Inspired by Khajuraho

``DANCE FOR me is movement that connect moments of stillness,'' says Bharatanatyam dancer Malavika Sarukkai. Just back from France, Malavika says ``Khajuraho - Temples of the sacred and the secular'' her latest production, is a dancer's reaction to the architecture and the space of temples. It is not a scholarly work but an emotional one.

Malavika Sarukkai will be performing ``Khajuraho'' for the first time in Chennai though she has performed it in many places after it was premiered in Khajuraho. ``When I was asked to choreograph a piece on Khajuraho for its millennium celebrations, I remembered an article by Kamlesh Trivedi about the temple being the centre of the cosmos, that I had read long ago. So I embarked on an abstract piece about the stillness and the movement as space expands from the ``garbhagriha''.

As I did not want to choreograph dance to descriptive poetry, I spoke to S. V. Seshadri who is a poet and his wife Meera Seshadri who is a musician and with enormous inputs from my mother Kamakshi, I set out to work on it.

I began to think of Shilakatha (stories of the stones). I wondered if sensuality that Khajuraho is so famous for, could be explored through abstraction and pure dance movements. I wanted to show love, beauty, rhythm, ecstasy and purity through dance.''

Though the Khajuraho temples are known for erotic sculptures of the Sambhoga Shringara of the mithunas, there are also many sculptures that depict war. Malavika says she studied them. She looked at sorrow as an essential part of life and wanted to spin her story around these sculptures. She created a piece - based on estrangement a king on his way to war, taking leave of his mother and his wife. The piece explores the dichotomy of duty and love. The two women look on as the king leaves as there is so much uncertainty about his return... ``I choreographed this to show that we are all not one-dimensional, there are many roles each one plays in life. Death and its presence in life is something that Bharatanatyam has not celebrated. I wanted to look at that too.'' Malavika requested dancer C. V. Chandrashekhar to compose music to suggest the concept. He composed a tillana/tarana combination. ``I wanted to portray the journey of entering the physical and the emotional space of the temple. So the raga is elaborated and ends with arohana and avaroha''.

Malavika says she wanted to depict bhakthi through movement and spirituality of space. ``Laya in movement has always been sacred to me,'' she says. ``The sheer harmony of line, rhythm and space provides new opportunities to explore new areas within the traditional structure.''

``Khajuraho - Temples of the Sacred and the Secular'' is a turning point in my dance journey,'' says Malavika Sarukkai. ``I am finding new movement vocabulary within the grammar of Bharatanatyam. My vocabulary seems to be changing now. The traditional repertoire still has great relevance to me and I can always go back to it. The only way to continue a tradition I feel is to internalise it and present it with a kind of immediacy. Dance has to stand on essence and emotion, not on clever lighting techniques and effects. So this production is presented with bare essentials in musical ensemble, stage decor and lighting.''

``This production is not an intellectual statement but a journey of emotions. It is this emotion more than technique that moves audiences, whether in Lyon or in Mumbai. I am very happy to present it in Chennai, happy to present if for Kalamandir in memory of S. Viswanathan who had such feeling for dance.''Malavika's show is being presented today at Narada Gana Sabha at 6.30 p.m.

V. R. DEVIKA

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