Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel and Divya Goswami present virtuoso solo choreographies

The eighth Kalpodip Utsav was organized by Odissi dancer Pompi Paul at the IIC on 23 October 2023. Here, Pompi, Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel and Divya Goswami presented solo pieces. Lord Jagannath was seated on the stage, which was decorated using mogra and rajnigandha flowers.

Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel – Bharatanatyam

Dakshina took the stage after Pompi. Her first piece was ‘Saroja’. Saroja means she of the lotus. She dedicated the piece to her grandmother, Guru Saroja Vaidyanathan, who had passed away a little while back and whose memories were as fresh as the scent of the lotus in everybody’s minds. It was the beginning of the year-long performances called SwarnaSaroja that were going to be dedicated to the memories of her grandmother and guru. 

 

The lotus flower is a symbol of not only beauty but also of strength. It grows in murky waters, overcomes hurdles and grows towards the sun. The symbolism is that it overcomes all difficulties to grow towards knowledge. The gods and goddesses thus choose the lotus. It is the metaphor for describing beauty and bliss. The chakras in the body are also described like the lotus, with varying numbers of petals. The composition was an allaripu in adatalam, 14 beats. 

 

In her depiction, Dakshina showed the rapid waves which steadily become slower and quieter. The smooth stem of the lotus grows in murky waters. The blooming lotus petals are like beautiful eyes. Dakshina took varied stances for the lotus – the scent of the lotus spreads as they bloom, it makes the seat for Goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati. With the sunrise, the lotus blooms and the bees hover around it. The chakras in the human body are like the lotus, which blooms when the kundalini rises. Dakshina executed varied hastas and stances for a lotus, elaborating its various attributes and covering the entire stage in the process.

 

The next piece was ‘Ayoga Vatsalya’. This piece had been choreographed by Dakshina when she was pregnant with her baby boy. Dakshina wore a red and orange aharyam and she looked radiant in it. I had reported this performance when it was premiered in 2021 (http://delhiculturecomment.blogspot.com/2021/11/online-dakshina-vaidyanathan-dances-at.html). 

Shringara rasa describes the union or yoga of two lovers. But in vatsalya, a mother waits for her child to be delivered and separated from her so that she can see him. And that is the paradox of the situation. But every mother knows that though the umbilical cord is physically cut, emotionally it cannot be incised. The mother looks in the mirror  her glowing face. Suddenly, she experiences the kick of the foetus and the pleasure of knowing that life is thriving within her brings a spark to her eyes. The two hearts begin to beat in unison. Dakshina emotes very relatably. She tells her child that she hasn’t seen him but knows that he started as a cell and grew to become a foetus, that is attached to her by the cord. 

She counts the months gone by and the remaining ones, whose end she is eagerly awaiting. She imagines how her child will look and tries to draw his face – eyes like hers, a beautiful nose and lips like the bimba fruit. Will it be just like me? What will it want to play? Will it want to listen to stories that I read out? Will it play with the ball or play hide and seek with me? Will she or he come from behind and surprise me as I look around? As she sits deep in thought, she wonders whether it will be a girl or a boy. She takes a flower and plucks the petals to guess. Whatever the gender, the child will be equally lovable. 

 

The conclusion of the piece was not a performance but a woman reliving each minute of the love-filled pain of birthing. As the abdomen keeps growing and the pregnancy advances into the seventh month, the back aches and the body becomes bent with the weight. Depicting the onset of labour, she lay down and writhed with each contraction. She parts her legs to deliver the baby. Her eyes are filled with tears and her body and mind is exhausted. When she holds the infant in her hands, the scissor cuts the cord connecting them and from one, they become two individuals. She finds the baby even better than what she had dreamed of. On a philosophical note, she thinks that the fish and water live with each other, the peacock dances on seeing the clouds, the lotus blooms when the sun rises, the atma unites with the parmatma. But as a paradox, in order to see her child, she has to part from it. On this note, patting the baby’s head, Dakshina ended the piece. 

 

The first time Dakshina had performed the piece, she was 7 months pregnant and anticipating her baby’s birth. The performance was recorded and played online at the time. But actually seeing the physical performance stirred the emotions of a mother in you. It was that realistic, and Dakshina is anyway known to live her performance and to give the same experience to her audience. 

 

The next piece that she presented was ‘Swasthya Yogam’. This too was conceptualized during COVID-19 lockdowns and was streamed online. The benefits of exercising were realized during the lockdowns, when health became a priority. 

 

Lord Shiva is the deity who practises yoga. He is the param yogi. Dakshina stood on the stage in a broad plie with her back to the audience, depicting the attributes of Shiva: his locks, the moon on his head, the garland of skulls in his neck, the snakes writhing on his body. She moved in all directions, taking stances and balancing postures. The yogam focusses on the breath going up and down or pranayama – deep breathing and then anulom-vilom or the breathing from one nostril alternately. 

Dakshina covered the stage in nritta with chakkars and leaps, displaying her own fitness levels. After the sharirik and mansik yoga comes the aadhyatmik yoga, when the body’s chakras move up into the into the sahasrara chakra as the kundalini rises. Shiva dances joyously with his damru. Dakshina leapt several times, depicting vibrations running all throughout her body. 

 

Here I would like to make a point. In order to broaden our horizons, we have to step out of the box. When a performance is conceptualized, we have to keep in mind the values of the present generation and what would appeal to them and attract them. Dakshina did full justice to both the topics chosen and her handling of the choreography, wherein the form speaks to you. It becomes a language that you relate to even today. Dakshina has mastered that art of speaking through her dance and nritya.

Divya Goswami – Kathak

Like Dakshina, Divya too has mastered the art of talking through her dance. Her depictions, bhava and even her nritta have soul and connect with the audience to tell a story. Divya believes that dance is her love, sadhna and her way of life. In ‘Naadant’, Divya has spoken about Lord Shiva being the beginning and the end of all creation whereas he does have neither beginning nor end. Shiva is the perpetual sound of creation and also the silence of its beginning and the silence that descends at its end. Shiva is omnipresent and yet formless. The production is an excerpt from a larger production which Divya has divided into four parts. Here she presented two of the four sections. 

 

The first composition speaks of Shiva as the param yogi, full of love and compassion and yet detached from worldly pleasures. In the second half, he is presented as the golden light, the source of knowledge, which emerges and gravitates in the chitra sabha as the Nataraja. 

The first piece is a dhrupad composed by Pandit Jasraj in the raag Desh in a cycle of twelve beats. ‘Gale bhujang, bhasma ang, shankar anuragi’: his snakes wind around his limbs and neck and he is smeared with ashes. The serpents are the vices, like hatred, jealousy, anger, which are created, destroyed and recreated through his dance. Shiva roams with his consort Gauri in abandonment. They create in their union. When Gauri meditates on Shiva, she sees him as a pillar of light and here the ironies or paradoxes of the lord appear: the giver who lives in nothingness, the ignorance in the knowledge, the protecter without bias.

 

Divya looked absolutely stunning in her blue costume, the colour of Shiva’s throat. After a pushpanjali laden with bhava and the recitation of Om Namah Shivaye, the vibrations of which spread all around, Divya started with a slow gat, the rotation of her hands showing the bhujang in various stances. With a leap she was on her knees showing the writhing movements of the snake. She took the one-legged stance of Lord Shiva with agni in one hand and the damru in the other. Coming back to the snake hastas, she moved backwards with the bols of dhi dhi kit. Divya’s expressions, with narrowed eyes, expressed the vision of snakes all coiled on the body. ‘Teen nayan amrit bhare’: the third eye was depicted and rundmaal, a garland of severed heads. 

 

The lord roams and dances bare-bodied with Gauri, his consort. She was shown with a teeke (head ornament) ki gat. With a sudden surge of pace and chakkars, Divya depicted the rising of the kundalini and the union of the two in the sahasrara chakra. She blesses all as she herself stays ascetic. In the conclusion to the piece, Divya did a tihai in footwork showing the trishul, jata and the winding snake ornaments. No two hastas or stances depict the snakes winding around the lord were the same during the entire piece – in fact, there was a different expression for each stance. 

 

‘Naadant’ is the continuous cycle of creation and destruction, sound and silence, pause and flow, at the centre of which is the lord himself as a circle of fire. He dances and enjoys the dance of bliss in the hall of consciousness. ‘Shankara shrigiri nath prabhu ke nritta virajat chitra sabha mein’: the seeker wishes that the lord dance in the lotus of his heart to burn away the fire of desires and the pain of the worldly bindings. 

 

The Nataraja dances amid the golden rays of light, transcending the shruti, gati and laya. The vessel of the dancer is empty and the dancer hopes that she or he not drown in illusion or abandon but experience the bliss of dancing in the lustrous core of his self. 

 

The Swati Thirunal composition describing the Shankara is in raag Hamsanandini in aditaal. It describes the journey of the form and the sound with its duality and back into the void. As the door opens, Shiva appears with his damru and the agni in his hands. Divya took a paran to begin her journey of sound and form. The manjira and mridanga are the instruments playing as she shows him residing on Kailash and the Ganga flowing from his jata. He wears the baghambar. The  devatas in the sky shower him with flowers. Shiva resides in the heart of Lord Padmanabha as his ishta. 

 

In the nritta interludes, Divya executed the parmelu, mridanga tukda, tihais and pairon ki uthan. She covered the entire stage; she was everywhere in varying tempos. Her footwork was very well executed, with leaps here and there. 

 

Divya wove a mesmerizing tale of Lord Shiva’s iconography through her dance. Shiva’s damru is the symbol of anhad, the primordial sound, the soundless sound, and his dance is the dance of creation and destruction. The tandava of Nataraja is the primordial dance. Shiva dances and plays from the silence of the beginning of the creation to its end and its fading into silence again. 

 

She used the symbolism of the serpents which hissed with venom, wound on his body and the ashes of the funeral ground smeared on his body. She interpreted the snakes as the vices that engulf the humans. The rising of the serpent of kundalini into the sahasrara chakra, where Shiva unites with Parvati, is the basis of creation. And then ensues the dance of Shiva in the golden light of the chitra sabha and his residing in the heart of Lord Padmanabha. 

 

The vocabulary of Kathak was exhibited at its best to show the lord and the serpents dancing on Shiva’s body. At the heart of Divya’s performance were the vocals by vocalist and composer Sudha Raghuraman. Together with the instrumentalists, she wove a magical web where Divya danced with all her agility and energy.

Pompi Paul – Odissi

Pompi Paul, who was the host of the event, had presented an Odissi solo in the beginning, but I unfortunately missed most of it. In the end, she and her troupe presented the Ram bhajan ‘Prem sahit man se kaho Ram Ram Ram Ram’ in Odissi. 

 

The dancers took various stances of Ram with his bow and of Sitanaathaye, with his consort Ma Sita. Together, they showed the Ahilya uddhar incident and the Khevat leela. For the Shabari leela, the dancer who acted as Shabari adopted a bent over posture. In the Khevat leela, the dancers sat around as if sitting on the bank of a river. 

 

The piece was well-rehearsed, with the group showing coordination and flexibility. The footwork was very well-defined and their stances and gestures telling the tale were executed with dexterity. Together, they rowed on literally and also figuratively.

Pics: Anoop Arora