Rupture and healing in the Mahabharata through Bharatanatyam, Kathak and contemporary: Lata Pada’s Kintsugi
This was one performance that was memorable for multiple reasons. It was a Sampradaya Dance production, presented by aharyam designer Sandhya Raman’s Desmania Foundation. To start with, the title was attractive and thought-provoking: ‘Kintsugi’. The second was the dancers, who were immaculate in their technique and looked attractive in their well-designed costumes, the designer being Sandhya Raman herself. The concept, though oft-visited, was interesting because of its unusual perspective on lesser known incidents from the Mahabharata. All these added to make it an enjoyable and moving experience.
Sampradaya Dance Creations is Bharatanatyam veteran Lata Pada’s Canada-based dance company. Lata Pada is a much awarded and recognized Bharatanatyam practitioner and South Asian arts exponent in Canada, which has been her home for over six decades. She was trained in Bharatanatyam under Kalaimamani Guru Kalyanasundaram and Padma Bhushan Kalanidhi Narayanan.
Ever since she had attended an exhibition on kintsugi, Lata Pada had been drawn to this profound art. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic and philosophy based on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Deeply rooted in wabi-sabi, kintsugi is a Japanese art that honours broken pottery by mending it with gold lacquer, highlighting the breaks and ‘embracing embellished brokenness’, according to the literature provided. Perhaps this is an art from older times, when broken pottery was much more precious that gold. Today, relations are fragile, and if there were something like kintsugi that could mend broken people and relations, it would mean a lot to mankind.
The concept of the production was that kintsugi is ‘where rupture meets renewal and radiance’, ‘what we lose, what we mend and what endures’. It was applied to the Mahabharata, in which volatile and ruptured relationships are reimagined as points of transformation. It was a very rich amalgamation of Kathak, Bharatnatyam and contemporary dance, which was very well woven into the music and the rhythm. Plus, there was a natya element in enacting the stories. Kintsugi was conceived by Lata Pada and co-choreographed with Sampradaya’s artistic director Suma Suresh. It features an original score blending classical Indian music by the ensemble Trayam, featuring Praveen D. Rao, B.C. Manjunath and Grammy-nominated singer Varijashree Venugopal. It was performed by dancers Atri Nundy, Purawai Vyas, Rachana Joshi, Harikishan S. Nair, Arun Sreekumar and Tanveer Alam. Light design was by Bharat Vyas, projections by Tara Rose Morris and costumes, of course, by Sandhya Raman.
The evening began with a movie on the Desmania Foundation and its work on baithaks, exhibitions, panel discussions and stage performances. The dancers wore black costumes with hues of blue and brown and gold to show themselves as the vessels that break and mend.
In the first piece, the AV showed a pot on the screen that develops a crack and breaks, and gold droplets being used to stick the broken surfaces. In the first section, it was a treat to see nritta to soft music, which combined bols of jatis from the classical with contemporary music. The dancers wore flowing black costumes. They glided across the stage and in contemporary style, intertwined themselves with each other and moved all over the stage.
Episodes
Rather than writing about each piece, I thought it would be better to uncover each layer. The first layer was the story or the episodes. The Mahabharata is an epic that everyone knows, but the incidents chosen were those that depict ruptured, unresolved relationships. ‘Kintsugi’ used the Japanese concept to reshape them as critical moments from which something new emerges or which can lead to healing.
The son of the forest: The first story was about Guru Dronacharya (Harikishan S. Nair) and Eklavya (Arun Sreekumar). The dancers performed martial movements to depict Eklavya learning archery from an idol of Guru Dronacharya.
Drona did not accept Eklavya as a student since he was of a lower caste, so Eklavya made an idol of the guru from clay, worshipped it and learnt from it. But Drona needed his pupils, the Pandavas, to be the greatest and could not allow a challenger to emerge. So Drona asked Eklavya to sacrifice the thumb of his right hand as dakshina.
The dancers staged the sequence as a drama with vachik abhinaya. When Eklavya moves with his arrow and bow, Dronacharya can see the qualities of his teachings in him. The eyes of Eklavya were moist as he cut his thumb. In the nritta sequence, dancer Harikishan S. Nair took yogic poses as if for penance or tapasya. He was hidden by the other dancers. The moves were aggressive. It was a sacrifice that history will remember; Eklavya’ s devotion will be remembered. He gained strength through his sacrifice.
The gamble: In the next episode, an anguished Draupadi (Rachana Joshi) tells her husband Yudhishthir (Tanveer Alam) that she was wrongfully gambled in the game of dice.
The dharma putra is shown the mirror. She speaks very accusingly. The conversation between Draupadi and Yudhishthir was written and enacted sensitively, with Draupadi telling him that she is the fire that will destroy all.
A mother’s dream: The next episode depicted Kunti’s (Atri Nundy) unease at the prospect of her sons facing each other as opponents in the war the next day. In a mother’s dream, she sees them all on one side. She does not want the war, but a ceasefire.
She pleads with Arjun (Tanveer Alam) and Karna (Harikishan S. Nair) to stop the fight and if that is not possible, then for them all to fight from the side of the Pandavas. But she must face the fact that war will come, and her children will fight from opposite sides.
Through the daughter’s eyes: Finally, in the last story, Gandhari’s (Purawai Vyas) daughter Dushala (Rachana Joshi) tells her mother that all her sons are dead in the battlefield, so she should remove her blindfold and see the destruction caused by the war.
She says that Gandhari had blinded herself to her son’s evils. The dialogues were in English and well enacted on the stage.
Music
The recorded music, by the ensemble Trayam, featuring Praveen D. Rao, B.C. Manjunath and Varijashree Venugopal, was quite appropriate. In fact, both Suma and Jasmine Sawant, the executive director of Sampradaya, said that they had worked with Praveen for over two decades, since joining Sampradaya, and both described him as a ‘genius’ (see interviews here).
The interludes between the episodes were contemporary, with recited bols and syllables. In the first part, the music had syllables and mridangam bols, aalap and the tapping of feet. In the Eklavya episode, the music and bols conveyed martial sounds using drums. Similarly, the music before the dice game episode created the atmosphere of hostility and humiliation, with the drums adding a dramatic element. The third piece, the conversation between Kunti, Arjun and Karna, also had dramatic and, at times, slow and melancholy elements. In the next scene, when the warring factions are fighting, the music was again war-like, using percussion and footwork, and became melancholy when Dushala and Gandhari conversed.
Choreography, drama and dialogue
Lata Pada and Suma’s choreography was very apt as an amalgamation of the three forms of dance, Bharatnatyam, Kathak and contemporary.
The nritta, performed to bols and gentle music, was free-flowing and effortless. The war scenes had great precision in hastas and footwork, cutting sharp arcs through the space.
The dancers had a perfect understanding of each other and there was harmony in their moves. During the drama portions, there was no dance but only performed pieces. The dialogues written were sensitive and executed well.
Visuals and costuming
The AV in the background enhanced the story. In the first piece, it was a piece of pottery that shatters and golden droplets mending it, to show the art of kintsugi. The movements and the dance in this piece used cascading movements so that it felt as if the stage were moving.
In the dice game piece, the visuals had a dice game laid out. The piece was in Bharatanatyam. A golden cloth was used when the dancers moved around jeering, to show the Kauravas defeating the Pandavas. Draupadi and Yudhishthir stood back to back as they conversed.
In the scene with Kunti and her two sons, Karna and Arjun used very aggressive stances towards each other, shown through martial movements. Karna refuses to betray Duryodhana since he was the who held his hand when all had abandoned him. In the next scene, martial movements showed the war between the two sections. The dancers moved all over the stage in twos, showing the warring cousins. Sharp leaps and leg lifts were used in this piece. Elephants were depicted in formations showing the warriors on elephants.
The dancers moved in coordination to show the trunk, the ears and the rider of the elephant. Arrows were shot at each other; Arjun rides his chariot with Krishna as the saarthi. Dushala and Gandhari meet when the devastation is total, with visuals of the palace burning in the background. Dushala wants Gandhari to remove her blindfold and look around her at the war-torn remains. Gandhari keeps calling out for her sons, but meets silence. Dushala answers her and tells her that she is responsible because she turned a blind eye to the evil in her sons. The performance ended with melodious vocals and music.
The gold cloth
In the entire performance, the gold cloth, like the golden lacquer used to repair broken pottery in kintsugi, was on a journey of its own through each story. In the tale of Eklavya, it was a small piece that was tied to the severed thumb of the right hand – the healing gold. It is Dronacharya who mends Eklavya’s chopped thumb. Eklavya attained strength through his sacrifice. Yudhisthir was made to wear a golden stole on his shoulders as he
laments to Draupadi that he did not have the courage to say no to the
dice game.
In the next scene, the golden cloth was bigger; Kunti held it in the centre while Karna and Arjun held the two ends in their hands. Gandhari wore a blue and golden stole as her blindfold.
Next, the cloth becomes bigger, spread out on the entire stage. Each dancer picked it up or was asked to pick up their piece and wrap it around themselves.
They stood holding and passing the cloth on to the next one. The dancers opened it and wrapped it around like a wall. They danced and moved on the stage holding the cloth above their heads.
After a while, the screen showed golden beams of light streaming out and the dancers performed a nritta piece with perfect leaps, sharp hastas, crisp footwork and chakkars in perfect coordination. The song and the piece ended on a positive note as the dancers fell in heap, leaning on each other and smiling. The mending was the last note, not the breaking.
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