In step with the times

When the Dhananjayans left their alma mater in the late 1960s, the couple had big plans to vent their artistic creativity that was essentially moulded from the training they got from Chennai’s famed Kalakshetra. In short, it wasn’t to eke out a living that they set up Bharata Kalanjali — also in the Tamil Nadu capital — in 1968, two years after they married at Guruvayur in their native state of Kerala.

That set in a testing time in the life and career of the two artistes, who had grown up together as childhood sweethearts in the rather comfortably cloistered environs of Kalakshetra, where they met first in the early 1950s. Shanta, who was born in Malaysia into a Mala­yali family with moorings in Chittoor off Palakkad, had joined the Rukmini Devi Arundale-founded institute as an eight-year-old in 1952, a year before V P Dhananjayan, a native of Payyannur in north Malabar, enrolled himself as a fellow student when he was 13.

Their bold move to run a school of their own did meet with certain initial hiccups what with conservatives dubbing their dance as blasphemous. But sooner than later, the duo, equipped with mut­ual trust and a passion to dance for the rest of their lives, won in their years of painstaking efforts on and off the stage. Today, for long, Bharata Kalanjali is a reputed centre of South Indian cult­ure and not just another school for Bha­rata­natyam, while the pair who heads it are top-ranking artistes.

Innovation has been the emblem of the Dhananjayans, who won the Padma Bhushan last year. The novelty they brought into their presentations shaped into an entirely different repertoire that soon got established as a tradition in itself. As trend-setters in the 1970s, they created a new idiom. Their pride in tradition, while being the substance of their dance compositions, has been buttressed by attractive innovations, becoming the singular reason for their phenomenal success. Even after 50 years of dancing together, they are neither dated attitudinally, nor is their dance jaded. The dance recitals of Bharata Kalanjali have a fresh and crisp appeal, making the Dhananjayans one of the most sought-after teachers, always modulating their recitals according to the audience profile. “Dance has to educate, elevate and entertain,” says Dhananjayan, 71. Chimes in Shanta: “One should develop the attitude of projecting the art, not one’s personality, and this is where we are going wrong.”

Just as is the case with Carnatic music, the present-day Bharatanatyam scene is dominated by Chennai, symbolised by that bastion of tradition, the Kalakshetra Foundation. The Dhananjayans have always worked around the fact that to hold audience interest, the artiste has to be profound in his scholarship — of music, literature, Sanskrit, the epics, and even the Bhagavatha.

Recently in Bangalore at a workshop, the couple notes that a major drawback that Karnataka faces when it comes to Bharatanatyam is  that it lacks a centre like Kalakshetra to stabilise the training system — an amalgamation of the traditional guru­kula and modern methods. “An institute like that will be a beacon of light,” points out Dhananjayan. “There have been individual schools contributing in a very small way. Chennai has had a head start in this. It is a trend-setting city, so we have an edge. So many guru paramparas were established there earlier, and it is a relatively slow movement in Bangalore.”

What is most striking about the couple is their youthful exuberance and their sprightly appearance albeit in traditional attire, attributed to what dance has given them. From the less than humble beginnings of their dance school, the Dhananjayans have grown to become internationally celebrated dancers and teachers. It is their solid grounding at Kalakshetra, their decades of toil, and their undiluted passion for the art that lends authenticity to what they say about the art.

The couple has successfully dealt with contemporary themes, the dance compositions adhering to the traditional format. Dhananjayan’s solo on environmental pollution is a lucid masterpiece. His Nandanar Charitam on untouchability is as topical as it is simple in communication. Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book is another of their popular productions. “Contemporary themes are not taboo. They can be handled in the classical idiom,” says Shanta. “Old themes continue to have a content, connection and a relevance to modern times. Everything depends on the portrayal of the dancer, and the efforts that have gone into communicating content to an audience. The quality of the performers has deteriorated.”

Precise in their talk, they regret that the country’s Constitution makers and educationists forgot that the base of any society was its art and culture. “Art-integrated education should have been the foundation of the system. So the entire education set-up has to be revamped,” says Dhananjayan. An outcome of such a vision has been ABHAI (Association of Bharatanatyam Artistes of India), an umbrella organization of artistes to voice their problems and work together too. Vande Maatharam, a political satire is just one of the annual, topical productions put up by ABHAI, which is enthusing youngsters too.  

“Even traditions change with the times. Infusing professionalism, without learning dance on a piecemeal basis, and relying on the grammar of the art rather than tampering with it, is the way to nurture and spread this art,” says Dhayanjayan. Bubbling with enthusiasm, realistic about the art situation, yet idealistic enough to continue with the same zeal, Shanta and Dhananjayan seem to hold the key to a joyous life, where the classical performing arts enjoy centre stage.

— jyothi@expressbuzz.com