What contemporary means to Chandralekha

What contemporary means to Chandralekha

By C.G. Asmara

JAKARTA (JP): When an event such as Art Summit Indonesia 1995:
International Festival on Contemporary Music and Dance is finally
realized and audiences begin to see various styles of dance and
music side by side, night after night, various questions come to
mind. One of those is undoubtedly, "What does it mean to be
contemporary?"

For Indian choreographer Chandralekha, whose group performed
Mahakal - Invoking Time in Teater Arena, Taman Ismail Marzuki on
Sept. 26 and 27, "to be contemporary is not to continue doing the
same classical forms and to remain there only, but to relate them
also to our times."

As she explained to The Jakarta Post, it is "to understand
what you are doing, why you are doing it and the meaning of what
you are doing."

Steeped in classical Bharatanatyam dance training (classical
female dance originating from southern India) from an early age,
Chandralekha began composing contemporary works in the 1980s as a
personal quest to release the performance of traditional dance
form from mechanization and rote. This in turn lead her to the
principles contained in yoga and Indian martial arts, such as
kalaripayattu, and to explore the geometries of body, space, and
time, as she did in her Jakarta performance.

Mahakal was an exploration of time. It invoked an inner time
that slowed down only to pick up again. The reoccurring gestures
suggestive of Nataraja, the cosmic dancer whose perpetual dance
symbolizes both the creation and destruction of the universe, was
a reminder of the continuous nature of time. Unlike the linear
western concept of time, the performance stressed the circularity
of time as symbolized by the serpent with its tail in its mouth
-- without beginning and without end. A sensual birth at the end
of the performance of a twisted figure in an ambiguous erotic
relationship with his "mother" was suggestive of time
reincarnated -- a constant regeneration.

Perhaps the most evocative and powerful scene was of two women
lovingly embracing and caressing each other's feet in slow motion
while flanked by two menacing male figures who were unable to
disturb their sensual "lovemaking". Existing in different
conceptual time frames, the women showed that tenderness can
obliterate time, and that love can exist in the midst of violence
and destruction.

For those familiar with Indian classical dance, Chandralekha's
deconstruction of dance, yoga and martial arts movements into
their most basic gestures and the fragmented presentation of the
accompanying music was perhaps disconcerting at first. However,
it was soon apparent that her explorations into the geometries of
the body and of space were both bold and liberating.

Nucleodanza

Argentina's Nucleodanza performance in Gedung Kesenian on
Sept. 28 and 29 also explored basic gestures and space, although
their presentation wasn't based on a traditional dance forms but
on gestures from everyday life such as walking, sitting and
ironing.

Headed by choreographer Margarita Bali and Susana Tambutti,
who were represented by two pieces each, Nucleodanza's pedestrian
explorations into a given space and situation (two men on a wall;
a couple with two benches; a couple and a table; a woman with a
wall, a piece of fabric, a table, an iron and a frame; and a
threesome with benches) were innovative and technically flawless.

In Como un Pulpo (Like an Octopus), choreographed by Tambutti,
dancers Paula de Luque and Rodolfo Prante explored the
relationship between themselves and a large table. While the
relationship between the couple blossomed and then soured, the
table took on different roles -- as a supporter, as a barrier, as
a possession, as a source for competition. A seemingly endless
range of possible gestures between the dancers and the table were
explored to a backdrop of sampled music that included French
dialogue, South American dance rhythms and coughing.

Similarly, Bali's Tilt provided a surreal look at a woman at
home with an iron. The piece began with dancer de Luque entangled
in a large purple curtain and then followed her travails with a
bright red iron, green table and teal blue picture frame that
would not behave as they should.

Playing with perspective, so at times it was hard for the
audience to tell if it was looking across to the stage or down on
it, de Luque appeared at times to defy gravity as the world
turned upside down.

By the end of the evening, the four pieces (which also
included On the Cornice and Ketiak) invoked an insidious sense of
the overwhelming lack of power humans possess in controlling the
world around them. Not ever quite knowing when a piece began or
how it would end, which end was up and which end was down, Bali
and Tambutti's choreography reflected a restlessness in human
behavior that makes it impossible to ever achieve a sense of
peace and achievement.