The Artiste and the Wishing Tree

It may sound philosophical to say that we must let go of the past and not build castles in a distant future. Be it self-help methods, Gurus or meditation apps you have just downloaded, they all reiterate the importance of living in the NOW. But this is not to say that we must not acknowledge our inheritance of a time gone by- the inheritance of a culture- of practices, rituals, traditions and the like. This is the inheritance that defines us as a society- our likes, dislikes, attitudes and emotion. And if we must move into better tomorrows, it becomes all the more important to assess our past, learn from it and live a NOW that is the foundation of a better tomorrow. Does this only talk of our life in general or does it resonate with the professional world of the arts? It has much to do with the way we must look at the arts scene as it exists today, if we must move into a more conducive environment for the arts tomorrow. However to assess the entire spectrum across which the arts are...

I have often wondered if artistes practicing the classical arts live in a bubble. I often wonder if the classical arts themselves have been imprisoned into a bubble that is not accessible to the world at large. I will be quick to clarify that in today's performance arena, there is inspiring content and many of us are diligently studying to learn and understand the depth of the classical arts. While as artistes, the world of classical arts seems to be filled with so much work, there is an undeniable disconnect with the masses at large. Many artistes are choosing to do gratifying research in the classical arts but unfortunately a quick chat with any person unrelated to the arts will only confirm the disconnect. Our audiences are niche, and the number of people in that audience who understand the depth of what is portrayed is even smaller. Beyond this audience, there is an entire spectrum of public that is uninitiated into the arts. Appreciation or engagement with a performance is ...

Is there a huge gap between the depth of the classical arts and our understanding of it? Leave aside those scholars and artistes who have a phenomenal understanding of the several interlinking layers  embedded within the classical arts. For the rest of us, it is a slow arduous journey of TRYING to understand the wealth that is our classical arts. So, given that most of our understanding is very nascent, we must definitely give ourselves a pat on the back that we create work even with this fraction of knowledge. But sometimes, we get carried away. And that is when it becomes dangerous. Dangerous for the Arts that is; because 80% of those sitting in the audience assume what you are doing is correct. Now, we all agree that the arts evolve with time, so of course the performance also evolves. But what is it that separates an evolved performance from a blasphemous performance. A performance of a traditional temple art form to a Mashup of Bollywood disco numbers cannot qualify as evol...

I was 5 when I first experienced Shivarathri at Chidambaram... Dancers dancing through the night. Dancers dancing in front the Lord the entire morning. And more dancers waiting for their turn.  Dancers, singers, Mridangists and Violinists descending from urban chaos to the festive colours of the temple. For a 5 year old though, this pandemonium does not mean much. As she is told to wait, she is wondering if her bangles are a slightly different colour from the border of her blouse. She is wondering if her grandmother has carried more murukku in her bag. And then suddenly she is told to dance- and she dances. When the dance is over, she walks off to her grandmother to have her salangai taken off and put away carefully. And just like that the pandemonium takes over again and the 5 year old tries to shout over the speakers to ask for murukku . Displace the backdrop to an auditorium, the pandemonium remains- of a different kind perhaps. It does not mean much anyway to a 5 year old. ...