Resounding steps

Interpretation

Bharatanatyam exponent Priyadarshini Govind’s ‘abhinaya’ takes us back to the roots of the dance form. hema vijay writes about the danseuse’s love for the pure form.

She personifies everything that one would associate with an archetypal Bharatanatyam dancer. Large eyes that speak volumes even in a fleeting glance; a slender frame (that she retains even as she steps into middle age) that lends grace to her dance; fluid movement that mesmerises; and a passion for abhinaya that makes her a throwback to a bygone era.

Well, in this age when being different and breaking free of structures and traditions seems to be the key to getting noticed for artistic and creative achievements, Bharatanatyam dancer Priyadarshini Govind revels in the magnificent possibilities of the traditional art form. And the world only seems to be clamouring for more of her brand of dance, with this intense danseuse having performed extensively in Europe, North America, South Africa and Asia on concert tours, besides at major international dance festivals like the Montpellier Festival of Dance and Music in France, the Parc de Villette Festival in Paris, the Jerusalem Festival in Israel, and at places like Washington’s Kennedy Centre. Her solo performances have charmed people of diverse nationalities, from people in the US and Europe to Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

Language and culture are not barriers, because her dance takes its strength from abhinaya, the emotive, expressive aspect of Bharatanatyam, which makes her performances appeal to the viewer’s aesthetic as well as emotional self.
Not surprisingly then, she was recently honoured by the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (2012). “Receiving the award does feel good; after all, artistes thrive on appreciation,” she says, in all modesty.

Movement as language

It has been over three decades since she stepped on stage for her arangetram (the first solo stage performance of a Bharatanatyam dancer), as a nine-year-old at Chennai’s Mylapore Fine Arts Club, one of the city’s most ancient cultural sabhas. Now, numerous performances later, she still remains enchanted by the dance form, and retains the awed thrill experienced by a novice. While many of her contemporaries like Padmini Chettur have morphed their dance language into utterly unstructured formats and grammar after beginning their dance trajectory in Bharatanatyam, and many others judge the dance form to be exquisite but rigid, Priyadarshini revels in abhinaya and brings out all that is glorious about traditional style.

For the uninitiated, abhinaya refers to the expressive aspects of Bharatanatyam, encompassing mudras, mime, facial expression and movements of the body, something that is so powerful as to allow wordless communication.
“I am not comfortable with the notion that Bharatanatyam is rigid. Of course it has a structure, a repertoire and a teaching tradition, but above all, it is a language and it is the dancer’s capacity and mastery of the language that determines the scope of creative expression. Of course, dance is definitely a challenging art, as it is a complex visual medium involving movement, drama, poetry, and music,” she says. Mastering the language has perhaps allowed this dance exponent to shed and assume multiple characters while dancing, as easily as others would break into new movements.

Priyadarshini doesn’t see any competition between the genres now emerging in classical dance, either. “When there is a tradition, there will be a reaction. However, things are not the way they were 20 years ago. Bharatanatyam is evolving,” Priyadarshini remarks, adding, “There is a huge following for Bharatanatyam abroad.”

Literary rhythms

Priyadarshini’s choreography does tend to make dance an odyssey into literature too, as she likes to pick her compositions from literature; for instance, her aham and puram were weaved around selected verses from ancient Tamil poetry, something you would otherwise get to hear only in a Tamil literature class. “Sometimes, it is chance that leads you to a particular topic for choreography. From kritis of Shyama Sastri, Surdas and Tulsidas to later compositions, there is an ocean of compositions available for dance choreography,” she remarks. At other times, she commissions new compositions. For Priyadarshini, the literary verses are not an audio file to be set to dance, taken at narrative face value. “You have to understand the poetry and its context, the flavour of the times.” She also believes that the centrality of dance lies not in its technique of movement, but rather in its sensitivity and internalisation of the concept.

Like many girls in South India, Priyadarshini was introduced to dancing as a toddler. “I was six years old and it was my mother‘s passion for dance that brought me into dancing, initially,” she recalls. She had the privilege of learning from the iconic dance gurus like Padma Bhushan Kalanidhi Narayanan and Swamimalai K Rajaratnam Pillai, an exponent of the Vazhvoor School, and her fellow students included noted dancers like Srinidhi Rangarajan, Malavika Sarukkai, Anuradha Jagannathan, Ramya Harishankar and Vidya Subramaniam. Having been born in a devout Vaishnavaite family, Priyadarshini did also have an early exposure to Harikathas (stories of Vishnu). Later, she trained in Kalaripayattu, the martial art form of Kerala, and Nattuvangam from Kalashetra.

Priyadarshini’s passion for abhinaya must have been triggered off by her teachers to some extent. Apparently, at one learning session, Kalanidhi Narayanan was demonstrating the many ways in which a Gopi pleads with Krishna in the composition Mathuranagarilo. Midway during the demonstration, Kalanidhi mami stopped the demonstration and had chided Priyadarshini, saying sternly, “Do you or don’t you want to learn?” “I was awed seeing the transformation in her, from the pleading Gopi to the stern teacher and understood then what switching characters meant,” Priyadarshini reminisces. Well, portraying multiple characters in a single composition is something the adult Priyadarshini excels at now. And then, besides abhinaya and nrittya, Priyadarshini imbibed something much more valuable from her teachers. “They taught me how important it is for an artiste to shed the ego and the notion of ‘I’ before getting on to stage,” she shares.

Though Priyadarshini had been learning to dance ever since she was a little girl, she took a professional leap rather late, after marriage and two kids had come into the picture. From then on, however, her career has been on a fast forward mode. This dancer’s mastery over nrittya and abhinaya, and speed and balance, is complete, making her the most eloquent Bharatanatyam dancers of the day. Now, the dancer is perhaps midway in her career, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves further. Choreographies keep her busy, while she conducts a few dance workshops, such as for SPIC MACAY. Some time back, she had produced a television serial on dance. She doesn’t teach much, with the exception of a few advanced students. She explains, “This is a conscious choice, because I need to devote so much time and energy to choreography; it is like raising a child; it requires endless attention.”