“Crossing Milestones” provides a flashback of the landmark First International Conference on the Emergence, Development and Future Directions of Bharatanatyam in Singapore & Malaysia – an event that was organised by N Dance & Yoga in partnership with Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society, with support from NUS Centre For the Arts and the National Arts Council. We include excerpts of reports by V.V.Ramani, Dr. Maha Sripathy, Aditi Shivaramakrishnan and Hemalatha Ramani.
http://ndancedialogues.com/crossing-milestones/
Click here to read conference booklet
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BHARATANATYAM IN SINGAPORE 2014
December 6th and 7th 2014
Stephen Riady Centre, National University of Singapore
What does it mean to be a Bharatanatyam practitioner in Singapore and Malaysia in the 21st century? This question formed the crux of a two-day conference held in Singapore recently. Following months of brainstorming and meticulous planning, the ‘First International Conference on the Emergence, Development and Future Directions of Bharatanatyam in Singapore and Malaysia’ opened on December 6th, 2014 under the funded patronage of the National Arts Council and the support of Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society and NUS Centre for the Arts.
Organised by N Dance & Yoga (A Space for Research & Experimentation in Dance & Somatic Practices), conference curator and N Dance & Yoga’s Artistic Director Nirmala Seshadri in her welcome address, asked for critical dialogue of the roots and the increasing socio-cultural situatedness of the form, which has brought to the forefront issues surrounding the complexities of present-day practice and performance and raised interesting trajectories for future transitions.
The event was officially inaugurated by Ms. Kathy Lai, Chief Executive Officer of the National Arts Council of Singapore and witnessed a coming together of internationally renowned Indian classical dance scholars, practitioners and researchers from Malaysia, UK, Chennai, India, USA, Canada, Japan and Singapore. Keynote lectures were presented by Santha Bhaskar (Cultural Medallion recipient and pioneering force in the field of Bharatanatyam in Singapore) and Dr. Urmimala Sarkar (Social Anthropologist and Dance Studies scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India).
Santha Bhaskar traced the growth of Bharatanatyam in the region through her lens as a pioneering force who has engaged actively with the scene and worked at propogating the dance form here for over six decades. Dr. Urmimala Sarkar delved into the different types of identities the Bharatanatyam form engenders in its very practice and performance. She put in perspective the situatedness of the form and its material context and ritual components in relation to the performer and the audience. She critically questioned Bharatanatyam’s role as an accepted medium for affirming embodied knowledge of gender, sexuality, class, caste and community identities.
In his paper ‘Mapping representations of Tamil Devadasi dance in the Malay Peninsula’, Davesh Soneji traced the development of the form through the historical, socio-cultural and economic trajectories of the Indians in Malaya and shows the evolution of Bharatanatyam to its present position. Hari Krishnan’s paper ‘Celluloid Classicism…’ connected the current practice of Bharatanatyam to the history of South Indian cinema. Ann David’s paper on Rati Karthigesu highlighted this dance pioneer who had played a crucial role in bringing acceptability to the practice of the form by middle class girls at the time.
Gauri Krishnan highlighted the importance of Bharatanatyam in the understanding of Singapore’s heritage, while Aparna Nambiar and Lavanya Ramesh discussed the significance of the dance form in the lives of the Indian diaspora here. The position of Bharatanatyam in the sphere of tertiary education was the focus of the presentations of Caren Carino (Head of Dance at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore) and Joseph Gonzales (Dean of Dance at ASWARA, Malaysia). Siri Rama traced the role of Bharatanatyam in the growth of the Indian dance section of the Singapore Youth Festival. In examining the situation of the dance form in the multicultural context of Singapore, Nidya Shanthini Manokara focussed on the ethnicisation of Bharatanatyam in normative practice of the form as well as the implications of its localisation. Wong Chee Meng’s focus was the challenge of intercultural dialogue with reference to Bharatanatyam in Singapore. Sadanand Menon introduced the work of Chandralekha in deconstructing Bharatanatyam and demonstrated how the “ideologically loaded cultural pasts” must necessarily make way for new presentations which encompass the lived realities of this century. Premalatha Thiagarajan spoke on the emergence of male dancers on the Malaysian dance scene. Yoshiaki Takemura suggested that Singapore will have a major role to play in the direction Bharatanatyam will take as a performance art and how it is positioned in this time.
Presentations by practitioners provided insights into the diversity of exploration through the dance form. Through the lens of the body and working through the constructs of phenomenology and hybridity, Nirmala Seshadri discussed the dialogic construction of identity through cross cultural collaborations. Kavitha Krishnan’s lecture-demonstration touched upon the deconstruction and reconstruction of the Bharatanatyam form and the use of Asian contemporary expressions to connect with tradition, while Aravinth Kumarasamy’s video presentation delineated the process and challenges encountered in shifting the solo form into group choreography. Ampili Predeep spoke on choreography through the form in Singapore from a musical standpoint while Kiran Kumar led the discussion into the emergent field of dance and new media.
Roundtable sessions drew in members from diverse sections of the wider society to engage in robust discussions on crucial issues pertaining to the practice of Bharatanatyam in this region. Mention must be made of the fact that many of the speakers and panel chairs at the conference are active members of the World Dance Alliance. In his closing remarks, Sadanand Menon urged the audience to embrace Bharatanatyam as an evolving art form instead of fossilising it by using tradition as an excuse to remain within comfortable boundaries.
The two days proved to be intense and invigorating, triggering dialogue on areas such as history, heritage, identity, present-day teaching/practice/performance, choreographic exploration, education, inter/multiculturalism, negotiation of geographies and visibility, positioning and finally, the re-envisioning of the dance form in Singapore and Malaysia in the 21st century.
(Prepared by the Core Organising Committee, ICBS 2014)
International Conference on Bharatanatyam in Singapore 2014 