DANCING THROUGH INDIA OR DANCING TO INDIA?

Panelists

Aishwarya Subramanian

Multidisciplinary Artist/Dancer

Shaalini Desai

Kathak Dancer from Lasya Academy

Aishwarya is a student and the daughter of Shobha Subramanian from the Jaymangala school of music and dance. Aishwarya has been learning Bharatanatyam for 20 plus years. Aishwarya is also a multidisciplinary artist who writes in addition to dancing.

Shaalini is the disciple of Miss Purvi Bhatt from the Lasya Academy. Shaalini has been learning from Purvi Bhatt since she around 6 years old but began learning Kathak at 4, around seventeen years ago. She calls Purvi Auntie her second mom.

Anila Kumari

Kuchipudi Dancer-Research Scholar

Watch the full panel discussion:

Mishka Mukherji

Odissi Dancer/Instructor, Mayur

Mishka is Sukanya Mukerji’s daughter, whose group performed the Odissi Pallavi. Mishka has trained in Odissi dance since as far she can remember, 30 years or so. As she has gotten older Mishka has embraced Odissi dance more and more.

Shruthi Mukund, Moderator

Director of Community Engagement, Olney Theater

Shruthi is an arts administrator and is a professionally trained Bharatanatyam dancer. Shruthi is a first generation immigrant who moved to the United States at age 21.

Discussion Topics (click to navigate to each section)

Introductions

Shruthi (Moderator): Good afternoon, everybody, I think it's befitting to talk about this journey after watching all of them dance. I think I can say at least say for the most part other than Radha di, that all the dancers today who performed today are second generation dancers, maybe even third. So, they all have, for the most part, immigrant parents and they have learnt this dance form that is also their connection to the culture, the world their parents inhabited before they moved to the U.S. So, the interesting thing we have here among our panelists is—other than for Shaalini—Aishwarya, Anila and Mishka are all dancers, and their teachers are their moms...And also, we do have an arc of ages in our panel. So that will also give you a spectrum of experiences of immigration as well as growing up in different decades here in the US. And also how their connection to India is, while India itself is evolving. That's something I think we forget as immigrants: when we leave our country, the idea of our country is what we left behind. But everything is changing all the time, and it is always easy to hold onto this romanticized view of what India was. Through the eyes of each generation, we see different sides of India. That’s why today we are discussing whether we are dancing to India or we are dancing through India. Each of the styles you have watched today come from different regions of India.

"Through the eyes of each generation, we see different sides of India"

The following discussion has been edited for clarity and length.

Shruthi (Moderator): Before we go into the question part, can each of you say a little bit about yourselves, your dance, your connection to India?

Mishka: Hi everyone. I’m Mishka. I am Sukanya Mukerji’s daughter, whose group performed the Pallavi, the Odissi Pallavi. I have also trained in Odissi dance pretty much since as far as I remember, about 30 years or so. It’s always been a big part of my life, and as I have gotten older, it's been my choice to embrace it more and more.

Shruthi (Moderator): Actually before you introduce yourself Anila, I know that Shobha just mentioned that I am Shruthi Mukund. I didn’t introduce myself. I forget that sometimes. I actually work for Olney Theatre and I am an arts administrator and am a professionally trained Bharatanatyam dancer. I am a first generation. I moved here when I was 21.

Mishka: I was born here.

Anila: Hello, my name is Anila Kumari, and I am too, the daughter of a classical Kuchipudi dancer, Nilimma Devi. It took some foot dragging through college for me to realize that like her, my purpose lay in the field of art. That has brought me on a life journey that has proven to be well worth the effort, very satisfying. Difficult at times, but very fulfilling.

Shaalini: Hi, my name is Shaalini Desai. I’m the disciple of Miss Purvi Bhatt from the Lasya Academy. I’ve been learning from her since I was around 6 years old, but I started learning Kathak at 4. So it's been around 17/18 years. I’m interested in seeing what everyone has to say as daughters of dance teachers. I call Purvi Auntie my second mum, so I guess I have that relationship with her as well.

Aishwarya: Hi everyone. My name is Aishwarya. I am a student and the daughter of Shobha Subramanian from the Jayamangala school of music and dance. I’ve also been learning Bharatanatyam for many years, probably 20 plus years at this point. I am also a multidisciplinary artist. I write. I do a lot of other things in addition to dancing as well.

Shruthi (Moderator): So for all of the students and daughters, it’s like you are straddling two cultures; but also, you are creating your own culture while you are interacting with these two spaces: in dance class, outside dance class. For the most part, I think dance class becomes this cultural safe space where you develop your Indian identity, where you can wholly be Indian, where you are not holding back, you are not worried…[about being] Indian. So, am I right to assume you are also teaching now? I know Aishwarya and Mishka and Anila are but are you teaching too, Shaalini?

"I think dance class becomes this cultural safe space where you develop your Indian identity, where you can wholly be Indian, where you are not holding back..."

Shaalini: I’m helping out… I’m taking a gap year right now. I’m applying to dental school. That’s my goal in the future. But I also want to continue dancing, contributing. I’ve been assisting Purvi Auntie occasionally in her classes when I get the chance to.

How is teaching Indian dance different from learning it for you?

Anila: When I started to teach, I was simultaneously a performer. We came to Maryland and immediately the twin roads of being on stage and teaching alongside my mother opened up. I found that the same strategies that existed back in New Delhi for me, and in Andhra Pradesh, that they were not holding up when I was trying to communicate with, not only Indian second-generation students, but we have a very diverse student body. We were getting Ethiopian children, Caucasian children. We were getting African American and biracial children. They were all keen to understand the deeper sort of storylines that were underneath the songs they were learning and the mudras they were chanting. So without really discussing it with my dear mother, I just sort of forged ahead in some areas, in particular with stories.

During our Ramayana summer program, we teach the children basic adavus. But we get them ready to stage their full mini Ramayana, not a small undertaking. So I would sit down with these very little ones, and some of the teenagers, and we would talk about Sita, Rama, the journey through the jungle, and the battle of good vs. evil. I had to field all of these questions, why did Sita not fight back when she was entrapped by Rama? Was she that stupid? The questions children will come up with are not finessed. They are very honest.

So...I had to make sense of it in a way different than my mother had. It sparked a kind of new awakening. From that couple of years of the Ramayana program, I started to develop a creative writing program for young girls in our classes who were struggling with body issues. This was again across the board. It wasn’t just Indian girls. It was all of the students. They inhabited a kind of very low self-worth that was not from the mainland of the subcontinent. It was filtering through this larger American ethos that had to do with bodily images that just have no positive effect: white women, very slender bodies, etc. etc. You cannot tell children point blank that body dysmorphia is bad for you. You have to approach it in such a way, in a language that is creative and touches the heart. So, I looked at the stories of Sita, particularly the Valmiki shlokas of Sita, and started to communicate with them that way. And they took it in. They drank it in and started to write poems, putting themselves into Sita’s position as a glorified daughter of Mother Earth.

So, I would say that...being a performer, I could just bask in the limelight.... But when you are a teacher, there is an obligation that is so high, it forces you to give your very best, selflessly, to another.... Being a teacher in the diaspora community has really pushed me to look from many angles. It’s not merely an Indian child wanting to grab a little piece of the donut of identity. It’s all these children who are craving some essence deeper than what we call quote unquote cultural identity....It has been incredibly challenging and a happy time for me.

"But when you are a teacher, there is an obligation that is so high, it forces you to give your very best, selflessly, to another...Being a teacher in the diaspora community has really pushed me to look from many angles."

"I had to make sense of it in a way different than my mother had. It sparked a kind of new awakening....You have to approach it in such a way, in a language that is creative and touches the heart."

Mishka: I want to echo what you are saying also. The experience of teaching is the real revelation with dance...When you are learning….with just myself in mind...you take a lot of things for granted. It’s when you impart that, when you have to share it, you really have to interrogate what is it that I know. Why do I find this important? You have to articulate these things, or you can’t convey them.

The regular practice of doing that...has forced me to articulate to myself why I do what I do. Why do I like it? Why is it important? Why should other people care? And another thing I will add is...we have certain training practices, basic foundational exercises we do. And we learn it, and you do it. But now there is a lot more research into how to preserve your dancing body and how to be able to dance....incorporating research that comes out and staying abreast of it. Not just passing down, adding to it, developing…bringing in knowledge from other places as well and incorporating that into our practice.

"Not just passing down, adding to it, developing...bringing in knowledge from other places as well and incorporating that into our practice."

Shruthi (Moderator): I think that goes to the evolution...I think traditionally we all danced on cement floors, which obviously wasn't too great for our knees. Unlearning that and finding ways to aid our students to avoid injuries, that's key.

Aishwarya: One thing I want to bring into the conversation as well is... aside from my artist identity, I am also a therapist. I am very much attuned to my students’ mental health: how they are showing up to class emotionally, if they are in a good mood, a weird mood. I am aware of that, so when I am teaching an Indian classical dance... I try to get them to connect to their own emotionality in the process, because when we are performing, we are just kind of told to portray that emotion and it’s not really….there’s a disconnect between what our faces showing that and what we are feeling internally. I try to bridge that gap, find ways to make these stories relatable...so that they are not only performing the emotion, but they are kind of feeling what the core of it, so it doesn’t feel fake, and it feels a little bit more authentic when they are presenting it on stage.

"As second-generation Americans, children of immigrants...we have gone through that challenge of trying to internalizing those those kind of emotions that maybe we don't experience day to day, but that exist in these mythological stories...we can help younger generations connect with the story in a different way."

Shaalini: So yeah I just wanted to add onto to that quickly….one of the pieces that I’ve taught to some of the students at Lasya Academy was Draupadi Vastraharan from the Mahabharata and that’s a very difficult piece to kind of internalize as a dancer because it's not something people just experience. And so that story…luckily my parents, when I was young, they used to tell me all these Mahabharata Ramayana stories. I watched the entire Mahabharata on TV.... so I had that knowledge. I knew that story pretty well. So in some sense I was able to portray it without Purvi Auntie having to tell me too much. But a lot of the students are not very knowledgeable about the Mahabharata itself. An advantage we have as second-generation American, children of immigrants, is that we have gone through that challenge of trying to internalizing those kind of emotions that maybe we don’t experience day to day but that exist in these mythological stories. I feel like our advantage is that, since we have gone through that challenge, we know how to overcome it, and we can help younger generations connect with the story in a different way. For example, the piece that I did today, if I were to teach students, sometimes I would be like, “Ok, if there is a little kid bothering you, if he is pulling your hair, how would you react?” So kind of relating it to things they would experience day to day.

Anila: When I was teaching alongside my mother some of our Rang Pravesh graduating seniors, and the issue of Anupava becomes kind of important to handle the Draupadi piece, the Sita piece, and Satyabhama Kalapam. The surprise to me was when one of our students….when Satyabhama is depicted in the repertoire piece that we have. Siddhendra Yogi portrays her in a certain way, and the mudras show generally a balance between coquetry, shyness, boldness, seductiveness and general misery because Krishna has left her.

So one of the students...sat down after one class and she said “I don’t want to constantly show this woman as…at the point of desperation. Is there anything, is there any way to show that she’s a strong and contented queen, and a woman who has dignity?” I said, “Listen, you are asking a very good question for a very good reason.” So she went, unbeknownst to me, and started Googling Satyabhama and she found one particular version of a myth in which this queen, not only is side-by-side with Krishna but walks into battle when he faints. She picks up his sword, and beheads the demon, Narakasura.

I had never heard this. It was news to me. But here was this American-born, second/third-generation girl who had discovered something for me to take in. And we sat and discussed it at length. And that was shared with our other students. And then she changed her abhinya. So, I didn’t change the technique. The dance nritta continued because that has been handed down. It’s precious in its own way. But the way she expressed the emotion changed from being constant coquetry to taking a moment in stillness and proclaiming inner dignity.

She ended up writing a long paper that took her into college admissions, explaining how the experience changed her. She was not merely reclaiming a piece of culture for her identity to wave to an American broader dominant culture. She had discovered the inner...awareness of the soul.... So that to me was heaven, absolute heaven as a teacher.

"She was not merely reclaiming a piece of culture for her identity to wave to an American broader dominant culture. She had discovered the inner...awareness of the soul..."

Did all four of you always want to dance and perform? When did it come to you?

Shaalini: My parents thought…they always thought I would be a dancer in some way or that I would enjoy dancing...so they were like what’s a way we can have Shaalini channel her...love for dance? And they thought Indian classical dance would be a good way of doing that.

Mishka: I would say that I did not think that I would dance forever... But truly I don’t think I, and if I’m being honest, my mother thought, I would continue dance, or had it in me to want to. I’m not a child who would dance on her own for fun...but... I’ve come to really like it... This is something I’ve kind of come into. I am trained in Odissi, and again...I am not an instinctive dancer...but more recently... I’ve found my way to….all kinds of dance through this dance. My short answer is no...but now I do really come to embrace it.

Anila: So I had no choice to begin with... I would have my class. And when I got into college, it still hadn’t hit me, even though I was blessed with a slew of very good positive reviews – very, very wonderful articles in the - Deccan Herald back in Delhi, maybe the Hindu….2 newspapers and then here…Alan Kriegsman, who’s a wonderful dance critic at the Washington Post...bhagwan ne khub diya...I was just blessed. I took it for granted. It had nothing to do with the genuine stirring at the deepest part of my soul for this art. And at a very low ebb financially…every single challenge you can put at the doorstep of a human being was there. That’s when my love for dance grew.

"...every single challenge you can put at the doorstep of a human being was there. That's when my love for dance grew."

How do you provide children with the foundation needed in this art form to explore further?

Shruthi (Moderator): Yeah, I think at the end of the day, dance is not the performance, right? It’s the art…the thing that’s in us, that’s nobody else’s to take away. So, knowing how precious this dance form is, how ancient it is, and how many generations have been the keepers of it… we are in a technological world, everything is 20 seconds/30 seconds. We are down to 3 seconds of attention span now. So how, as instructors, as preservers of...this art form, how do you keep these children from not wanting to go to a quick Bolly….a quick hop? Not that, I mean, I love the creativity that’s coming out, don’t get me wrong…but how do we first give them the foundation to go explore themselves?

Anila: This is right at the top of my list. Children...come into this class and you have the task of ferrying them across this river of culture. It’s a translation effort. But they are thinking about the latest Bollywood number, or more difficult, these fusion numbers that are quote unquote partially classical, partially filmi….and meeting neither criteria. So the way I deal with it is simply to say, “let’s talk.” And even that becomes difficult because class time is only so long. But I’ve noticed that I pay a price if I don’t have these conversations. And some of my more talented and dedicated students, by the time they hit 15 or 16, they don’t have a clear idea of why retaining the tradition is so important: that mixing and not realizing what you are mixing, it’s the equivalent of a painter going into the studio and slopping together all their paint colors and putting it on the canvas and hoping that something good comes up. The dance form that has come through from 4th century BC, Natya Shastra’s definition of art is so codified for a reason. It’s very, very particular.

They understand one thing: they want freedom. Freedom is our myth. It’s an American myth that wraps us all up. But it’s also an Indian cultural key. The freedom that they seek is right there in the tradition, but they have to look for it. And I give them free range. And I say, “If you really want to say that, write your own poem. You were fed up of the lockdown and the pandemic, write it down. You have 5 minutes, write it down. Now sit, make mudras, create your abhinya for your poem. Now you have something that is equivalent in spirit to the tradition.” These children...are not going to parrot the tradition blindly. They have to be given the intelligence to decode and to work with the tradition, intelligently and freely, within a certain parameter.

"The freedom they seek is right there in the tradition, but they have to look for it...They have to be given the intelligence to decode and to work with the tradition, intelligently and freely, within a certain parameter.

Shaalini: I just want to add something that my guru has always emphasized: watching other performers and seeing how they express themselves. When you see dancers that...do it for a living, that perform around the world... and you see that heart and soul they are putting into the art form...it mesmerizes you and...it makes me want to continue and...get to that level. At Lasya Academy we also take exams to earn our diploma in Kathak through a university in Pune, Maharashtra. The exam part is not fun, but I think learning the meaning behind each mudra…when it’s used, and different types of Nayikas, different facial expressions, the history behind Kathak, the history behind theater and arts, the history behind stage design, everything that we learn...plays a key role in how we view dance in general.

Mishka: Actually, I find I’m always pleasantly surprised and amazed the attention that kids do have and the interest they do have...whether it’s like story time or…or learning something difficult. I think trying difficult is fun [for them]. It depends on the personality of the kid, but I think so many people…so many kids I’ve seen…they are not looking at their phones, because they are really trying to learn this thing. Maybe I’ve just been very, very lucky that our students are just so like interested. They want to be there. And I have... no trouble managing the inclination towards Bollywood in the classes that I have had, because I feel like it’s ok to like that, to pursue that. If that’s something that you really want to do, I would encourage them to do it. This class is not the place for it. I can’t teach you anything about that. I don’t know anything about that, but... I’m not saying no to that.

"I'm always pleasantly surprised and amazed the attention that kids do have and the interest they do have."

How have you addressed global issues from BLM protests to COVID-19 in your classrooms?

Anila: Our teenagers were talking about this nonstop. They were extremely upset and they were marching, joining in the DC marches. And lockdown had its own baggage that they were not able to shake off. So I joined hands with Korean-American visual artist. She is very brilliant, very empathetic... a genius with children in getting them to emote, to let out their emotions with watercolor. I ended up sitting there like a child and finding my peace through watercolor. Later, that experience under that magnolia tree with her, such grace, it ended up taking shape in a dance choreography. There are always new ideas and there are options, and we can surrender to a greater sense of fearlessness that will dissolve the hatred that is cropping up again and again between races in our diaspora also within castes, within color, and now with creed, the fomented hatred for Muslims. How can we drop that, dissolve that, to a greater peace? So, it’s a big question, but I feel dance is up to the challenge.

Shaalini: My guru Purvi Auntie, she gave this challenge to some of her older and senior students...what did the pandemic mean to you, what does it mean to you, and each student had to come up with their own meaning for that and come up with their own story that they could express through a Jhaptaal and in Kathak. Jhaptaal is basically any expressional piece we do on taal so the only support we have is rhythm, and no lyrics, nothing like that, so everything is through abhinya. So each student had to come up with their own story, something personal to them related to the pandemic. I can tell you for sure that every student did something different, and I thought that was pretty powerful in itself.

"...we had the privilege of being able to use the art form to connect with folks who may not understand what's going on politically, but maybe there's more of a connection because of the art form."

Ashiwarya: I am a part of a dance company in California called Nava Dance Theatre. We do a lot of social justice work through Bharatanatyam. So, really keeping with the traditional form, we like to explore a lot of different themes and things that are happening in our world that people are dealing with on a regular basis. And so...when we all were getting together and talking about the impact it [Black Lives Matter] was having on us, and especially thinking about anti-blackness in the South Asian community, which really is a huge issue, we decided to use the South Asian Letters for Black Lives as a sort of template and created choreography…mostly improvisation based on our experiences and what we really wanted to tell folks within our community, given that we had the privilege of being able to use the art form to connect with folks who may not understand what’s going on politically, but maybe there’s more of a connection because of the art form.

How do you understand and re-envision women and women’s roles within South Asian classical art forms?

Audience Member: Thank you so much for all of the knowledge that you have given us today. I was wondering, within the idea of gender roles and gender expression, what ideas are there of re-envisioning and having a different understanding of women and women’s roles within South Asian classical art forms.

Anila: I think the way Americans...non-Indian dancers look at gender is very rigid. But I think gender is one of the most spiritual, creative, fluid ways we can express ourselves.

Shruthi (Moderator): I think this clear definition of gendering is a far more modern concept, of saying crying is feminine, this thing is masculine, etc. At some point, I think, the non-binary is something I like because it just lets you be who you are and then express and see where you land... And I think that is the approach I like to take in dance because, for the most part, on stage, men perform most of the dance styles and women came into the forte of performance much later on, so there are so many things that translated through masculinity into femininity over hundreds of years. And now there are more women performing and there are less men performing. So now there is a shift in that culture. So everything is a work in progress and an evolution of how we are and how we label things

Ashiwarya: I think when we’re thinking about Indian classical dance styles specifically, the way that gender shows up a lot of the time is through the stories, right? A lot of characters are maybe designated as played in a more masculine, dominant way, versus played in a more graceful, I don’t want to use the word submissive, but that has been thrown in the context, so just to give the context, I will say that. When we take a step back, yes, gender is a lens through which we can look at it. And each of the lenses we have as a performer, but also as audience members, will change the way that you are perceiving whatever you are seeing, whether it’s a story, excerpt of a story, or whether it’s just one character.

In terms of how I teach a lot of the storytelling...I focus on the character. Let’s talk about this person as a person—male, female, non-binary—all of that aside, right? Look at their characteristics. How are they behaving in this particular situation?

"Everything is a work in progress and an evolution of how we are and how we label things.

Any parting thoughts?

Mishka: Embracing dance as second-generation daughter of a dance teacher has been to be involved in the community and to see what others are doing, to respond to things, and to participate. That’s what makes it feel like it’s happening now. It’s not something from the past. It’s something that we’re engaging with, that we’re still making. We’re not just keeping alive. We’re in the process, learning every day, seeing people come up with new things within the parameters of what we’ve learned, all the time…Just the exchange and constant engagement with the ideas and each other is really important. So, thank you for creating this opportunity for us to do that and talk about it.