Sharira - ecstasy

Sharira- my journey 

Sharira was an eclectic performance that was waiting to explode on me in all its splendour as it unfolded this evening at Spaces. The wait for it has grown upon me over the years. The expectations of the performance have been creeping and enveloping me over the years. It occurs to me that my little sojourn thus far in appreciating arts and literature and the many stakes that have gone into it, have all played a crucial part in enabling me to understand and appreciate this exquisite piece of performance art.

I believe it was an introduction to Tishani Doshi and her writings in the columns in The Hindu that opened the first windows to appreciating it for me. She was a personification of an exciting mix of literature, poetry and dance for me. I am the kind of person who gets over excited when a poet and a dancer collaborate, as in the case of Arudhathi Subramanium and Alarmel Valli. But imagine how excited I should have been to learn of a poet who also practiced dance.

Then, as I was introduced to Spaces, Sadanand Menon and the oeuvre of Chandralekha, it was only an ideal build up to witnessing this evening’s performance of Sharira. Who better to introduce Chandralekhe than Sadanand, who had been associated with her for a long time as a fellow artist and a critic and seen her oeuvre grow over the years . I consider it a blessing to have been able to attend a couple of sessions and listen to Sadanand speak about Chandralekha.

 © Frederic Soltan/Sygma/Corbis

Through these talks, Chandralekha comes across as a rebel who took immense pride in her stand, ‘ I exist, despite you ( the system)’. It was a kind of Tapas and meditation that she had performed at Spaces in defying the system and creating art in an atmosphere of experimentation and collaboration. For instance, in choreographing a performance, she was particular about doing away with the aspects that appealed to the viewer as ‘beautiful’.

 I understand, she wanted to disturb the viewer, constantly question his aesthetic leanings and redefine it by breaking barriers. She despised performances being framed within a fixed a repertoire. She wanted her performances, and performers to keep evolving.

This was amply evident when Tishani, who has been performing and living with this single piece for more than a decade and a half now, said that the piece has evolved on its own and that she has not made any conscious changes to it.

CL had been an ever thinking artist. I don’t think there were any precedents when she choreographed a work inspired by the mathematical treatise ‘Leelavathi’.

She was always open to collaborations and this helped her art evolve in leaps and bounds. This paved way for her collaborations with, Kalari, Yoga, which would sort of set a trend in classical dances and theatre performances across the country.

The ease and enterprise with CL collaborates is nowhere more evident than how a casual meeting lead to a life long association for Sadanand. And in how a casual follow up meeting with Tishani after CL liked Tishani's review of her book ' Rainbow on the road' led her working in Sharira. What a life long transformation she has left on these wonderful people.

Sharira- the format

Sharira, unfolded in three parts. First there was the invocation of the female form in Shakthi.  It opens up in silence and as the dormant form slowly moving to life, exploring its own form. The strings of the tambura strum in first and fill the air, as the form now starts exploring the space and the freedom around it. The voice then comes in invoking the various names of the Shakthi, like Janani, Jwalamukhi, as the form explores and realises its potentials.

Through out this sequence of invoking the Shakthi,  the dancer stays close to the earth and almost explores movements in a flat frame. She seems to invoke the earth the profound life and potential that the earth holds in it.

 In her movements she questions and breaks all our conceptions of dance. for instance, Jutting forth the back to face the audience and letting the yoni perform movements. There is a treatment of the back and the yoni in executing movements on par with hands that are prominently used to make mudras in conevention. The feet is also used to make mudhraic expressions.

In the second part, the Male dancer comes in just when the Shakthi seems to have touched upon her feminism. Just as the male comes in, Tala is introduced, invoking Shiva and the drum. The male energy tries to engage with the female form with love and play, here the music resembles the buzzing of a bee circling a flower. Shiva is invoked by his aspects of anandha and thandava.

The Male form, played by Kalari artist Shaji John, is visualised as an erect and throbbing one. Its presented in a reddish shade of light, whereas the female form was given a whitish light.

The third part is about the union of Shiva and shakthi and here the music resembles sounds of the waves crushing against the shore.  The union was visualised beautifully like a glorious exploration of the sutras of Kama rasa. I haven’t seen the monuments of Khajuraho, but this performance  made me think that Chandralekha had ventured to create monumental and exquisite performance of that scale.

Sharira- ecstasy :

Sharira was sheer ecstasy to me as it unfolded layer by layer. It invoked ecstasy in its slowness, in its silence, in the music that still rings in my ears, in its movements that seemed to raise from the music, in it making you wonder  was it the other way around, in breaking and redefining aesthetics of movements, in breaking barriers of movements, in visualising ecstasy in movements, in creating the splendour of the ecstasy of union through a jugalbandi of music and performance, in gradually building up and hitting a beautiful climax. 

The Gundecha brothers with their range, modulation and duet of their music were a sheer pleasure to listen to. it was equally ecstatic to close your eyes and just listen to them perform.

Finally, it was the ecstasy for me in being able to relate to an artist and her art.  In her disdain for the convention and appetite for breaking norms and creating new standards, I think Sharira is a result of  Chandralekha’s  bid to disown the the drama in Mudras as symbols and gestures of the hand to convey meanings, and her attempt to create a new lingo of the Mudhras with the whole body, the Sharira. It is such an exciting journey trying to understand the artist, her aspirations and her art. 

The panaromic experience of this performance has kind of redefined ecstasy for me.