07/16/2024
TRANS-FORMANCE
I'd never seen the cosmic female-male yin-yang relationship performed by two men in Bharatanatyam before this video posted a few months ago. The thillana rhythmic portion at the climax of a performance is one of the many Indian things I find moving and awe-inspiring.
It reminds me of when I was staying at Darpana Dance Academy in Ahmedabad visiting Malika Sarabhai in the early 90s. Malika was the only Indian performer in Peter Brooks' astounding 13-hour stage performance of "Mahabhatara," a huge influence on my decision to let go and embrace India.
There was a pavilion in the middle of the compound's courtyard with a polished cement floor, a tabla player and a singer-instructor sat cross-legged on the side tapping time on a wood block, "Tum tak tak tei tik tik tatta tei..."
Maybe 2 dozen girls and one teen boy were divided into four age groups, barefoot with ankle bracelets of bells.
The 4-to-7 group began, hands on hips, lightly stomping, simple tentative steps. The next group rotated in, and the next, increasing in age, proficiency and confidence, feet pounding harder, ankle bells calling down the gods with more emphasis.
The singer-instructor picked up pace with the tabla and five teens — those who'd stuck it out through the years it takes to learn Bharatanatyam, whittled down from a larger pool of children — leaped in, boy in the middle, and threw every hormone of their adolescent energy into dancing as the gods.
It was all I could do not to yell "Olé!" at the end — flamenco eat your gypsy heart out.
Few men perform any variant of Indian classical dance, except for a martial arts version called Chhau, so clunky and macho by comparison it makes me embarrassed to be a man.
It's mildly interesting that the man in the female role in this video is playing Shakti/Durga/et al., Shiva's full-time consort, rather than Mohini, the avatar of Lord Vishnu transformed into the ultimate vamp who seduces Shiva and gives birth to a child, Lord Ayyappa, whose vehicle is a tiger.
— James
||ARDHAGAURISHVARA||On the occasion of Mahashivratri 🔱"Embracing the cosmic rhythm, our dance becomes a sacred offering to the eternal union of Shiva and Sh...
