or separation are richer than these about union, or sambhoga.

Padams and javalis are poems that greatest categorical each nuance of affection. In a single, the heroine says, ‘I noticed his physique glistening like gold within the sundown, after we have been alone by the river, and I gave myself to him (Tamil padam ‘Netru veren endre’). In one other tune, she says, ‘If he involves my doorstep, I’ll go {to face} in entrance of him, with out dropping focus, I’ll maintain his arms, carry him in and make him sit on the mattress. With delight, oh my good friend, I’ll hold my bosom on his chest, caress him (from ‘Valapu datsa nerane’ — a Telugu poem by Kshetrayya).

How ironic that the authors of most of those poems are males —Dharmapuri Subbaiyar, Kshetrayya and Jayadeva. They write in a feminine voice, and one marvels at their understanding and celebration of girls’s feelings. In the end, gender doesn’t matter, neither in love, nor in artwork.

There isn’t any rasa extra fulfilling to look at and expertise
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

In Kuchipudi, love takes on a dramatic and dynamic dimension. Satyabhama, maybe probably the most well-known of Kuchipudi characters, is the proud however jealous spouse of Krishna. Her story is a lesson in giving up one’s ego. She is upset as a result of Krishna favoured Rukmini over her. An analogous theme runs via the Gita Govinda, the place Radha suffers due to her need to be the one one with Krishna. In life and love, one learns that the important thing to pleasure is to let go.

In dance, there are a large number of conditions of affection and imagined lovers. The beloved exists solely in our reactions to him.

What’s fascinating are the nuances of the person expertise of affection. Sakhi, the good friend, turns into most essential. She is the one who’s listening to the nayika’s complaints, to her bragging, to her pleading, and to her ache. There isn’t any actual hero. The good friend is the primary associate on this journey for she is the witness and information in these experiences of affection.

Over centuries, this expression has been perfected and elaborated by a whole lot of dancers, principally feminine, but additionally some male, who dare to carry probably the most lovely and susceptible emotion onto the stage — love.