Technique, Form and Fun

Dance has rightly been considered as one of the few, extremely hard professions to take up. Besides the many years of training that go into the making of a graceful dancer, the difficulty arises in hitting the delicate balance of strong technique, developing the perfect form and keeping the element of fun and freedom alive, once the body is on stage.
I have recently been very disappointed with the way dance is being projected on the Indian television scenes. Inspired by the famous "Dancing with the stars" and "So you think you can dance!", the Indian channels seem to be over flowing with their own versions based on similar ideas. Kids and adults all seem positively enthusiastic about performing in front of ace Bollywood choreographers and famous Bollywood celebrities.The excitement and energy of both, the participants and of the show are undoubtedly remarkable.
The concept hits the bull's eye in terms of the TRP's and on the creative front its amusing and entertaining. The painful part arises when the participants are asked to perform on genres which are completely different from the genre of Bollywood dance. The judges seem to be throwing a challenge which is not well-studied and researched into according to the prior training of the dancers. Both kids and adults on these shows seem to be either lacking enough technique training (as far as the western forms are concerned) or come without any training at all but some are surely gifted with so much potential that you just cannot take your eyes off them.

As a professional dancer with years of training and hard lessons learned from my teachers to understand the form before one goes about twisting them around, besides the sudden spurts of resentment that i feel when i see people applauding such performances, i more often find myself overcome with the feelings of pity for these highly talented dancers (especially young dancers) who are not aware of the right channels to improve their skills and seem to be throwing their limbs to entertain and for whom the biggest agenda is to qualify into the next round, without any awareness of technique and injury prevention.
Contemporary, Hip hop, Ballroom, Jazz, Classical Ballet and any form of Latin American dances take years of training before one can go out to perform them or at least a couple of years of general studio training.Dancers all over the world put in consistent hours in studio space to even get the basic form, posture, rhythm and meaning of any of these forms. The muscles and physical body requires a certain amount of time to acquire the form that is aimed for.
In simple words, it goes much beyond than just taking a Bollywood number to perform any of the above mentioned forms and sticking "you-tube inspired" steps and presenting the perfect recipe of a so-called original choreography.All young dance enthusiasts who are reading this need to understand dance not as something which is about steps but an art form which is well- studied and has layers of deep understanding (both physical and psychological)engraved into it.
Its good to have fun with the forms only when one has studied and experienced the seriousness of the form. The judges, like the participants seem to have only limited knowledge acquired out of their own field work but highly inspired from what they see on international TV shows. Most of the dancers performing on the international shows have spent years in training solidly in classical forms with the exception of a few who perform street and hip-hop but are well acquainted and exposed to trained dancers around them. The people judging these shows themselves have had years of experience, training and have choreographed some exceptional pieces of work with a very clear understanding of the body, space and the nuances of the form they approach.

The only show which holds any credibility on the Indian television is the oldest of the lot "Boggie Woggie" which has on its panel people who were great dancers and trend-setters in their time and even today any comment that they pass on to the participants, sounds well-thought and intelligent. The show truly seems an effort to showcase talent and escapes the "emotional drama" which engulfs all the other shows of dance.

The real life of a dancer is not about the moments he spends in the spot light but the many moments that he spends unnoticed, unknown in the shadows - training rigorously aiming to achieve something that his audience will never even notice but thats what completes him greatly.

pages from the "dance diary"

To a dancer each day is a new day. Driven by the creative frenzy to achieve perfection and tuning the body to its best possible levels, the journey of a dancer is a story of many highs and lows, failed efforts, triumphant performances where pain and joy intertwine inseparably. The journey unfolds into revelations every moment. The dancer seems to be acquiring his inspiration to carry forward from these many moments which are unavailable to someone who is not a part of the creative process. For him the inspiration and achievement reside together-inside, outside, sensory, invisible and visible all at the same time.

The tears, the bruises, the freedom, the pain and the glory all fill the pages of a dancer’s diary, and there is always something new to be added to these many experiences. In the many years of training,moving across the dance floor transformed from mere movements of the limbs to something moving within me. The transformation seems to happen most subtly when the dance slowly becomes inseparable from the dancer encompassing the many emotions and thoughts of his entire being. Then the dancer is no longer aiming to achieve anything yet he is ever-aspiring. His journey, never complete yet now whole and complete since he is equipped with all that he requires- His inner consciousness, his inner senses breathing fully now and his outer senses full in expressivity. Now he is ready to not only to create, but he consistently re-creates.

Seeking change...

Being a keen reader, people’s life stories and experiences have always fascinated me especially that of artists – painters, sculptors, musicians and more so dancers and choreographers. I recently finished reading McCann’s “Dancer” based upon the famous Rudolph Nureyev which beautifully maps the life of the fiery ballet dancer. Starting at a point of socio-political conflicts, it beautifully portrays the journey of Rudi from an untrained, folk dancer entertaining the soldiers at the hospital to becoming one of the worlds’s accomplished soloists. McCann’s absolutely brilliant style of merging the real with fiction giving a chance to peep into the lives of other incredible figures from the world of dance like Margaret Fonteyn and a look into the monumental Kirov theatre with the constantly shifting narrators does definitely make the book a must read. But to my personal interest are some of the issues that the book raises through Rudi’s life as a dancer and which stand alive almost seventeen years after his death and breathed alive from the time of his struggle to follow his passion.
‘...Rudik’s genius was in allowing his body to say things that he couldn’t otherwise express... more intuition in him than intellect, more spirit than knowledge...’ Nureyev found his own ways to overcome anything that stood in his way as a dancer. His passion seems almost maddening and obsessive at most times, filled with “a dangerous energy” at all times. Coming from a place where dance is still not accepted as a mainstream profession, I immediately connected to what was once told to Nureyev (by his own father) who later went on to change the identity and perception of a male ballet dancer on stage- “there is nothing wrong with dance... but it’s what you do in the world that makes you...you are made for more than dance...you will be a great doctor, an engineer.”
Once I finished reading the book, I dread to imagine what if Rudolph Nureyev would have listened to the callings of his times rather than that of his heart, what if he survived by doing what his father suggested- not only would it have been a terrible personal loss to a person with such gifted charm and persona but also a loss of the purpose that he was born with and remained committed to even when his physical body started to give up. How are dancers supposed to explain and change a society which only knows to live in its secure, unchallenged and claustrophobic beliefs? Every age in the past seems to have seen its pioneers leaving behind trails of change in thought, movement and mindsets but yet the process is slow. Being a dancer in India, where I write from, I am still wondering at the pace and the minuteness of acceptance and understanding!