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Out of step with time

With the grace and femininity of Odissi better suited to female dancers, it is time to evolve a new idiom for male dancers who are fast losing relevance, says Bibhuti Mishra.

Shiva, the Lord of dance, is known as Nataraja. And even though his consort Kali is also famed for her dance, legend has it that in a dance encounter Shiva vanquished Kali.

Another God, Lord Krishna was a formidable dancer too. While his dance on the serpent Kaliya resembled the tandava of Lord Shiva to some extent, his joyous caper with the gopis formed the essence of the rasa dance. But when the Gods needed terpsichorean delight, it was the apsaras who held stage. Perhaps that explains why dance continues to be a female bastion even though the presiding deity of dance is Lord Shiva.

The importance of male dancers in the world of Indian classical dance is getting steadily undermined. Although Kathakali is a dance theatre tradition that is basically male-oriented, the presence of male dancers in Kuchipudi, once a male preserve, is also tapering off. Even down South dance sabhas have been less than fair to male dancers who hardly manage to get their performances squeezed into the fortnight-long programmes. People want female dancers and the reasons are not far to seek. There are enough beautiful, graceful women who bear the mantle of Indian classical dance with elan. So “why should we suffer the the effeminacy of male dancers?” is a refrain increasingly heard from dance viewers. Since classical dance, unlike the folk, admits the necessity of a viewer, viewer participation and perception is definitely important.

When we come to Odissi dance, we are immediately reminded of the two qualifying attributes of Indian classical dance— the tandava and the lasya. The former is taken to be the male element and the latter the female element, as symbolised in Lord Shiva and his consort goddess Pravati, respectively. In Odissi dance movements, there is no strain, tension or jerks, unlike in Bharatnatyam, and so many believe this intense lyricism is ill-suited to male dancers.

Dance of love

Moreover, tenderness of expressions being an integral part of Odissi, which is often called a dance of love and longing, it is female dancers who are seen to bring its nuances to the fullest expressions.

Yet Odissi stems from two traditions— Mahari and Gotipua. The former is a temple dance akin to Devadasi dance the latter is a dance performed by boys. So it is a pity that the male dancer in Odissi is becoming an incongruity.

“While in nrita (abstract dance), his expertise finds ready acceptability, in nritya that makes use of mimetic prowess (abhinaya), there is reservation. In abhinaya, too, there could be a division— angika (relating to body movements) and satvika (interplay of emotions through facial expressions)— and in the latter, the male dancer’s projected effeminacy is held up to ridicule,” says eminent Odissi guru Gangadhar Pradhan, who also feels that because of this, the male dancer is pushed into the group dance arena or at best the duet.

But legendary Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra has an interesting point to make. Says he, “The male dancer can do a wonderful solo provided he chooses his items carefully. If his skill and involvement is of a high order he can elevate his performance to a level where the dance and the dancer become one.”

In Kevat Prasang Guru Kelucharan played the kevat or the boatman and the way he handled the ecstasy of bhakti made viewers forget that it was a frail, bald septuagenarian dancing before them; only the delight of the dance infected them.

Dancers like Aruna Mohanty feel somewhat like Rukmini Devi Arundale that male dancers should dance as males. When a male dancer tries to do what a female dancer does, people would naturally prefer the latter. Though the charges of effeminacy in gait, movement and expression could be true to a certain extent, their movements need to be stern and graceful as against the movement of female dancers that is soft and graceful. Sterness does not preclude suppleness.

Changing realitites

One is tempted to cite the example of male dancers in oriental dance forms as practised in countries like Egypt or Morocco etc. There was a time when women held sway there, bringing to the fore the full range of eroticism. But with the entry of men it was proved that even in such essentially feminine forms as Saidi or Rates Sharki dance, men have found an audience.This they have done not by aping women dancers but by evolving a style of their own with intricate footwork, heavy hip work and lovely undulations.

Ace Odissi dancer Sujata Mishra has a point to make on purushangs in the Odissi dance form. “It is to do with rasa delineation. For example if it is karunya rasa, obviously the female would look more authentic while something like veera rasa goes along very well with the male, although most of the navarasa do not admit any gender bias.” Guru Durgacharan Ranbir, himself a talented disciple of the late Guru Debaprasad Das who began a separate school of Odissi, feels that there are limited roles male dancers can perform and to avoid the increasingly perceived redundancy of male dancers, those roles have to be identified and improvised.

True, because many a talented male Odissi dancer, like Manoranjan Pradhan, have settled as teachers in the absence of any scope to evolve as Odissi dancers in their own right.

Guru Debaprasad Das, who passed away in his prime, was a wonderful dancer and his style and school had been more than fair to male dancers with its accent on chouka rather than tribhanga, so characteristic of the Guru Kelucharan school.

Ratikanta Mohapatra, son of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, is a leading Odissi dancer himself. He opines, “It’s true that there are some emotions like vatsalya which only a female dancer can exude to a nicety. But otherwise a male dancer can be a delight if he is in shape which most of the dancers are not, having been deprived of chances.”

Some years back there was a Odissi dance festiva in Bhubaneswar hosted by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and most of the dancers who put up demonstrations were found woefully wanting in skill as they had not bothered to keep in shape.

Ratikanta, the junior Kelucharan, himself has been reduced to essaying roles in dance drama instead of presenting solo recitals. So the destiny of Odissi dance seems to be that male Odissi dancers would become gurus'while the female dancers would keep aloft the performance part. But the duet dance is getting a lot of positive response from viewers and the laurels the husband-wife duo of Madhusmita and Ramesh have won is ample proof of this.

Male dancers have always had their place in classical dances. Even the ancient temple sculptures bear that out. But the concept of nata nati underscores the importance of the duet dance which should also be explored by the male dancers of Odissi today.

Unlike Kuchipudi or even Manipuri, Odissi does not have a traditional male syntax. So it is time this aspect was looked into and an idiom evolved for the male Odissi dancer to break into what has become a female preserve today.