Catherin Mackinnon asked the question ‘Are Women Human?’ as a reaction to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It is difficult to answer this question as a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ after reading the twelve narratives of women compiled in this book. Women have always been and will continue to be human in spirit but when we place them in the discourse of human rights and analyse their lives, it is difficult to understand them as humans. While some women have continuously struggled against the dominant patriarchal paradigms, others have protected the existing system and perpetrated the dominance. While some have broken away from the heritage of oppression others have operationalised the ‘culture of silence’. While some have wrecked the chain of violence, others have played the power game and supported the status quo. The book takes the reader into a journey of self exploration wherein one is compelled to delve deep into one’s understanding of women’s rights. Should there be separate rights for women? Who made the existing rights? Does the human rights discourse actually address the day to day struggle of a woman (which actually begins from the very moment she is conceived in the womb of her mother)?
The book brings into light lives of many women which are interwoven into one another, thereby making patterns of love and hate, freedom and bondage, expression and suppression. Is woman born or made? This question is asked whenever there is a conflict between nature and culture. Woman is understood as the nurturing force of a family who needs to operate within the male oriented culture and face violations of human rights through traditional practices executed as a part of the civilization. Culture has been philosophised, formalised, institutionalised and practiced with the understanding of the male members of the society. It gets entrenched into the system to such an extent that many times a woman is criticised if she chooses to move away form it in order to find her own path. Nabaneeta Dev Sen talks about her mother who was rebuked that she had voluntarily courted widowhood as she read books and gained knowledge.
Society has always treated woman with the bias- whether it is definitional, procedural or normative. Man is seen as the ‘Self’ whereas the woman is projected as the ‘Other’ who has to either live like his shadow , be put to submission , or incorporated into the system which places her at the ‘periphery’ as against the man who occupies the ‘centre’. This gets reflected in Nabaneeta Sen’s story which describes how Amartya Sen was supportive of her scholarly endeavours but never encouraged her to take up a job. Neither did he engage with her in her creative activities but expected her to maintain an establishment for him in different parts of the world
Justice, equality, liberty, autonomy – all are visualized from male’s point of view. Spike Peterson says that inequalities at various levels in social relations have their origin in physical inequality between the man and the woman resulting in the andocentric nature of the rights. Not only do they cater to the needs and position of male members but also relegate women to a position of a receiver or a follower. This is reflected in the life of Hema Sundaram’s mother who was silenced by a stinging slap across her face whenever she tried to assert herself.
J.S. Mill in his work ‘Subjugation of Women’ says, ‘for everyone who desires power, desires it most over those who are nearest to him, with whom his life is passed, with whom he has most concerns in common and in whom any independence of his authority is oftenest likely to interfere with his individual preferences’ ( Mill, 1975). He also adds ‘Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments… They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds.’
Human Rights have always been a mechanism to build a relationship between the individual and the collective. It is about how freedom gets mediated between the members of the society. Liberal theory goes deep into this issue of freedom. Rousseau said that it was through ‘social contract’ that the individual submitted a part of his freedom to the collective for general goodwill. He also adds that curtailing a part of individual’s freedom was actually favourable for the individual’s interest because he gained security which he didn’t have in State of Nature. The word ‘he’ is deliberately used here because this contract was not made with consent of woman. She was never ‘born free’ and has continuously been in chains. When Paine says that amongst the four basic rights human being has given up on resistance to oppression, it can be clearly seen in lives of many women because most of them silently surrender to subjugation.
Liberal theory treats human being as atomistic individual. This analogy fails to describe women’s lives which are multi-layered and multi-dimensional. It is seen in some narratives that women were indoctrinated into the system to such an extent that they started justifying it and felt liberated by surrendering to it. Vina Mazumdar narrates that when her grandfather’s grandfather died his wife decided to become sati against the wishes of her family members who tried to dissuade her. Hema Sundaram’s grandmother endured the frustrations of her husband by consoling herself that it was her ‘karma’- a belief accepted by women across different strata of society justifying the existence of all kinds of inequalities and unjust practices. Were they liberated in real sense or were they imprisoned by their own mental inhibitions? Priti Desai remembers how her mother in spite of having an emotionally distressing marriage stood by her husband in tough times as she believed in the law of karma.
Society’s hypocrisy, its brutality, its inadequacy and injustice come into fore when one sees how a woman is restricted to the private domain and how a man keeps moving in and out of the public and the private sphere. Woman has been domesticated generation after generation wherein her work was reduced to bearing children and taking care of her family. Education was inaccessible to her and her very identity was defined by her relations. Like Seetha in Ramayana if a woman decided to cross the lakshman rekha drawn by the society she was punished. Feminist critique of human rights discourse questions the very idea and construction of private as it is defined and demarcated by patriarchal norms. Making women's contribution in the private sphere invisible obscures how dependent the public sphere is on the private. Vina Mazumdar recalls how her mother ‘protected’ her father from getting entangled with the ‘anxieties’ of bringing up the five children. A wife’s suffering has been repeatedly veiled within the private sphere and kept away from the society. Hema Sundaram’s husband put her through physical abuse and when asked by his friend brushed it off by saying ‘it was something personal’. Maithreyi Krishna Raj labels her sister’s life as a classic case of ‘middle class’s woman’s oppression’ wherein she was confined to the repetitive, confining and unrewarding domesticity.
The family has been subsumed under the civil society which socialises a woman into believing that she is inferior to man. The structural functionalist reasoning given in order to maintain the hegemony of patriarchal norms has dampened the sensibilities of women time and again making them believe that there is only one way of surviving and that is through oppression. Radharani was stripped off her jewellery, her hair was chopped off, and she was made to wear the borderless white cloth when she became a widow. When Zarina Bhatty’s grandmother was widowed at the age of 18 she was forced to only wear white throughout her life and not allowed to participate in any ceremonies or rituals. Leela Gulati’s mother was pregnant at the age of 14 and by 18 she had undergone three pregnancies. Menstruating girls were treated as untouchables by the family members, says Priti Desai.
In society women were not only the followers but also agents of the patriarchal norms. Spike Peterson says that women’s lives are characterized by personal connections, attentiveness and responsibility and the ethic of care rather than ethics of rights. J.S. Mill explains ‘All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have — those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man’ (Mill 1975). This can be seen in the life of Nabaneeta Sen who is blamed for not keeping her husband happy or Hema Sundaram whose siblings did not support her decision to walk out of the marriage. ‘While the elder brothers sympathized with me, they felt that ultimately I should try to adjust at least for the sake of the boys.’
There seems to be an invisible yet deeply entrenched nexus between the State and the civil society wherein different state apparatus work together to keep women disempowered. State is both the protector and violator of human rights and it changes its role depending on how well it serves the patriarchy. ‘ostensible individualism and egalitarianism of liberal theory obscures the patriarchal reality’ says, Carole Pateman (Patemen 1989) and she questions the possibility to achieve political equality without obtaining equality in private and public spheres. Female is seen as nature, personal, emotional, private, intuitional, moral, ascribed driven by love whereas male is defined as culture, political , public, achievement, who is driven by reason. When the two entities are diametrically opposed to each other and then how can there be a common set of human rights addressing their problems? There has to be a different kind of engagement within human rights discourse to identify and formulate Rights for women. And it will happen when every oppressed woman like Leela Gulati’s mother realises that the ‘mistakes’ of her life are not her own making but are the products of institutionalised discrimination against Indian women.
The book also brings together stories of women who not only were denied property rights and but also considered as property. Women across time space and cultures have been de-humanised and their individuality bartered between members of family, society and nation. Zarina Bhatty’s mother was not given any share of her dowry despite of the Islamic law in her favour. Leela Gulati informs about her rigidly patriarchal family, with lineage and property passing through the male line. Her mother was refused the house which her father had built with her gold. Mary Roy challenged the Travancore Christian Succession Act which violated her right to her father’s property.
The twelve narratives not only bring together the pain, sorrow, humiliation, suffering of women but also highlight how many of them decided to break away from the ‘culture of silence’. There have been women like Radharani’s mother-in-law and Vina Mazumdar’s Peshima who fought for the education of children especially girls and brought a change in the system which sowed the seeds of ‘critical consciousness’ in the future generations. The book salutes to the indomitable spirit of women who re-defined ‘human’. It is a dedication to all those souls who had to go through continuous cycles of suffering.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Friere Paolo, ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, London, Penguin Boooks 1998
2. Mill, J S ‘ Subjection of women’, London, OUP, 1975
3. Mackinnon, Carol ‘ Are Women Human’ in Refelctions on the Univesal Declaration of Human Rights , Martnus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1999
4. Peterson, Spike and Parisi Laura ‘Are women human? It’s not an academic question’ in ‘Human Rights fifty years on A reappraisal ed. by Tony Evans 1998 Manchester University Press, Manchester
Monday, May 23, 2011
Understanding the act of communication in Vilasini Natyam dance performance of a Padam by applying the theories of De Vito Joseph and Saussure
Introduction: -
Vilasini Natyam is the ancient dance form of the temple dancers of Andhra Pradesh which was practiced for several centuries in different parts of Southern and South–East India. These dancers occupied a high position in society as they were well versed in ancient religious texts, classical literature and mythology. They also were exceedingly talented musicians and dancers. Till late 19th century they received patronage from the temple, court and the intelligentia of society. And they also occupied a high stature in the eyes of the general pubic because of their calibre. The Devadasi system slowly degenerated due to several sociological reasons. The colonial rule added to this process and final blow came in the form of the Devadasi Abolition Act passed in 1950s which pushed these talented artistes into penury as they were thrown out of their profession overnight. Many devadasis went into oblivion and their art was shunned from the society for several decades till dance scholars and practitioners researched and brought their art back to the modern day proscenium.
Dancer-scholar Swapnasundari under the guidance of art historian Dr. Arudra went into researching and recasting the art of the Andhra Devadasis. After years of interacting with and learning from these erstwhile temple dancers she collated and re-formulated the discipline of the dance which was re-christened as Vilasini Natyam. It is presented in the modern times with utmost authenticity keeping in mind the present sensibilities of the modern audience. Originally this dance was performed in three contexts - in the temple as a ritual, in court and private chambers as an intellectually and aesthetically stimulating art and for the general public in dance –drama format wherein the sole purpose was ‘infotainment’. But in contemporary society the effort is to only present the art of Devadasis without reinstating the sociological practise of Devadasi system.
The essay tries to capture a glimpse in the wide array of the repertoire of Vilasini Natyam by looking at the process of how a text is communicated through body movements and facial expressions. The example taken here is that of a Padam - a love lyric. It is set to a tune and a simple rhythm. The tune is appropriately chosen keeping in mind the lyrics and the predominant mood of the song. Most of these lyrics were written hundreds of years back but they are still able to relate to a contemporary audience because human emotions are still the same. The imagery of the poetry might be ancient but the way it is brought out in the dance cuts across spatial-temporal barriers between the art and the present society. The process of interpretation of the lyric is briefly explained here by using the theories of De Vito Joseph and Saussure.
Following are some of the universals in the process of communication which De Vito Joseph has mentioned. Attempt here to explain the rendition of a Padam by placing it within these universals.
Context :- Since the society has undergone phenomenal changes it is inappropriate to re-instate the Devadasi system but their art is performed for its aesthetic quality in different dance festivals or concerts. The Padam is presented as a part of an evening performance in front of invited audience. Most of these love lyrics are written in Telugu because that was the language which was predominantly used by the Andhra Devadasis. While originally the devadasi did not explain the song and straight away went into its performance today’s dancer explains the meaning of the lyrics in English or any language which is understood by the audience even if some of them know Telugu. It is also important to state here that Telugu itself has undergone several changes over the years hence the language which is spoken now is not the same language which was practiced several decades or centuries back. Hence it becomes necessary for the dancer to explain the meaning of the words and place it within a well structured context.
Setting of the performance :-It is characteristic of Vilasini Natyam tradition that the Padam is performed sitting on the ground or on a platform. This is done in order to place maximum stress on the facial expressions which become the main ‘channel of communication’. The dancer does use her hand gestures and upper torso according to the meaning of the word but the main focus of the manner of performance is to explore the possibilities and techniques of facial expressions. Traditionally the expertise of the Devadasi was tested in this kind of a setting wherein she enthralled the audience for hours. Although the duration of the present day rendition is not that long but traditional setting is kept alive even today.
The dancer is flanked by musicians on either side. This is very critical for the performer because the number of times she repeats a word or a phrase or a line is not fixed. It entirely depends on her how she wishes to communicate the meaning of the words. And this is not pre-planned. Hence the eye contact between the dancer and especially the vocalist is very important. The number of repetitions is primarily guided by the scope of the lyrics but it also depends on the pace, the length and the tune of the song.
The dancer and the audience: - a dance performance is an act of communication which acquires different dimensions because a message is conveyed not only through words but also through melody, rhythm, gestures, expressions and silence. This communication takes place between the dancer, musicians and the audience. Interpreting a text into dance involves coming together of many sensibilities. The dancer is dressed in a neutral costume and make -up throughout the presentation but her enactment of different characters, landscapes, time zones is convincing and communicative only when she interprets the text properly and not just perform it as an action song.
What makes such kind of a performance a multi-layered cognitive process is that all the participants in the act are not on the same level of comprehension. The dancer and the musicians are somewhat at the same artistic plane but each member in the audience relates to the dance according to his /her level of involvement with the dance which is guided by one’s socio-cultural background. Some only enjoy the music, others are enamoured by the get-up of the dancer, for some the lyrics are very engaging but there are few in the audience who actually travel along with the dancer while exploring the text and the sub-text. It is this possibility of syncretic engagement which makes dance forms like Vilasini Natyam timeless.
Feedback and Self-feedback:- The ‘feedback’ process is very intriguing in such performances. The text gradually gets a new lease of life through a collective intellectual and aesthetic engagement of the dancer and the onlooker. The meeting point of the word, the music, the rhythm, the interpretation of the dancer and the involvement of the audience creates a heightened aesthetic experience called the sadharanikaran – the universalisation of the particular. The audience give her their feedback after the performance but during the performance there are different emotional reactions which people encounter within themselves. For example if the dancer is performing the role of a devotee addressing the Lord there are people in the audience who cry in reverence. The devotion in dancer evokes such powerful responses in the audience that they actually ‘see’ their God in the eyes of the dancer. The ‘feedback’ happens very powerfully when the audience feel choked with veneration.
The ‘self feedback’ of the dancer reaches artistic heights when the camaraderie between her and the musicians is excellent. It also gets affected by the audiences’ response which she feels intuitively.
The feedback process is also guided by the nature of the society. Art cannot survive in isolation and no matter how aesthetic it is in its content art is influenced by the cultural factors which also effect the social environment. Hence the dancer and the audience who are also a part of bigger socio-cultural set-up have to constantly mediate between their connections with the art and their interaction with other forms of communication which are omnipresent.
II
Saussure’s principles of communication are used to understand how the text is ‘deconstructed’ by the dancer in order to re-construct different meanings. Before actually going into the actual text it is necessary here to mention his ideas about language and society and how a language evolves with time. Saussure says
No matter what period we choose or how far back we go, language always appears as a heritage of the preceding period. A particular language is always the product of historical forces and these forces explain why the sign is unchangeable i.e. why it resists any arbitrary substitution.
This aspect is crucial to understand not only the language used in dance performance but also dance as a language of classical society now being used in modern times. Many debates have happened between dancers about the relevance of a classical dance form in modern era as dance cannot exist in isolation and there is a dialectical relationship between the art, artiste and the society. But after lot of discussion it has been accepted that the aesthetic quality of such art forms make them timeless and also boundary-less. There are umpteen examples of how an Indian dance form is accepted with lot enthusiasm on a foreign land not just for its exotic presentation format but also the content. As mentioned earlier the dance rendition of a lyric is coming together of word, sound, gesture, meaning and rhythm. It is not a linear ‘labelling exercise’ which is what makes classical dance different from an action song. In Saussure’s words,
Some people regard language when reduced to its elements as a naming process only – a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names. .. It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before the words.
There are no ready made ideas in a classical dance performance of padam. There is a structure within which the dancer contextualises her character, the setting, and the time period but when she engages with the lyrics it is completely impromptu.
As mentioned earlier the attempt here is to understand how a Padam is interpreted. It initially begins with the Raga (musical scale in which the lyric is tuned) played on the flute or the violin during which the dancer slowly enters and takes her position on the stage. She begins with singing the opening line in order to set the pace of the song. This is very crucial as the tempo is decided according to the meaning and tune of the lyrics so that the dancer gets enough scope to expand her ideas. But once the tempo is set in the beginning it does not change during the performance.
To illustrate how a dancer communicates the meaning let me use an example. The opening lines of this Telugu Padam are
‘ Aadadani janmamettina phalamemi, Athivaro Vyarthamamma ’
‘ What is the use of being born as a woman O Lady it is an utter waste’
The song is tuned in Sahana Raga which is generally rendered with lot of pathos and is set to 7 beats which gives the song a lilting cadence. This is done with the purpose of bringing out the protagonist’s pain. The following lines of the song tell us that she is married to a person who is very rich and has a lot of property. He bestows her with lot of jewellery and clothing but she asks her friends ‘what is the use of all this if he does not pay any attention to me and spend few moments of togetherness.’ The opening two lines which are called Pallavi set the mood of the song. Following two lines are Anupallavi
‘Meddalu Middelu mendu galiginanemi, Eedaina Vibhunito Kudi Undaka Pote’
‘What is the use of having palatial houses with rooftops, if my man is not with me’
Anupallavi states the ‘crux’ of the situation. And rest of the stanzas called the ‘Charanams’ elaborate the problem stated in Pallavi and Anupallavi wherein each time the dancer finishes the Charanam she comes back to the Pallavi like a refrain.
The progression of performance :- The dancer enacts the opening line only with her eyes and facial expressions. Then she uses minimal hand gestures to again give the literal meaning known in theory of Abhinaya (expressional art) as ‘Padartha’ [ pada+artha which means meaning of the word]. Even then it is not a uni-dimensional exercise as the language does not hang in some vacuum. Moreover what give this kind of a rendition, an added dimension are the gestures and expressions. Relating this to what Saussure said,
‘linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name but a concept and sound image the latter is not a material sound, a purely physical thing but the psychological imprint of the sound the impression that it makes on our senses’
In this example when the dancer says what is the use of being born as a woman? It is not literally the word ‘woman’ which is meant here but the attributes of being left alone, being treated as a piece of furniture in the house which actually point to her predicament of being born as a woman. Hence the link between the signifier ‘aadadaani’ and signified ‘lonely woman’ is not arbitrary. There is a bond between the two which is established through facial expressions and body movements in order to bring out the character’s anguish. There is also the link between the hand gesture and the word it signifies. This bond is between the ‘visual signifier’ and ‘auditory signifier’. Saussure explains this beautifully,
The linguistic entity exists only through the associating of the signifier and the signified. Whenever only one element is retained, the entity vanishes; instead of a concrete object we are faced with a mere abstraction.
Although dance is an abstract art but it moves between abstraction and the obvious.
After dancing the entire line, the dancer picks a word and elaborates on it. And every time the word is said not only as a stand alone word repeated again and again, but also when Pallavi is repeated the dancer depicts a different meaning for it. For example the rendition of ‘aadadani’, meaning woman, is done in two ways. One method is when the singer continuously sings the word ‘aadadani’ during which the dancer goes into detailed description of the character’s beauty. In the dance parlance it is called ‘nakha shikha varnana’ which means toe to head description. The dancer uses different metaphors to illustrate the beauty. For example she says
‘my face is like moon, my hair is as black as the sky, my eye brows are of the shape of a bow, my cheeks are like mirror. The shape of my chin is like the crescent moon, my lips are like petals of the lotus, my forehead is like half moon, my neck is in the shape of a conch’
This phenomenon is explained very succinctly by Saussure.
When Gentleman is repeated several times during a lecture the listener has the feeling that same expression is being used each time and yet the variations in utterance and intonation make for appreciable phonic differences in diverse contexts….a word can express quite different ideas without compromising its identity. … Each utterance is a new phonic act and a new psychological act. The bond between the two uses of the same word depends neither on material identity nor on sameness of meaning but on elements which must be sought after and which will point up the rue nature of linguistic units.
After giving a detailed description of physical beauty of the character she moves on to explain how intelligent she is, how cheerful she is. The purpose here is to communicate the idea that the character has so many qualities but still all of that is a waste because there is no one with whom she can share either her beauty or her intellect. Such kind of exposition is termed as gudaartha abhinaya which means hidden meaning, wherein the dancer slowly meanders between different sub-texts. As Saussure says
The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is not to create a material phonic means for expressing ideas but to serve as a link between thought and sound ,
What is unique to a dance performance of a text is the ability to project the complete opposite meaning of the text in order to bring out the meaning of the same which is called vipareerthartha abhinaya. Towards the end of this particular song the dancer who has been through all the Charanams describing the futility of being a woman caught in the web of loneliness, tells her friends ‘I will wear all the jewellery I have, I will dress up in the most expensive attire and decorate my house in the most beautiful way’ when in the background the singer is actually singing the Pallavi ‘Aadadani janmamettina phalamemi, Athivaro Vyarthamamma’ is an example of how the dancer weaves the word and the meaning in a peculiar way in order to bring out the purport of the lyrics. In this way she creates a new text through dance over a given text which is understood as meta-poetry.
What is unique about this kind of a presentation is that the dancer can move back and forth in between the text. During a charanam, which is the stanza after the Anupallavi the dancer can dance the whole charanam once and then move back and forth dancing to one word or phrase repeatedly. Saussure says that ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others’. This is exactly what happens in the dance performance. Even when the dancer is elaborating on one word the images she uses have co-relation to the context and the lyrics. The sole purpose is bringing as many meanings out of the text in order to interpret it in an aesthetic form. This is unique to Indian tradition which celebrated the relationship between the poetry the melody and the dance. The web of interpretations which a dancer creates is not to complicate the meaning of the text but to delve deep into it in order to engage with it in many ways. This also opens up the creative, mental and aesthetic faculties of the audience if they are receptive to the dance - which is why in Indian aesthetics a receptive member in the audience is called ‘patra’, the container. If the patra is empty one can put some content in it. Similarly if the audience is fully present with the dancer then the dancer can ‘pour’ her knowledge through her dance into the minds of the audience.
Conclusion:-
How sensitive and attentive the audience is towards a performance is deeply connected to how much it lends itself for intense involvement with the art. When Vilasini Natyam evolved the society was very relaxed. People’s attention span was more. There were no alternate methods of entertainment. And the creative and cognitive ability of the people to engage with ideas, to enjoy the intricacies of the meanings, to connect the word with the melody and then see it flower through body movements was very high. Saussure says ‘Every means of expression used in society is based, in principle, on collective behaviour’. This is also true in classical art. The metaphors used in order to give a fuller meaning of a word are connected to nature because the art grew in a society which not only worshipped, and celebrated nature but also communicated with it. But in today’s age when technology rules everybody’s lives in some form or the other and people seldom connect to nature it becomes a challenge for the dancer to bridge the gap between the art and the audience.
Vilasini Natyam and many other traditional dance forms are like languages which communicate by engaging different human faculties at different levels simultaneously. It is a highly scientific yet artistic way of understanding a text and moving beyond it in order to create one’s own interpretations of it through imagination because ‘Without language thought is a vague, unchartered nebula.’ (Saussure , 112)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. De Vito, Joseph A. 1994 Human Communication (6th edition), New York: Harper Collins Colege Publications
2. Ferdinand de Saussure 1966 Course in General Linguistics Tr. by W. Baskin . New York: McGraw Hill.
Vilasini Natyam is the ancient dance form of the temple dancers of Andhra Pradesh which was practiced for several centuries in different parts of Southern and South–East India. These dancers occupied a high position in society as they were well versed in ancient religious texts, classical literature and mythology. They also were exceedingly talented musicians and dancers. Till late 19th century they received patronage from the temple, court and the intelligentia of society. And they also occupied a high stature in the eyes of the general pubic because of their calibre. The Devadasi system slowly degenerated due to several sociological reasons. The colonial rule added to this process and final blow came in the form of the Devadasi Abolition Act passed in 1950s which pushed these talented artistes into penury as they were thrown out of their profession overnight. Many devadasis went into oblivion and their art was shunned from the society for several decades till dance scholars and practitioners researched and brought their art back to the modern day proscenium.
Dancer-scholar Swapnasundari under the guidance of art historian Dr. Arudra went into researching and recasting the art of the Andhra Devadasis. After years of interacting with and learning from these erstwhile temple dancers she collated and re-formulated the discipline of the dance which was re-christened as Vilasini Natyam. It is presented in the modern times with utmost authenticity keeping in mind the present sensibilities of the modern audience. Originally this dance was performed in three contexts - in the temple as a ritual, in court and private chambers as an intellectually and aesthetically stimulating art and for the general public in dance –drama format wherein the sole purpose was ‘infotainment’. But in contemporary society the effort is to only present the art of Devadasis without reinstating the sociological practise of Devadasi system.
The essay tries to capture a glimpse in the wide array of the repertoire of Vilasini Natyam by looking at the process of how a text is communicated through body movements and facial expressions. The example taken here is that of a Padam - a love lyric. It is set to a tune and a simple rhythm. The tune is appropriately chosen keeping in mind the lyrics and the predominant mood of the song. Most of these lyrics were written hundreds of years back but they are still able to relate to a contemporary audience because human emotions are still the same. The imagery of the poetry might be ancient but the way it is brought out in the dance cuts across spatial-temporal barriers between the art and the present society. The process of interpretation of the lyric is briefly explained here by using the theories of De Vito Joseph and Saussure.
Following are some of the universals in the process of communication which De Vito Joseph has mentioned. Attempt here to explain the rendition of a Padam by placing it within these universals.
Context :- Since the society has undergone phenomenal changes it is inappropriate to re-instate the Devadasi system but their art is performed for its aesthetic quality in different dance festivals or concerts. The Padam is presented as a part of an evening performance in front of invited audience. Most of these love lyrics are written in Telugu because that was the language which was predominantly used by the Andhra Devadasis. While originally the devadasi did not explain the song and straight away went into its performance today’s dancer explains the meaning of the lyrics in English or any language which is understood by the audience even if some of them know Telugu. It is also important to state here that Telugu itself has undergone several changes over the years hence the language which is spoken now is not the same language which was practiced several decades or centuries back. Hence it becomes necessary for the dancer to explain the meaning of the words and place it within a well structured context.
Setting of the performance :-It is characteristic of Vilasini Natyam tradition that the Padam is performed sitting on the ground or on a platform. This is done in order to place maximum stress on the facial expressions which become the main ‘channel of communication’. The dancer does use her hand gestures and upper torso according to the meaning of the word but the main focus of the manner of performance is to explore the possibilities and techniques of facial expressions. Traditionally the expertise of the Devadasi was tested in this kind of a setting wherein she enthralled the audience for hours. Although the duration of the present day rendition is not that long but traditional setting is kept alive even today.
The dancer is flanked by musicians on either side. This is very critical for the performer because the number of times she repeats a word or a phrase or a line is not fixed. It entirely depends on her how she wishes to communicate the meaning of the words. And this is not pre-planned. Hence the eye contact between the dancer and especially the vocalist is very important. The number of repetitions is primarily guided by the scope of the lyrics but it also depends on the pace, the length and the tune of the song.
The dancer and the audience: - a dance performance is an act of communication which acquires different dimensions because a message is conveyed not only through words but also through melody, rhythm, gestures, expressions and silence. This communication takes place between the dancer, musicians and the audience. Interpreting a text into dance involves coming together of many sensibilities. The dancer is dressed in a neutral costume and make -up throughout the presentation but her enactment of different characters, landscapes, time zones is convincing and communicative only when she interprets the text properly and not just perform it as an action song.
What makes such kind of a performance a multi-layered cognitive process is that all the participants in the act are not on the same level of comprehension. The dancer and the musicians are somewhat at the same artistic plane but each member in the audience relates to the dance according to his /her level of involvement with the dance which is guided by one’s socio-cultural background. Some only enjoy the music, others are enamoured by the get-up of the dancer, for some the lyrics are very engaging but there are few in the audience who actually travel along with the dancer while exploring the text and the sub-text. It is this possibility of syncretic engagement which makes dance forms like Vilasini Natyam timeless.
Feedback and Self-feedback:- The ‘feedback’ process is very intriguing in such performances. The text gradually gets a new lease of life through a collective intellectual and aesthetic engagement of the dancer and the onlooker. The meeting point of the word, the music, the rhythm, the interpretation of the dancer and the involvement of the audience creates a heightened aesthetic experience called the sadharanikaran – the universalisation of the particular. The audience give her their feedback after the performance but during the performance there are different emotional reactions which people encounter within themselves. For example if the dancer is performing the role of a devotee addressing the Lord there are people in the audience who cry in reverence. The devotion in dancer evokes such powerful responses in the audience that they actually ‘see’ their God in the eyes of the dancer. The ‘feedback’ happens very powerfully when the audience feel choked with veneration.
The ‘self feedback’ of the dancer reaches artistic heights when the camaraderie between her and the musicians is excellent. It also gets affected by the audiences’ response which she feels intuitively.
The feedback process is also guided by the nature of the society. Art cannot survive in isolation and no matter how aesthetic it is in its content art is influenced by the cultural factors which also effect the social environment. Hence the dancer and the audience who are also a part of bigger socio-cultural set-up have to constantly mediate between their connections with the art and their interaction with other forms of communication which are omnipresent.
II
Saussure’s principles of communication are used to understand how the text is ‘deconstructed’ by the dancer in order to re-construct different meanings. Before actually going into the actual text it is necessary here to mention his ideas about language and society and how a language evolves with time. Saussure says
No matter what period we choose or how far back we go, language always appears as a heritage of the preceding period. A particular language is always the product of historical forces and these forces explain why the sign is unchangeable i.e. why it resists any arbitrary substitution.
This aspect is crucial to understand not only the language used in dance performance but also dance as a language of classical society now being used in modern times. Many debates have happened between dancers about the relevance of a classical dance form in modern era as dance cannot exist in isolation and there is a dialectical relationship between the art, artiste and the society. But after lot of discussion it has been accepted that the aesthetic quality of such art forms make them timeless and also boundary-less. There are umpteen examples of how an Indian dance form is accepted with lot enthusiasm on a foreign land not just for its exotic presentation format but also the content. As mentioned earlier the dance rendition of a lyric is coming together of word, sound, gesture, meaning and rhythm. It is not a linear ‘labelling exercise’ which is what makes classical dance different from an action song. In Saussure’s words,
Some people regard language when reduced to its elements as a naming process only – a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names. .. It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before the words.
There are no ready made ideas in a classical dance performance of padam. There is a structure within which the dancer contextualises her character, the setting, and the time period but when she engages with the lyrics it is completely impromptu.
As mentioned earlier the attempt here is to understand how a Padam is interpreted. It initially begins with the Raga (musical scale in which the lyric is tuned) played on the flute or the violin during which the dancer slowly enters and takes her position on the stage. She begins with singing the opening line in order to set the pace of the song. This is very crucial as the tempo is decided according to the meaning and tune of the lyrics so that the dancer gets enough scope to expand her ideas. But once the tempo is set in the beginning it does not change during the performance.
To illustrate how a dancer communicates the meaning let me use an example. The opening lines of this Telugu Padam are
‘ Aadadani janmamettina phalamemi, Athivaro Vyarthamamma ’
‘ What is the use of being born as a woman O Lady it is an utter waste’
The song is tuned in Sahana Raga which is generally rendered with lot of pathos and is set to 7 beats which gives the song a lilting cadence. This is done with the purpose of bringing out the protagonist’s pain. The following lines of the song tell us that she is married to a person who is very rich and has a lot of property. He bestows her with lot of jewellery and clothing but she asks her friends ‘what is the use of all this if he does not pay any attention to me and spend few moments of togetherness.’ The opening two lines which are called Pallavi set the mood of the song. Following two lines are Anupallavi
‘Meddalu Middelu mendu galiginanemi, Eedaina Vibhunito Kudi Undaka Pote’
‘What is the use of having palatial houses with rooftops, if my man is not with me’
Anupallavi states the ‘crux’ of the situation. And rest of the stanzas called the ‘Charanams’ elaborate the problem stated in Pallavi and Anupallavi wherein each time the dancer finishes the Charanam she comes back to the Pallavi like a refrain.
The progression of performance :- The dancer enacts the opening line only with her eyes and facial expressions. Then she uses minimal hand gestures to again give the literal meaning known in theory of Abhinaya (expressional art) as ‘Padartha’ [ pada+artha which means meaning of the word]. Even then it is not a uni-dimensional exercise as the language does not hang in some vacuum. Moreover what give this kind of a rendition, an added dimension are the gestures and expressions. Relating this to what Saussure said,
‘linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name but a concept and sound image the latter is not a material sound, a purely physical thing but the psychological imprint of the sound the impression that it makes on our senses’
In this example when the dancer says what is the use of being born as a woman? It is not literally the word ‘woman’ which is meant here but the attributes of being left alone, being treated as a piece of furniture in the house which actually point to her predicament of being born as a woman. Hence the link between the signifier ‘aadadaani’ and signified ‘lonely woman’ is not arbitrary. There is a bond between the two which is established through facial expressions and body movements in order to bring out the character’s anguish. There is also the link between the hand gesture and the word it signifies. This bond is between the ‘visual signifier’ and ‘auditory signifier’. Saussure explains this beautifully,
The linguistic entity exists only through the associating of the signifier and the signified. Whenever only one element is retained, the entity vanishes; instead of a concrete object we are faced with a mere abstraction.
Although dance is an abstract art but it moves between abstraction and the obvious.
After dancing the entire line, the dancer picks a word and elaborates on it. And every time the word is said not only as a stand alone word repeated again and again, but also when Pallavi is repeated the dancer depicts a different meaning for it. For example the rendition of ‘aadadani’, meaning woman, is done in two ways. One method is when the singer continuously sings the word ‘aadadani’ during which the dancer goes into detailed description of the character’s beauty. In the dance parlance it is called ‘nakha shikha varnana’ which means toe to head description. The dancer uses different metaphors to illustrate the beauty. For example she says
‘my face is like moon, my hair is as black as the sky, my eye brows are of the shape of a bow, my cheeks are like mirror. The shape of my chin is like the crescent moon, my lips are like petals of the lotus, my forehead is like half moon, my neck is in the shape of a conch’
This phenomenon is explained very succinctly by Saussure.
When Gentleman is repeated several times during a lecture the listener has the feeling that same expression is being used each time and yet the variations in utterance and intonation make for appreciable phonic differences in diverse contexts….a word can express quite different ideas without compromising its identity. … Each utterance is a new phonic act and a new psychological act. The bond between the two uses of the same word depends neither on material identity nor on sameness of meaning but on elements which must be sought after and which will point up the rue nature of linguistic units.
After giving a detailed description of physical beauty of the character she moves on to explain how intelligent she is, how cheerful she is. The purpose here is to communicate the idea that the character has so many qualities but still all of that is a waste because there is no one with whom she can share either her beauty or her intellect. Such kind of exposition is termed as gudaartha abhinaya which means hidden meaning, wherein the dancer slowly meanders between different sub-texts. As Saussure says
The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is not to create a material phonic means for expressing ideas but to serve as a link between thought and sound ,
What is unique to a dance performance of a text is the ability to project the complete opposite meaning of the text in order to bring out the meaning of the same which is called vipareerthartha abhinaya. Towards the end of this particular song the dancer who has been through all the Charanams describing the futility of being a woman caught in the web of loneliness, tells her friends ‘I will wear all the jewellery I have, I will dress up in the most expensive attire and decorate my house in the most beautiful way’ when in the background the singer is actually singing the Pallavi ‘Aadadani janmamettina phalamemi, Athivaro Vyarthamamma’ is an example of how the dancer weaves the word and the meaning in a peculiar way in order to bring out the purport of the lyrics. In this way she creates a new text through dance over a given text which is understood as meta-poetry.
What is unique about this kind of a presentation is that the dancer can move back and forth in between the text. During a charanam, which is the stanza after the Anupallavi the dancer can dance the whole charanam once and then move back and forth dancing to one word or phrase repeatedly. Saussure says that ‘Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others’. This is exactly what happens in the dance performance. Even when the dancer is elaborating on one word the images she uses have co-relation to the context and the lyrics. The sole purpose is bringing as many meanings out of the text in order to interpret it in an aesthetic form. This is unique to Indian tradition which celebrated the relationship between the poetry the melody and the dance. The web of interpretations which a dancer creates is not to complicate the meaning of the text but to delve deep into it in order to engage with it in many ways. This also opens up the creative, mental and aesthetic faculties of the audience if they are receptive to the dance - which is why in Indian aesthetics a receptive member in the audience is called ‘patra’, the container. If the patra is empty one can put some content in it. Similarly if the audience is fully present with the dancer then the dancer can ‘pour’ her knowledge through her dance into the minds of the audience.
Conclusion:-
How sensitive and attentive the audience is towards a performance is deeply connected to how much it lends itself for intense involvement with the art. When Vilasini Natyam evolved the society was very relaxed. People’s attention span was more. There were no alternate methods of entertainment. And the creative and cognitive ability of the people to engage with ideas, to enjoy the intricacies of the meanings, to connect the word with the melody and then see it flower through body movements was very high. Saussure says ‘Every means of expression used in society is based, in principle, on collective behaviour’. This is also true in classical art. The metaphors used in order to give a fuller meaning of a word are connected to nature because the art grew in a society which not only worshipped, and celebrated nature but also communicated with it. But in today’s age when technology rules everybody’s lives in some form or the other and people seldom connect to nature it becomes a challenge for the dancer to bridge the gap between the art and the audience.
Vilasini Natyam and many other traditional dance forms are like languages which communicate by engaging different human faculties at different levels simultaneously. It is a highly scientific yet artistic way of understanding a text and moving beyond it in order to create one’s own interpretations of it through imagination because ‘Without language thought is a vague, unchartered nebula.’ (Saussure , 112)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. De Vito, Joseph A. 1994 Human Communication (6th edition), New York: Harper Collins Colege Publications
2. Ferdinand de Saussure 1966 Course in General Linguistics Tr. by W. Baskin . New York: McGraw Hill.
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