Performing Arts in the Ashram

Dance: An Expression of a Genuine Feeling

The Mother wanted us to express through gesture and movement what we really felt in a particular situation. She approved of our learning the first introductory movements of all the four classical dances of our country—Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, Kathak, and Kathakali.

Indian dance, the world over, is well known for the mudra, often described as the alphabet of Indian dance forms. But here, in the Ashram, the Mother made it quite clear to us that a dance movement had to say something by itself. She gave us a theme to be expressed—with the help of the three or four steps we had learnt—in order to finalise the selection of students who would attend the dance classes.

Here is the theme she had suggested for that selection:

“You are happy to see so many flowers in your garden; it is looking very beautiful. You pluck a few of them and make a garland, then you put it round the neck of the deity set on your altar.”

It was an easy theme—familiar enough to be understood through simple gestures.

The first three—Bharatanatyam, Manipuri, and Kathak—we learnt with our dance teacher here, Anu Purani, daughter of Ambalal Purani, a great connoisseur of Indian culture. She had studied dance at the Uday Shankar Institute at Almora and had taught us two folk dances she had learnt there. These were two folk dances of Punjab revived by Uday Shankar himself—one around the Krishna theme and the other about farmhands bringing baskets of watermelons from the field.

Among all the performing arts, the real quality of a dance performance is perhaps the most difficult to judge—because you have to assess the dance gestures in terms of the theme, the music, the rhythm, and the expression. This brings into play too many elements that change according to the personal approach of the judge. Only a very open-minded approach can help us regain our prestige and standard of work in this line.

The Ashram students of the early days had the great opportunity to get the Mother’s own guidance. She made it quite clear that she wanted us to express a genuine feeling through the gestures of a dance. The first theme suggested by her, soon after we had started learning, was simple—you find that your garden is full of beautiful flowers; you pluck a few of them; you make a garland and put it around the Deity on your altar. It was an easy theme—familiar enough to be expressed through simple gestures.

She did not object to our learning the mudra, so important in Indian dance, but did not think that they had to override the natural gesture which expresses a feeling when a dance movement has to say something by itself. There is also the difficulty created by formalising facial expressions. Indian dance is so specialised nowadays that it is difficult to extricate the original attitude of the Natyashastra which says, “Where the hand goes, there the eyes, and there the mind.”

This injunction amounts to saying—Be so absorbed in what you have to say through your dance movement that nothing else draws your attention, not even the audience! You are not trying to tell the audience anything; you are taking yourself through a set of gestures which show what you are doing, what you are feeling, and what is the meaning of your gesture.

The Mother gave a great deal of importance to the subject we were to depict. So, our dance teacher, Anu Purani, used to always consult the Mother on the subject to be taken up by her for any programme.

Dance-drama sequences for young students included:

1. Doll’s Dance — younger students.
2. Cinderella — older students.
3. Siva-Parvati — where Parvati does penance and meditates to win Lord Siva’s grace. Anu had done Siva and Amita had done Parvati.

The Indian concert music was done by Sunil and Ardhendu-da, accomplished musicians of Indian classical ragas. Ardhendu-da played on the sarod while Sunil played the sitar.

Anu had once taken up the story of Bhasmasura, an asura who could not be destroyed except by making him put his own thumb on his head. Who could ever kill him? No one! He started creating havoc in the world. So, the gods appealed to Lord Vishnu to find a way. Lord Vishnu made himself visible, looking like a beautiful woman—Mohini, one who is charming. The asura is caught by her beauty and says he can do anything in the world for her. Mohini asks if he could dance—“Yes, of course, I could!” he replies. So they dance different steps, one more difficult than the other. The asura, quite charmed with his success, eventually during one sequence of steps, makes himself put his thumb on his head—and is reduced to ashes!

All our activities were seen through the eyes of an artist, and the Mother was always ready to help us. Once, for a dance where each part of the human being was awakening to the influence of a higher Power—each personified by a dancer—she was following the description of the idea when she stopped me abruptly because I had shown the touch from behind the sleeping figure of the dancer. She said, “Good forces never come from behind… yes, continue…” She also said, “Why not with my music!”

In the early days, when the dancing classes had started, a Bengali dancer, Manibardhan, stayed here for some days. All the student dancers requested the Mother to permit them to join his dance class. Amita had a good aptitude for dancing. When she approached the Mother for permission, the Mother did not allow her. She said she did not want Amita to get bound by the Indian mudras. She wanted her to learn to express with her body her feelings in a free way.

If one starts expressing through mudras, then one gets fixed forms of dancing. One group of young girls taught by Amita danced in front of the Mother at the Playground on the theme of the Soul waking up the dormant parts of the being. The Mother had first chosen the sonata in A minor by César Franck but later said it was too long. When watching the girls practising, she said, “Why not with my music?” So they danced with the Mother’s music in front of her.

In a general way, we avoid communicating the impression created by a performance of dance or music because it is difficult to tell others what we have really felt. For our own assessment too, we often leave things as a whole without defining what our mental understanding would explain only if questioned on the subject. Over and above that, few people would think of dance as an art like painting or poetry.

That is why our pleasure and enjoyment on seeing a dance performance is simply what is retained by each viewer.

But critics have to do their job—their comments are mostly read and forgotten, for it is too strenuous a mental effort to coordinate all that is said by them with our own understanding of the subject of dance. In any case, if the effort is made, it is bound to be useful and enrich our own way of looking at the subject. It is an art only when the dancer connects himself or herself to the source of all harmony during the performance instead of trying to draw the attention of the audience.

That is the reason our scriptures say—“Where the hand goes, there the eye; there the mind.” But there is more to it than that—the intention has to be a dedication to the true spirit of the All-Beautiful.

Our present generation has to understand the whole sequence and not get caught in the details. The precision of the mudrahas been given undue importance, and the understanding of human life described by them is lost in the detail. It is like knowing the alphabets and not the words—far from knowing a sentence!

The devotion in those early days of our dance styles as recorded in Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra, when no one thought that in our country we would lose the meaning of the whole or forget paying homage to a higher principle, was pure and complete.

While I had once been trained for a short while by a well-known dance guru of Bharatanatyam, he had told me,

“The capacity to express a feeling is God’s gift to a performing artist. The guru can only help us to improve the dance part where we follow the great Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra — Where the hand goes, there the eye, there the mind.”

Not too many people can exchange views on these topics so as to open our eyes to the true Indian approach towards our traditional legendary past.

The poet has, for example, described the well-known legend of the Churning of the Ocean, where gods and asuras meet, in incredibly beautiful poetic English. 

Here are a few words after the opening lines:

“The object for which they had met could not have been fulfilled by the efforts of one side alone; good must mingle with evil, the ideal take sides with the real, the soul work in harmony with the senses, virtue and sin, heaven and earth, and hell labour towards a common end before it can be accomplished…”
(CWSA 1:210)

The artists present here came together to have a discussion among themselves. This type of get-together, with a purpose of increasing our own solidarity, is becoming more and more rare. And yet, we must admit that the attempts through the internet and other programmes are there—how far they are effective is another question.

But the quality of the theme has to be communicated, and everyone present ought to impress us through our senses, or tell us in a written text through words what is the essential idea the writer wants to communicate in literature or art.

The people of each region of our country can have a clear view of what their culture could mean to other people simply through a cultural programme.

Dance for Our Own Classes Here in the Ashram School

For our own dance compositions, the Mother wanted us to express freely with normal gestures whatever the theme.

One decision taken by the Mother might surprise people even now—when the dance classes were to begin, there were too many people who wanted to join. So, the Mother decided to select the students who would attend these classes.

The Mother gave us a theme which had to be expressed in dance! We had learnt only three dance steps.

Here is what we had to say:

“You are very happy to see your garden so full of flowers… you pluck a few of them and make a garland… you take that garland and put it round the neck of your deity in your room…”

We had to show our composition to the Mother, who watched us seated in the present body-building gymnasium near the place where the horizontal bar is set. I can’t remember what I had done, but after seeing all of us, she pointed to me first as one who could join the class.

These classes were held twice a week, but it so happened that one of the days we had a French class with the Mother. So, I could attend only one lesson in the week.

The meaning of hand positions (known as mudra in Indian dance) was taught on the day when I had the Mother’s class. Without clearly knowing what was being done, I studied the mudra sequence from a French book in our library, made sketches of these in my small notebook, and learnt on my own the meanings of Indian dance which had to be performed for the deity and not for an audience.

In fact, in earlier days, girls known as devadasis performed only in the temple. The Natyashala of later years was meant only for the guru and the king of the region who was present when the dance was performed.

I had the extraordinary opportunity of witnessing the real meaning of the Indian dance gestures. They had a truth in the higher planes of consciousness. Someone had asked the Mother to show a few positions of the hands. The significance of those was attempted by artists of our place. Then the Mother herself gave us the real meaning for each position—themes which are effective in the world.

It is quite an experience to see this booklet and think things over!

In one of Sri Aurobindo’s letters on literature, we read a comment made by a poet-disciple on one of Baudelaire’s poems where a woman who is dancing is described. Sri Aurobindo says:

“Baudelaire is too much of an artist to be vulgar.”

But, on our part, we have to regain our decency and our cultural values. Because we, in the Ashram, have been specially privileged to distinguish between the quality of the theme and the quality of a performance.

As Indian aesthetics tells us, there are several moods that are expressed through music, painting, and poetry known to us as the Nine Rasas. The word rasa implies a mood or atmosphere communicated through a work of art; you may also say it shows the taste of the creator as we understand from that particular work of art.