Dancing Mirrors Spirituality – Part 2

Here are a few thoughts by acclaimed great gurus and performers on the context of Bharathanatyam being a wonderful portrayal of emotions through the medium of the body gestures. Bharathanatyam has always been malleable. It has constantly reinvented itself and learned continuously to speak a language that is relevant to the audience in attendance. Classical dance like everything else is modern. Included here are a few impressions explaining how and why the gestures and expressions rendered through Bharathanatyam is a fine tool in the art of communicating with the audience to evoke rasanubhava.

Guru Balasaraswati

Bharatanatyam is primarily a woman’s art. By the very fact of the lover being god, the union longed for is not of the physical but of the spiritual plane. It is the yearning of the individual soul for merger with the cosmic soul that is figuratively expressed in the erotic idiom. Yet the spiritual quality of Bharatanatyam is not achieved through the elimination of the sensual but through the seemingly sensual performance itself, thereby sublimating it [1].
-T.Balasaraswati, in Bala on Bharatanatyam.

In a sense, Bharathanatyam is a combination of Yoga and Mantra Shastras. The mudras of the Mantra Shastra are the same as the hand gestures of Bharathanatyam. When dancing to the beat of the Rhythm the dancer’s body is rid of its human weaknesses and is purified into a conduit of the spiritual and the beautiful. It is this beauty that is translated to the rasika as the aesthetic and the subjective feeling evoked thereafter which leaves an impression on the consciousness.

The lyrics of a substantial portion of traditional items seek to convey sringara bhakti- devotion through expression of love between man/woman and god; or only sringara– romance between man and woman, though even this last-mentioned relationship has been perceived by many as the yearning of the jeevatma (human soul) for the paramatma (universal soul), obscuring very real romantic liaison between the nayika and nayaka, as in Jayadeva’s GeetaGovindam and Kshetrayya’s padas. Sringara means love, but this is not confined to rati (the name of the sthayibhava of Love) sringara. There is bhakti sringara and vatsalya sringara besides rati sringara. The following depiction of a padam in one of her master classes and workshops, especially at the prestigious Wesleyan University, that drew great attention from many an American dance enthusiast, some of whom became life-long devotees of Bala [2]. The following verse is of Silappadikaram [3], where the Bhakti is beautifully portrayed in such a sringara which becomes the love of god.

Oh, the look on her face!
Her garment and bangles slipped away
With her hands, she covered herself.
Seeing her,
Who hid herself with her hands,
His shame and pity became wild passion.
Oh, the look on His face!

Balasarswati says-“ I emphasize that it is the understanding of the dancer that comes out in the portrayal of the sringara rasa. This showed can be full of Kama, or it will be engraved as the Bhakti bava between the longing of an earthly individual soul for the moksha or unison with her lord on a spiritual plane. By the very fact of the lover being god, the union longed for is not of the physical but of the spiritual plane. Sringara stands supreme in the range of emotions. [It] is the cardinal emotion which gives the fullest scope for artistic improvisation, branching off continuously, as it does, into the portrayal of innumerable moods full of newness and nuances. The sringara we experience in Bharatanatyam is never carnal, never ever. For those who have yielded themselves to its discipline with total dedication, dance, like music, is the practice of the Presence; it cannot be merely the body’s rapture.”

The art of Balasaraswati was one of pristine quality that was based on a strong bhakti-oriented approach. Bala, a strict adherent to sampradaya, was uncompromising in her artistic exposition. Her handling of the sentiment of Sringara, was unique in its own way, coated with dignity. Her strong belief in traditional aspects of the art gave her a unique status in the ‘world of dance.’ “She used the traditional approach of the use of mudras and gestures and portrayed even a delicate instance with such ease that world leave the audience in awe of gaining that spiritual plateau with the paramatma. Nothing needed to be said when the use of gestures and glances by Balaamma spoke with the audience.”[4]