Legendary Bharatnatyam artist Rukmini Devi Neelakanda Sastri. She was the most important revivalist of Bharatanatyam from its original ‘Sadhir’ style prevalent amongst the temple dancers, the Devadasis, she also worked for the re-establishment of traditional Indian arts and crafts. She espoused the cause of Bharata Natyam which was considered a vulgar art. She ‘sanitised’ and removed the inherent eroticism of Sadhir to make it palatable to Victorian British morality and indian upper caste elites.
She met the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in 1928 when she was in Bombay for a performance. Then they also traveled on the same ship to Australia and the two women forged a friendship over the course of the journey. Inspired by Pavlova, Rukmini decided to learn ballet and for a while trained under the dancer Cleo Nordi. Later on Pavlova advised Rukmini to focus on discovering traditional Indian dance forms, and thus Rukmini turned towards Bharatnatyam. She began learning the dance form, first from ‘Mylapore Gowri Amma’, and later from ‘Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai’. She was almost 30 when she started learning dance but was a very dedicated learner.
Originally known as sadhir, the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam owes its current name, to E Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale, who has been instrumental in modifying mainly the Pandanallur style of Bharatanatyam and bringing it to the global attention, and removing the extraneous sringaar and erotic elements from the dance, which were the legacy of its Devadasi association in the past. She changed the very face of the dance, by introducing musical instruments, like violin, set and lighting design elements, and innovative costumes, and jewellery inspired by the temple sculptures.
Just as for her teacher she approached noted gurus in various arts and classical dances, for her productions, Rukmini Devi approached noted scholars for inspiration and classical musicians and artists, for collaboration, the result was the creation some of pioneering dance dramas-based on Indian epics like the Valmiki’s Ramayana and Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda. Starting with famous dance dramas like, ‘Sita Swayamvaram’, ‘Sri Rama Vanagamanam’, ‘Paduka Pattabhishekam’ and ‘Sabari Moksham’, followed by ‘Kutrala Kuruvanji’, ‘Ramayana’, ‘Kumara Sambhavam’, ‘Gita Govindam’ and ‘Usha Parinayam’.
“We do not know how to create consciously the beautiful things we once created unconsciously. The simple potter keeps on making beautiful pots. The weaver knows colours and if you ask him to make something modern he will do something ugly. But if you leave him to do his ordinary way, he will make something beautiful unconsciously.”
She felt that we complicate things and lose simplicity. The creation of beauty was part of everyday life. And the spiritual background which is simplicity, she felt, had that high aspiration, a deep love of an ideal, a goal and an unconscious but intelligent impulse to express it in our everyday lives. She believed that the creation of beauty was as much a spiritual expression as worship in a temple.
She believed that the arts help in the development of all aspects of life. The presentation of beauty through dance, music, painting, sculpture, etc., which are channels of that beauty, and channels of spiritual thought stimulate the minds and emotions of people. She wrote: “Right emotion is the essence of evolution. It is a very dangerous thing to be brilliant or clever without knowing how to use imagination without knowing how to control emotion, for no matter how clever a man is, he still remains primarily a creature of emotion. Therefore it is necessary that the emotions become stimulated in the right way. There needs to be a fine tuning to see and hear the great and the true. This can be done only through one channel — by attuning ourselves to beauty, to greatness.” She proved time and again that her roots were firmly planted in India, and in fact she never veered away from a lifestyle which was typically South Indian, which included a strict vegetarian diet, a passion for Carnatic music (a trained singer herself), a taste for authentic handwoven Kanchipuram silk saris, which became her fashion statement, and handcrafted temple jewellery. It is not surprising that for decades she was an active votary of vegetarianism.
She said: “India must be an example to the whole world. Today we are trying to be a bad copy of the West. We have so much we can give the modern world, but in order to give great gifts we must have a true ideal of great refinement, a refinement of the mind, of the soul…”
She observed, we should never say that a thing is not modern. The very word MODERN is not Indian. It is an English word, expressing an un-Indian spirit. Our word is ETERNITY not modernism.
Often Rukmini Devi is described as the one who saved the art of Bharatanatyam dance from extinction. Some scholars also like to think that she appropriated the dance from the hereditary dance community. She voiced her observations clearly: “The art very nearly died as it had become a means for remembering the body rather than of forgetting it. Yet those whom the world denounced as having become corrupt gave themselves up with devotion and sincerity to the art they loved. The art was their very life and they worked and sacrificed their bodies for perfecting the art.” The fact remains that a deep love for dance inspired her to go to its roots and study it with diligence with gurus at a time when crucial changes were taking place in our society with regard to temple dancers. “Whenever there is a decay in civilisation we also see a degradation of the arts as we see in our country today… We have to make every effort to understand not only the exterior form of that Culture but the spirit that gave birth to the form. The essential feature of India’s art is that it is founded on a spiritual outlook,” she said. She often emphasised that “ spirituality” was above religion. “In India there is no religion apart from our daily lives.”
Such clear thinking moulded her vision for dance and thus was born the institution Kalakshetra. She was the first to understand the value of a school for dance. And she gathered around her not only the expert teachers of dance, but also the great musicians and scholars of her time who could compose the music and select the lyrics for her path-breaking experiment — the adaptation of Valmiki Ramayana for dance dramas. This was her most important contribution to dance and one which brought about the blossoming of all her creative energy. What indeed did this venture showcase? The Ramayana series composed by her over several decades helped her to visualise poetry as dance, make it dramatic, melodic and musically vibrant, and visually appealing.
Daring to innovate, she took ideas from the old Bhagavatamela dance-dramas, and vested them with her own choreographic ideas. Boldly she introduced Kathakali techniques for male characters such as Ravana and Hanuman. Her wide travels to far-eastern countries inspired her stage craft. Her innate good taste guided her designs in costume and accessories. Till today people flock to see the Kalakshetra Ramayana shows as well as other dance-dramas enjoying the old-world charm, the melodies composed by the stalwarts, including Mysore Vasudevachar, his grandson Rajaram, Papanasam Sivan and others.
For her, purana in a creative work was a tool to express the inner self. “We cannot dance the dance of Krishna unless we believe in Sri Krishna, unless at least for the time being, we become one with Krishna. If we do not believe in Him what is the use of dressing up and dancing. The outward form should be a visible sign of the inward grace.”
– Courtesy Lakshmi Viswanathan
