Bharatanatyam in North India

by Guest Wed Feb 06, 2013 8:00 pm

Any differences in the Bharatanatyam performed in north India as compared to in south India?

Bharatanatyam is Bharatanatyam wherever it is performed, but the only thing I would say was different is, in Benares, they loved watching Bharatanatyam. But the language….not everyone understands Telugu, Sanskrit or even Thamizh! Sometimes even with explanation, it is difficult to understand. I felt language has a very important role in communication. So, in Benares I started using Hindi and Bengali because we used to celebrate Tagore’s birth or death anniversary. We would do a full show of Tagore music in Bharatanatyam. When I came to Gujarat, I knew my predecessors and in Ahmedabad too, had started using Gujarati lyrics in Bharatanatyam. That was good for propagating that language has no barrier for dance. To dance to a Hindi bhajan, Gujarati bhajan, Gujarati lyrics was all there to get closer to the audience, but I also saw to it that they learnt regular margam. Like people asking Aruna Sairam to sing abhangs in her Carnatic music concerts, nowadays in Madras also, they dance to bhajans. Some don’t even understand what they are doing. I get telephone calls asking for meaning on the day of performance!

As a national lecturer in UGC, I had to go to different dance departments in different universities. I did Bharatanatyam for Tagore music and astounded everyone at Shanti Niketan. People would ask how Hindi or Gujarati speaking girls would understand Bharatanatyam. I would respond that even our convent going children don’t understand a simple song in Thamizh, or how many in Hyderabad understand Telugu songs. It all depends on how you teach them. Whether my students are Chinese or Japanese, Gujarati, Bengali or Marathi, I tell them not to take the translation of some scholar, but to translate into their own language and to emote with that vocabulary. Japanese students say they don’t show emotions outside, it’s all within them and they can’t emote. Because of my flair for languages, I was able to communicate by talking to them, making them express in their language, and then teaching them to emote. This was a learning process for me too.

Teaching in the North was in itself a learning process. I never felt it was difficult for me to teach non south Indian dance students in Baroda or Benares. In Thamizh, we have our special similes that are difficult to translate! I ask them if they have something similar in their language. I changed my way of teaching. Both Jaya and I talk a lot when we teach. It was necessary to talk and sing too. Many of my students did not want anyone else but me to sing, because they said my Hindi sounded like Hindi or Gujarati like Gujarati. It was a great experience for me as a teacher to cater to different types of people.

http://www.narthaki.com/info/intervw/intrv130.html