Anagha Sainath Week #14: Dancing Through Time
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| This is a photo of me performing onstage from a couple years ago! |
Time travel is real. Not in the way science fiction imagines it, though. In my version of time travel, there are no sleek machines, no wormholes, no plot-twisting paradoxes. In my version, my time machine is a stage, with liftoff occurring at the precise moment when the opening notes of the melodic music ring high and true through the temple—just before my feet begin their thunderous and hypnotically rhythmic entry onto the stage.
Bharatnatyam, a classical Indian dance, has been my time machine for nearly a decade. Every time I dance, I step into character, into a richly illustrated story that predates me by centuries, millenia even. The mythology that I embody—whether that be Krishna’s mischievousness as he steals a pot of butter or Goddess Devi’s piercing and fierce power as she accepts Shiva’s hand in marriage—belongs to a world long past. The very same anguish, joy, and devotion that was once lodged deep into the hearts of temple dancers of days long past now lives on in me, passed down not through words on a page but through movement.
Past Hindu mythology, this dance form connects me to my own history. I do my aramandis (a half-sitting posture) as low as possible because of the time my teacher had me hold the position for thirty minutes at nine years old. When I teach my own class of beginner students, I keep the talam (beat) just as the akkas (older sisters/mentors) kept for me in my beginner classes. The scent of jasmine and temple incense brings me back to trembling knees and shaky performances under harsh stage lights, where I relied on pent-up nervous energy and sheer muscle memory to carry me through the item.
Sometimes, the memory fades. The choreography embedded deep into my bones somehow slips away from me, my pace falters, my aramandi weakens. But, the body remembers what the mind forgets. A single note of music, a small prompting from my teacher, and suddenly, I am back—back in a story, back in my childhood, back in time.
To me, Bharatnatyam is more than just a dance or a check-the-box extracurricular. To me, Bharatnatyam preserves the past in a way far more profound than textbooks or artifacts. As long as I dance, I will always have my own personal time machine.
Hey Anagha! I love the descriptive language you used in your blog; I could almost feel the tremors in my own legs from when I used to practice Bharatanatyam and my teacher told me to go lower in my aramandi. Although I have stopped dancing now because I have no time to commit to going to another class, through your blog, I vicariously experienced the feeling of dancing and performing on stage. Similar to how you connect to Hinduism through Bharatanatyam, I connect to it through singing bhajans and Stotras. I can feel the ferocity of Durga Maa whenever I sing the Mahishasura Mardini Stotram and the passion of Lord Shiva whenever I sing the Shiv Tandav Stotram. Through singing these Stotrams that have different rhythms and tunes, I can connect to the stories and learn more about each of the gods and goddesses, learning the lessons they wanted to teach us. I am also very impressed by the fact that you teach younger students how to dance too. I was never able to reach that stage in my dancing career but that had been one of my dreams for the longest time. Overall, I could connect very deeply with your blog and I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Anagha! I like your creative take on this prompt. Channeling cultural memories is certainly a new read on this blog. Reading your blog showed me that dance is actually used to convey stories, which I think is really cool. Even though I knew dance was an art form, I never really thought that it could represent an important part of a vibrant culture. I think it’s amazing that you’re playing a role in keeping a multi - millennium long cultural practice alive through your art. Many things change over time and are lost to it, so it’s remarkable that Bharatnatym has stayed true to its original message for so long. I used to dance when I was younger, but I was bad at it, and I never realized the significance of what I was doing. Reading this makes me wish that I had joined dance earlier to be more serious about it, and had some natural talent for it.
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