As a classical dancer, one is brought up with a lot of dos and don’ts. The longer the list of dos gets, the list of don’ts follows trail. Together, these dos and don’ts define the framework of the art form, its aesthetics, its scope, and its boundaries, to be precise. The lines, gestures, postures, movements, music, costumes, or the themes of expression that are acceptable as belonging to that art form, are defined and established by these ‘boundaries’ evolved through the tradition. Through our journey of learning, we are always aware of these boundaries, but hardly ever venture beyond them. As students, these boundaries of tradition remain rigid for us. We never realise that they are not always what they seem to us. Thousands of artists have worked through the generations to mould these boundaries that have withstood the test of time and come to us – almost as the gospel – sacred, not to be questioned, and not to be touched. And then, there comes a time, when one feels that one has mastered the art enough to set off on one’s own path – like St. Exupery’s Little Prince, travelling with her own set of ideas from planet to planet, getting challenged at every juncture and finally arriving home; a bit wiser than when she had left. 

As a student of Kathak and of English literature, I was always fascinated by the similarities between the two mythologies – Indian and Greek (the differences had always been obvious). Prima facie, the stories may seem different, the characters unfamiliar, but on closer look, somewhere on the emotional plane, they seemed to have strong similarities. I marvelled at how people from across the boundaries of space, and even time, could weave such similar stories, have such common joys, sorrows, jealousies, pains and preoccupations. It became a cherished dream for me to represent some of these characters from Greek mythology through my medium – Kathak. I felt it was closer to home. Since I was brought up on Indian mythology as a classical dancer, I didn’t think a representation of its Greek counterpart would be much different. Naturally, I pounced on the first opportunity of responding to Greek mythology by exploring it through my creative work. And, this exploring dancer that dwells within me, set off one day to explore the other side of the globe through dance. She (metaphorically) visited Greece via France, on the journey of choreographing Les Jumelles du Feu(Twins of Fire), and came back home, as I said, a little wiser than when she had left. Little did I know that my sense of my own limitations and capacities was each day going to be challenged. 

At this point, it is necessary to give a brief of what this project really is. Conceived and written in French by Ms Nandita Wagle, Professor of French at the Department of Foreign Languages, SPPU; the choreography depicts a dialogue between two of the most famous female characters from mythology – Medea of Colchides from Greek mythology, and Draupadi from the Mahabharata.  Les Jumelles du Feu(Twins of Fire) is the story of two women born from fire. Medea – descended from the sun, and Draupadi – born from the sacrificial fire. Both share not only a fiery temper and consuming ambition, but also their fate of having multiple men in their lives – all of whom were unworthy of their love. Ironically enough, both are denied a place in heaven and need the help of the men to secure that place when their earthly lives end. The story is choreographed as a duet dancical-play, whose basic medium remains Kathak while the text plays an equally important role. The two women meet in an ephemeral space and time in their afterlife and share their stories – the most intimate of their doings, their thoughts, fears, hopes, regrets and even longings. Two dancers portray one character each, alternating between dialogue and dance – Medea (played by me) and Draupadi (played by my Gurubhagini and senior disciple of Smt. Shama Bhate, Ameera Patankar).

There were many unique ways in which we met and understood ‘boundary’ in the context of this choreographic production. First and foremost, it was a text-based and text-oriented choreography – nothing unusual about that, as Indian classical dances are very deeply connected to the literature (usually verses and songs of various kinds in a local, Indian language) they use. But, in this case, not only was the language French, but the text itself was a play, with dialogues in the form of verses. As a dancer I am used to interpreting verses and depicting stories, but they were mostly performed solo, where one dancer played all the characters. Even in group choreographies, hardly ever did a dancer portray individual characters in a story. Also, in the classical Kathak tradition, rarely does a dancer dress according to the character (aaharya abhinaya). Nor does she say the dialogues herself (vaachika abhinaya). All the interaction between characters is non-verbal and is depicted strictly with facial expressions (mukhaja abhinaya), gestures, postures and body lines (angika abhinaya). To cut the long story short, expression through traditional medium of dance stays within the limits of mukhajaand angika abhinaya, occasionally going into the aaharya, and never into vaachika, in the same sense as expression in theatre. While choreographing this piece, we made a conscious choice to go beyond our classical expression and crossover into the realm of theatre. Since it was a duet choreography with only two central characters, we decided to portray one role each, to dress to suit our character and to actually speak our dialogues – all of which was beyond the realm of abhinayain the traditional format of our medium.

But, this crossing of boundary, was easier said than done. With the new story, came many new characters and objects – magicians and fire breathing dragons, gowns and tiaras.. and I saw that I had to create gestures to represent these. And when I did create them, I found myself wondering, if what I was showing was really seen for what it was? I found myself struggling to say my lines – not that I had any difficulty memorising them, but simply that movements came more naturally than words! As a dancer, I was simply more used to ‘doing’ to express, than ‘saying’. I fought to keep still while delivering dialogues – gestures would peep in at every line, mudrasovertaking words. I felt like a stranger in my own body – not sure any more of how to stand, what to do with the hands, was my posture right, was it aesthetic enough, and most of all was I really able to convey what I wanted to! The same set of gestures and lines that seemed to give me immense possibilities of expression, felt so limiting! My body felt like a lakshmanrekha that I’d never be able to cross..

Then, after many practice and brainstorming sessions, came the day when I came to terms with this hybrid medium of expression that I had chosen. It seemed I had finally found my peace, when came the more practical question of whether we should deliver the dialogues live, or record them along with rest of the music and just lip-sync on stage. The adventurous bit in me told me to deliver them live and the sceptical one in me constantly brought me back to the reality – I was no actor.. I had no training, no knowledge of dialogue delivery, voice modulation, projection, nothing.. Moreover, I was going to be in and out of dance.. will I be audible if I were to say my lines live after a rigorous sequence of dance? Will both of us as the dancers be able to keep our French diction impeccable? Will we miss our lines in transiting from dance to dialogue and vice-versa? I felt the circle of my scope narrowing around me. Finally, we decided to record the dialogues. One limiting factor was successfully circumvented!

Coming to the music, we soon realised that for the tone of our text, which constantly alternated between proud-sarcastic-reminiscent-regretful and even humorous, strongly classical Indian music would probably not be suitable. There began another search into the ‘beyond’, and then emerged a set of unfamiliar musical tones – Greek wind instruments, cymbals, drums, pipes, and a varied array of tones that set the perfect background for our choreography. From the classical dancers who were used to replicating music note by note and beat by beat through dance, we were slowly evolving into performers, who sometimes anchored themselves in the music and at others treated it as a mere springboard to soar into flights of expression. The process of creating this music was no less exhilarating. Writing the rhythmic notation of each musical phrase, recording it for reference and then waiting to get the final recording.. at times, the sounds of the final recording seemed so different on an unfamiliar instrument, that we wondered if it was the same as original phrases! It gave us a different reality check – our understanding of music was far too limited for us to work independently and get the desired result. Yet, through many adjustments – and even compromises – sometimes in dance, sometimes in music, we arrived at the final score and the choreography was performance-ready!

Meanwhile, there were costumes to be thought of. Medea had to look a Greek sorceress, and Draupadi an Indian princess. Not so difficult for Draupadi, but Medea’s costume was again something from across the border – literally. A western-looking gown that would make a Kathak dancer look a Greek sorceress, without compromising the lines of the dance style.. Ooh! Too many birds to kill in a single stone. Again, many brainstorming sessions later, we arrived at a design. Once again, I experienced new boundaries of inhibition tighten around me as I tried on the jet-black gown, with a netted slit running neck downwards right to my navel. Tiny voices squeaked into my ears – Wearing black on stage? Don’t you think you’re exposing more than necessary (technically, I was more covered with clothes than her royal highness Draupadi!)? Is this interfering with the dance movements? Isn’t it too bold? Will senior dancers and Gurus approve of this? Million lines drawn around me! But we went ahead nevertheless.

Then began the full rehearsals. Our light designer kept on telling us to make conscious use of the available light to our advantage while emoting or rendering our dialogues. ‘Pssst’, said the honest voice within, ‘you have no clue how to.’ As a dancer one is taught to be aware of one’s position on the stage and be generally conscious of the positions of available lights, such that one is never in the dark. But consciously using lights to one’s advantage? A dancer hardly has occasion for it. Definitely not like an actor has. Another limitation reached. And many more followed in various forms. We kept on forgetting to lip sync our lines – kept on losing ourselves in abhinaya; we made a conscious choice to keep a noticeable difference in our body language while dancing and delivering dialogues, and also that of Medea and Draupadi (as much as our classically trained bodies would permit!) – this involved lying down, squatting, sitting with legs spread wide apart or even dangling below the edge of the stage – all this was out of bounds as classical dancers, and we met our bodies with a lot of awkwardness each time we tried something different; we kept on meeting our limitations, our boundaries, in a new form every single day of the process. 

Cut to green rooms on the day of the performance. A hundred questions and doubts that bring a lump to any artist’s throat before the premiere of her experiment: Will the audience understand it? Will they like it? Will they approve of it? Is it right? What if it doesn’t work? What if it is heavily criticised? A dull, nervous buzz in the ears when the music started playing.. and phew! It all went well. So well that the production eventually got invited to France for performances in several institutes and junior colleges. We were physically crossing borders this time, with new inhibitions in addition to the old questions.

The first question that arose – will a European audience relate to Indian mythology? Strong sense of geographical and cultural boundaries weighed upon us. But a solution was right around the corner. Our writer-director quickly came up with a prelude to the performance in the form of story-telling and we were all set to go. In addition to the institutes where we were invited, there were two unusual invitations – unusual for our classical-dancer-sensitivities, not so for France. One for a private concert at home. Another in an art-café/pub. These were the only two places where we could make some additional money through ‘hat collections’, and it could have meant a lot to upcoming artists who were financing their own tour. Yet, the first reaction was – no way! As classical dancers, we are brought up to put ourselves on some sort of a pedestal, where we cannot imagine of performing in less-than-professional set up or spaces, let alone spreading our hats for centimes. One more of the many borders that we hesitate to even approach, forget crossing. Finally, we took the challenge, accepted both these invitations and prepared for France, only to discover that we may not get the technical set up (lights, sound, levels) with which the choreography was conceived. Yet another limitation threatening to thwart our efforts! Still, we persisted and flew to France, carrying our own portable lights and bracing ourselves for whatever lay in store. 

The tour proved to be an eye-opener for the artist in me. Each of the seven spaces that we performed in, was as drastically different from the previous one as possible, not only in terms of its dimensions and technical specifications, but also its nature – a café space in a cellar, a 19^thcentury Parisian apartment, a college auditorium, a cinema hall – we saw it all and danced everywhere. The stage was sometimes too deep or too wide, too tiny or even non-existent. In the Parisian art café, the ceiling above the tiny performing space was so low that we could have touched it with an outstretched arm and the 35-member audience was barely at 5 feet from us. Whereas, in the private performance at our friend’s 19^thcentury apartment, we danced in their living room after pushing all their furniture into the parlour that became the cosy seating space for the 25 audience members. They sat at such an intimate distance from us that we could gaze into each one’s eyes. Some sat on the floor, some on chairs and some even on tables, separated from the performance space by large open doors. Not to mention the open private bar that served as the backdrop for our mythological play! At one of the institutes, we performed in a proper auditorium, with a very wide stage and very sketchy arrangements for lights, with its huge, cold white wall for our backdrop and no wings or levels to break the monotony. The challenge this time was to bring warmth and intimacy to a very open space that was more suited to dry seminars and lectures, than to an artistic venture of this type. With very limited means to shape our performance space, our light designer Apurv Sathe (Pune-based film maker and editor) managed to pull it off quite successfully. Next, we performed at another auditorium shaped like a geode, with the best technical support that we got on this tour. But the stage here was trapezoid, with the wider side shaped like a semi-circle facing the audience. Any performer will easily relate to the difficulty of marking the centre of a semi-circular stage. Moreover, the backdrop here too, was a stark white wall, worse than at the previous auditorium because its continuity was broken by two doors hung with partially broken plastic blinds that served as the only entries to the stage. What a mundane backdrop for the two divine characters! And last but not the least, we performed the finale of this tour at Salle Rabelais – the first cinema hall of the town of Montpellier in South of France. It had all the energy and legacy of a heritage cultural space. Beautiful as it was, it barely suited the needs of our performance. With the heavy, red velvet curtain hanging as the backdrop, the stage was barely 10 feet deep and 50 feet wide, and obviously as high as a cinema hall is! No wings, no backstage – because behind the backdrop was the legendary cinema screen which needed to be kept safe from our dancing hands and feet accidentally damaging it! We cut tiny figures against the rich, red curtain, wary at all times of our positions on stage and their impact on our choreography.

Physically adjusting to all these spaces and making choreographic changes was, I think, lesser of the many challenges and limitations that we faced. The greater challenge was to go beyond our own conditioned expectations of what an ideal performance space should be like. As classical dancers in this day and age, we have somehow forgotten that the roots of our art form lies in intimate, informal spaces like temples and private baithaksof patrons, where technology plays little role in the performance – where sattvaand satvika are the pillars and the rest is aaharyaand only of the secondary importance in a performance. The very thing that is supposed to expand the horizons of our art form – technical assistance of lights, sound, stage design, etc. – threatens to limit its reach by confining dance performances to proscenia. 

Any last doubts about what our limitations as artists were, got washed away by the rich experiences that each of these spaces showered on us. Not to mention the support, warmth and appreciation we received at each of these shows – irrespective of the fact that most of our audience were not very well acquainted with any of the two mythologies. This love and warmth reiterated the fact that art truly helps transcend boundaries – whether the boundaries lie within us or without.

One thing that strongly emerges for me from this experience with choreography, and also from this exercise of putting the whole process into words, is that our boundaries are only as limiting in reality as they are in the mind. In truth, they make the abstract tangible, manifest, real. Imagine if the elements weren’t bound into the physical, would life exist? Boundaries direct.. they teach.. they shape.. they help – even if only to break free. And in the end, they stretch, they expand, they welcome everything within their folds!