Dance Musings 1: Where is the DANCE in DANCER?

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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.

As an adult I often wonder what it is about dance that I like. I ask myself what it is that sometimes gnaws at me. Like most others my age, I wonder what it is that I would like my dance to be. And I try to remember what dance was to me as a child. And that is where I am left amused. Because as much as I try, I cannot remember the audience, I cannot remember the musicians, I cannot remember who was backstage and I cannot remember thinking about the performance before or after dancing. I try some more and I can remember snatches of choreography, I can remember what my grandmother fed me while I waited, I can remember not much else.

And then the world insists that you grow up. You stop wearing your dance lightly. You begin to take your dance seriously. You begin to notice the people in the first row. You know exactly where the photographer is. You want to signal to your musicians. You pray that your back injury will never come back. You wonder if you did justice. You hope for a heartfelt applause. You send out a prayer of gratitude wishing away these unnecessary thoughts. But somewhere between all the dance, the dancer emerges.

Returning to the temple every year on Shivarathri does remind me of the insignificance of the person behind the dance, the pride that must be quelled, the ego that must be defeated. But it is easier said than done. Standing in front of the Nandi at Brihadeeswarar Kovil, the crisp wind will gently nip at your anklets to remind you of just this. The sea of people at Kumbakonam will not let you notice any one person. The chants that summon you into the sannidhi of Natarajar and the Rahasiyam will remind you of your insignificance. You renew your will to return to that moment called DANCE. As an adult I wonder what my dance can be and realise that the dance that I danced as a child is where I must return everyday; to that moment called DANCE. 

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