Canon and improvisation in the classic Indian dance in the XX century: the problem of balance

Материал из HEPTACHOR.

CANON AND IMPROVISATION IN THE CLASSIC INDIAN DANCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE PROBLEM OF BALANCE

Svetlana Ryzhakova (Moscow-Riga-New Deli)

There are three great national tradition of classic dance: Spanish Flamenco, European (French by origin) ballet and Indian dance. The latter tradition is the oldest and the most diverse one. It includes seven ancient varieties (Bharata-Natyam, Kuchipudi, Mohini-Attam, Kathakali, Odissi, Kathak, Manipuri) and three recent ones, dating back to the twentieth century (three traditions of Chhau and the Dance Sattriya).

The dance order, which is now termed classic, formed in India gradually. It is based on a certain classification of the movements of different body parts. The dancers took into account the impressions on the audience, perfected details and re-interpreted the meaning of the concepts of bhava and rasa. They collected various rules in the handbooks (sastra-nritya). Yet, the term “classic” applied to the Indian dance and theatre tradition has also political connotations and gives little idea of what was going on in dance practice.

I believe that the description and classification of the Indian dance culture had close relations to the social formation of Indian society under British rule. In the late nineteenth century, the British authorities made “lists”, or “registers”, of tribes and casts. Containing multiple mistakes, they contributed to creating chimeras and false views about relationships within the social system. In the opinion of twentieth-century anthropologists, this work of the colonial civil servants, administrators and missionaries damaged social stability and caused harmful stereotypes.

As is the case with society, a “general theory” of Indian dance is not possible. Neither "Natya-sastra", which follows Kutiyattam most of all, nor hasta-mudra, the expressive tradition, nor the theories of bhava and rasa are all-Indian. One is familiar with them in theory but cannot use them in practice, or can use only some elements in a transformed version. Local and much later sources play a more important role, and the personal oral tradition is even more important. This makes Indian art extremely individual.

Indian culture, and especially the performing arts, is a culture of sound (rakti is an ability of the soul to perceive and be enchanted by the combination of different sounds of nature). It is therefore different from cultures based on writing. The idea of the classic in Indian culture – which presupposes a fixed canon – is not well defined.

The question follows: how is tradition passed on, and how, in particular, does the canon relate to improvisation? In the guru-sisya parampara system, for instance, the tradition (its technique as well as its meaning) is passed from the teacher to the student. On the one hand, the student copies the teacher. On the other hand, the teacher cultivates the “flower of the student’s self”. In order to understand how canon and improvisation interact, we need to address three dance modes: nritta, nritya and natya. The latter terms are often defined, respectively, as “pure” and rhythmical dance without plot, drama without rhythmical base, and a dance with plot, tune and rhythm. It is common to think that nritta, nritya and natya are somewhat like concert numbers or choreography compositions. This is not quite true. They are modes or aspects of dance. Each individual performance contains all three, though at times one of them prevails.

Natya is a plot, story or an interpretation of the dance, often accompanied by singing and the general emotional mood. As early as in the tenth century, Dhananjaya distinguished between nritya-abhinaya – as a way to convey to the audience the meaning of each word with the help of mimic and gestures, and natya-abhinaya as a play, or a game, which conveys the leitmotif of the story. The latter gives to the performer maximum freedom for expressing and interpreting. It is complicated to perform, as it requires good knowledge of mythology, history, rituals and an ability to transform real event into symbols and images.

The task of the canon is to teach these three aspects of dance – a sort of framework for each style. Everything within these boundaries is the sphere of individual improvisation, the “main course” served to the audience.

Thus, the codified and well-known area of so-called classic Indian dance is no more than a tiny island in the ocean of a living dialect tradition, on the one hand, and of the individual experience of the performers, on the other. Any single description will be incomplete, reflecting the individual and limited experience of the dancer and dance teacher. The other side of it is that the Indian dance culture remains, perhaps, the most prolific in the world.