Thursday, January 17, 2008

Dance me to future!

Dance me to future!
Purva Dhanashree, Bharata Natyam & Vilasini Natyam Dancer


"I want to do a lot in dance. I want to express my disappointments, anger and my feelings about the way the society is going and I want to express through the medium of dance the message of change to this generation. Dance is in my spirit, it is in my soul, it is something for which I would want to dedicate my life to. Though being a media person, my heart lies in dancing and expressing myself through the dance", a torrent of spirit and energy gushes forth from the youngster as smitha and I meet her after witnessing almost an hour of enthralling performance from her. Both of us were pleasantly surprised to find this spirited youngster whose words promised that nothing is going to be lost even in this utterly materialistic fast track generationl. The endearling human values would be sustained and in fact built upon by spirited youngsters like this. The kid before us was a testimony to our hope that more youngsters like this would carry the spirit of freedom and expression and true values and express it through the medium of art they chose to espouse. In our Purva Dhanashree’s case it is classical dance.

Dance after all is an expression of soul and the dancer while she is involved in her art knows nothing but her steps, nothing but the music nothing but the rhythmic swaying of her feet, for her the audience are incidental but her soul is her true audience. She is once with the soul she is one with the winds, one with the elements one with the cosmic form which is perhaps why the highest experience of dance came from the God of destruction and not of sustenance who decided to recline on his snake bed to reflect on life and the living. It is for the destroyer to dance through the life, dance through its spirit, dance to endless cycle of birth and destruction.

Purva Dhanashree perhaps was simply echoing this high ideal of seeing the world destroying itself and wanted to tell us that she would dance to rekindle the spirit of the world so that whatever is bad would be destroyed and whatever that is good would be rejuvenated and retained. There is no doubt that she has already started her journey. Her dancing style, her conviction, her words, her body language, her spirit….everything conveyed her seriousness and her commitment to the cause she has committed to.

For professionals like this perfection in art is not the end in itself but they see anny creative art as a vehicle to express the deep inner thoughts and through their expression they would seek to influence opinion and to lead people to the path that they have chosen to tread. As she danced on the stage it made us feel as one with her, made us appreciate the perfection of her rendering, the clarity of her steps, the spirit of her expressions and also of her earnestness to pack a whole world and offer it within a few minutes at her command on stage.

We could instinctively sense that we are witnessing the performance of not a youngster but a rising star, a person who would go a long way in her life, one who would see the height of perfection and height of glory of the dance form. But she needs the spirit and strength of purpose the steely will to withstand disappointments, the energy to stay on course while being confronted with the horde of selfish people who rule the world of art, the sense of honesty and truthfulness to accept her failures and not find a shortcut to glory to achieve her cherished goal. What is important however that she is on the way to do it and she knows where she is going. And that matters a lot.

I am nobody to comment about the technique of her dance or the steps that she used to express herself or about the correctness of the vilasini form of dance she rendered to us which she is learning from the master of this art Guru Swapnasundari. Smitha and me can only tell that it was an evening of great dance performance by Purva which we would cherish. We came actually to witness the performance of our favourite child Nandini Nandan and went back with two. Not bad for an evening. About Nandini's performance link to the parallel blog on Kuchipudi.

Purva Dhanashree is trained in Tanjavoor and Kalakshetra styles by Kamalini Dutt senior most disciple of Sikiil Ramaswamy Pillai and Mrs. Radhika Shurajit. She is presently training in Vilasini Natyam from Smt. Swapanasundari.
Her contact is listed as part of a comprehensive listing of dance practitioners of Delhi by anandfoundation

1 comment:

Anjali said...

This is a great effort made by you to bring out the thoughts and attitude of the upcoming dancers. Such passionate dancers are the true ambassadors of our culture.