I remember my first tanjore quartette experience. It was in 91 or 92 - I was going to all the kutcheris everywhere. I would attend every single BN performance. And after a while, instead of being always dazzled and blinded, things slowly started to fall into place for me.
By then I was quite familiar with the performances of all the big stars. Then one day I was sitting in the mini-hall and I watched a student dance a piece. She was not a big star. But in spite of that, there was this feeling. It was jatiswaram and after watching it, it stayed in my mind for days and days and days.
That was my first clue that a piece and how it is performed are two different things. I mean, you can have a brilliant dancer perform a mediocre piece. And you can have a fairly good dancer perform a piece that is a great composition.
After going to a few more months of performances, I discovered for myself what so many other people had already known - the Tanjore Quartet pieces are the crown jewels. And from then, it was a constant obsession always present in the back of my mind. After I saw those pieces, nothing else would do.
These seven glittering kohinoor diamonds - master gave them to me: sakiye, yemaguva, mogamana, adimogam, yemanthayanara, danike, sami ninne.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Memories
One time, in 2002 spring, Master was rehearsing a padam with sangeetha - whose bavam I really like - so strong and dignified - and he sang the line "yenakaana peraiyum kaane" and he was demonstrating that line and he turned and said: "ithu jayalakshmi evallo nala pidipa theriyuma" and he showed how she would do it and then went on teaching the padam.
I loved moments like this. I would just shore them up like a treasure.
This is the kind of history I like.
Initially, when I became interested in dance I would read everything that was written in the papers and in the books. I was stupid enough to believe what they were saying because all those writers write with so much authority.
Now of course dance-scholarship has its uses.
One time I saw a spider running round and round and it I was afraid it was going to climb up so I took this nice hardbound book and I just dropped it - wham! - and the spider was promptly dispatched to Valhalla.
Another time I had dropped off to sleep in my chair in the classroom and suddenly I felt something run over my foot and run away. I looked around and saw these enormous rats: perichali! - sleek and glossy and built solid, they looked around with their bright glinting eyes at each other (there were two of them) and they ran around two or three times making big figure eights and ran off again so fast before I could do anything. There was a sort of little canal going round the edge of the dance room and a small hole for it to go outside to the terrace and through this those bandicoots would come at night.
Some of the boys said "oh don't worry they won't do anything" but I was too scared to sleep at night. What if they bit me and I got rabies. So they said: "here, take these tiles and put it against that hole, they won't get in" so I did. But those were persistent and strong perichalis! At night I heard a little scratching noise, they were trying to tip those tiles over! Since I had stacked a few, they couldn't: then they charged! Like a battering ram breaking down the gates! I could hear them running around and then a "bang!" as they hurled their weight against the tiles. So I took two nice big thick dance books and put them right next to the tiles. They banged and they banged but those books would not budge. After this experience I went to sleep that night thanking all dance-scholars who write and publish their books, because you never know when they will come in very useful.
The next morning I got up really early and went to examine the outside of the terrace. Then I looked over the edge and there they were down on the street right in front of the house and Mrs. M_ was just then going down to do her morning kolam. The children ran to the edge of the balcony and looked down and said "Perichali!" and the bandicoots looked up at everybody without the least bit of fear. But Mrs. M__ wasn't in the least disturbed. "Kaathala varunga naan kolam podaracha - paathingana" she said and went on doing her morning kolam.
But at a certain point I became more interested in Master's anecdotes than in reading books or articles about dance. Simply because he was there, he had lived it, he knew what he was talking about it. I myself would never interrupt class but if he started to tell a story I would show a lot of interest and ask him a bit more: what was teaching class like when he was 20, what were arangetrams like then? did they do the same margam as we do now? What varnam did his father always start off his students with? And his grandfather? And how did they manage without lights and mikes? Wasn't that hard? How far would it be from his home to the nearest place where kutcheris were held? What about compensation? What was the norm in those days, when he was in his 20s, 30s, etc.
I loved hearing these stories. But some parts were disturbing: like hearing of farmhands who would sometimes be desperate to get out of the pouring rain and would get on a bus or a train and would get beaten black and blue. Feudalism has its ugly side. There was this gesture or "kai" I learnt for the Danike varnam in todi: where hands crossed across chest one walks forward as a way of showing devotion or submission. But then it seems people had to approach a big man, a feudal lord, in that way. Otherwise it was considered impertinent and you could be punished. Suddenly, at moments like these, I would feel that these things were ugly. But then, what could I do, that was how the kai for Danike was, and I couldn't change it. Then it wouldn't be danike anymore.
I loved moments like this. I would just shore them up like a treasure.
This is the kind of history I like.
Initially, when I became interested in dance I would read everything that was written in the papers and in the books. I was stupid enough to believe what they were saying because all those writers write with so much authority.
Now of course dance-scholarship has its uses.
One time I saw a spider running round and round and it I was afraid it was going to climb up so I took this nice hardbound book and I just dropped it - wham! - and the spider was promptly dispatched to Valhalla.
Another time I had dropped off to sleep in my chair in the classroom and suddenly I felt something run over my foot and run away. I looked around and saw these enormous rats: perichali! - sleek and glossy and built solid, they looked around with their bright glinting eyes at each other (there were two of them) and they ran around two or three times making big figure eights and ran off again so fast before I could do anything. There was a sort of little canal going round the edge of the dance room and a small hole for it to go outside to the terrace and through this those bandicoots would come at night.
Some of the boys said "oh don't worry they won't do anything" but I was too scared to sleep at night. What if they bit me and I got rabies. So they said: "here, take these tiles and put it against that hole, they won't get in" so I did. But those were persistent and strong perichalis! At night I heard a little scratching noise, they were trying to tip those tiles over! Since I had stacked a few, they couldn't: then they charged! Like a battering ram breaking down the gates! I could hear them running around and then a "bang!" as they hurled their weight against the tiles. So I took two nice big thick dance books and put them right next to the tiles. They banged and they banged but those books would not budge. After this experience I went to sleep that night thanking all dance-scholars who write and publish their books, because you never know when they will come in very useful.
The next morning I got up really early and went to examine the outside of the terrace. Then I looked over the edge and there they were down on the street right in front of the house and Mrs. M_ was just then going down to do her morning kolam. The children ran to the edge of the balcony and looked down and said "Perichali!" and the bandicoots looked up at everybody without the least bit of fear. But Mrs. M__ wasn't in the least disturbed. "Kaathala varunga naan kolam podaracha - paathingana" she said and went on doing her morning kolam.
But at a certain point I became more interested in Master's anecdotes than in reading books or articles about dance. Simply because he was there, he had lived it, he knew what he was talking about it. I myself would never interrupt class but if he started to tell a story I would show a lot of interest and ask him a bit more: what was teaching class like when he was 20, what were arangetrams like then? did they do the same margam as we do now? What varnam did his father always start off his students with? And his grandfather? And how did they manage without lights and mikes? Wasn't that hard? How far would it be from his home to the nearest place where kutcheris were held? What about compensation? What was the norm in those days, when he was in his 20s, 30s, etc.
I loved hearing these stories. But some parts were disturbing: like hearing of farmhands who would sometimes be desperate to get out of the pouring rain and would get on a bus or a train and would get beaten black and blue. Feudalism has its ugly side. There was this gesture or "kai" I learnt for the Danike varnam in todi: where hands crossed across chest one walks forward as a way of showing devotion or submission. But then it seems people had to approach a big man, a feudal lord, in that way. Otherwise it was considered impertinent and you could be punished. Suddenly, at moments like these, I would feel that these things were ugly. But then, what could I do, that was how the kai for Danike was, and I couldn't change it. Then it wouldn't be danike anymore.
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