Yours Yamini!

ANJANA RAJAN

Against the backdrop of Chennai's December `season', veteran danseuse Yamini Krishnamurti muses over dance and the resilience that performing arts demand from artistes.

Photo: V.V. Krishnan

STILL A COLOSSUS Yamini Krishnamurti.

`I feel as if I am in paradise,' says Yamini Krishnamurti, soaking in the atmosphere of Chennai's December season. The veteran dancer is not the only one. The feeling is echoed by all the young and middle-aged dancers who are getting a chance to interact with her or perform before her, as she goes across the city, breathing in the "fragrance of dance," as she says.

Yamini Krishnamurti is still a colossus. Dancers still aspire to be `like' Yamini. Others name their daughters Yamini in the fond hope that their offspring too will achieve such heights of stardom. Yet there has not been another Yamini phenomenon all these years.

That she has many great contemporaries is beyond doubt. And was part of a generation that inspired hundreds to take up classical dance as a vocation.

So why is the number of dancers growing, while audiences shrink, an irony she pointed out in her keynote address at the Natya Kala Conference?

The fan following is not increasing because of a lack of outstanding performers, she feels.

"If mediocre people keep doing the same thing, it's like having food in a dhaba every day." Yamini puts it down to something lacking in the dancers, not the art.

"When I was performing continuously, there were lathi charges for my programmes. There were college students, young people, all kinds. That enthusiasm comes only due to an individual. It is not just the power of the dance form."

The factors behind success

Charisma apart, she puts her success down to several factors. "I had a number of advantages. I had my father, and my sister Jyothi, who used to do nattuvangam for three forms."

Most of her students have an alternate career that eats into their time. "I don't blame them," she muses. To immerse yourself in a dance career requires "so many strange combinations": Parental support, charisma. Besides, "you must be mad about it."

Add to that continuous travel. Mostly, she says, "Someone has to be behind you selflessly, nurturing, nurturing. Who will do that except parents? In my case it was my father. I must say, it is like burning yourself. You burn your youth, your energy. Is it worth it? That's what they ask these days."

Has it been worth it for her? "I don't know," she says simply. That thoughtful reply belies all the thrilling memories.

"The Rabindra Bhawans came up one after another, and I was the youngest dancer to inaugurate all of them. It was a great revival, of crafts too. There were music conferences where I used to meet a lot of great artistes. We went to small places like Jhansi. There were remote places, where we reached in a boat. I wonder if they are still there. Those were very nice programmes."

She shared the stage with musical legends like Begum Akhtar, Ustad Bismillah Khan and others in deepest North India. "I introduced Bharatanatyam to them. They liked Kathak, and they didn't understand in the beginning. It was a challenge to penetrate into those areas."

In the nightlong programmes, her turn would come at two or three in the morning. "It was very cold, performing in December. But it used to give me a heady feeling."

Guru's role

Gurus too make a performer, and in Yamini's opinion, a guru's greater contribution than even teaching is to make the student enthusiastic. "A creative artiste needs more imagination and a sense of well-being."

She searches for a certain spirit in an artiste. "People should feel, what is this? You see so many surprises in a child growing up. You need so much of that in life. It peps up life. You see it in plants."

While technical prowess is necessary in dance, she is against "slogging". She describes with satisfaction someone's description of her as having "all the ingredients of dance and also all the defects required."

After all, she asks, "What do you mean by perfection? Nobody's perfect. It's just an illusion."

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