 |
| Madhubanti Chanda |
Madhubanti Chanda, final year MVA Art History, MSU Baroda is
an accomplished Bharatanatyam exponent with so many performances to her credit.
A graduate in BA Hon. in History from the Lady Shree Ram College, New Delhi,
when it comes to the curatorial project, Madhubanti cannot think anything but
dance, that means a performing body in space, not really meant to be opened for
the audience to take the position that they want to but to manipulate their
position vis a vis her performing body, a reversal of the proscenium theatre or
temple courtyard stages where Bharatanatyam is often performed. The project she
has in hand is titled ‘Nazariya’- A Way of Looking perhaps. Once again she
would like to contradict the ways of seeing. In the concept that she presents before
the class room/board room, Madhubanti explains how she wants to make use of the
space as a neutral entity made available to the body in performance but to
arrest the audience movement in certain ways so that the performing body could
be completely in control of the audience not by its ability to move the finer
feelings among the audience but by its authority over their gazes. Here is the
core of her project. According to Madhubanti, she wants to re-present the age
old Devadasi system, though which is obsolete now, has its stigma attached even
to the modern performing bodies of the Bharatanatyam dancers, if not overtly,
covertly. In her concept note she delineates how the Devadasi system, giving
away of girls as God’s servants, who would later become accomplished singers
and dancers not only servicing the Gods but also the people who wield godly
power in the world.
Devdasi Parmpara or system had its pros and cons. There used
to be tremendous exploitation of women in this field at the same time the
exponents in the field had high reputation as fine artistes. They often became
consorts of the rich and feudal patrons, paving way to the collapse of the safe
family system and also it had given a false aura of being the incubator of high
end prostitution. Whatever be the reason the Devdasis, reputed dancers and
singers were looked down upon by the society as a sort of decorated ‘sex
workers’ and from the polite societies it became a shrill demand for the
abolishing of the Devdasi system. Immediately after the Independence of the
country, some of the conservative legislators moved against the Devdasi system
and in one stroke of legislation, exactly the British had rendered several
tribes into criminal tribes, made Devdasi system a criminal offence. The sudden
fall from grace affected the dancers and singers and it took many years of
efforts from the modern exponents of Bharatnatyam like Balasaraswati and later
by Rukmini Arundale to regain the lost glory for this dance form. The body of
the performer/dancer was considered a polluted body and in her curated
performance Madhubanti wants to focus on the idea of ‘pollution’ and how the
stigma is held proudly by the contemporary dancers like late Chandralekha in
whose stage appearance each performance becomes a cleansing act not only of the
imagined body of the dancers but also the ‘polluted’ minds of the
public/audience.
The concept is clear though the choreography is yet to take
shape. Madhubanti does not want to ‘cleanse’ her body for the sake of the
audience’s catharsis, on the contrary what she wants to do is to act out the
cleansing process before the audience, the process neither as a self cleansing
one nor as a cleansing of the audience. It is something in between where the
performer’s body gains complete power and the agency of her body is snatched
away from the gazing public, and the audience is rendered completely powerless
even with their power to gaze is snatched away from them. Madhubanti identifies
three spaces for her performance where the curatorial part is more about
curating her acts as well as curating the spaces and audience response. She
takes up the responsibilities of an artist and curator at once. Madhubanti has
to manage space, live singers and any other partners in action if need be. In
the initial presentation Madhubanti has three spaces in her mind, the famous
pond right in the middle of the faculty, the old building and the sort of stage
that the old building provides. Madhubanti wants to start the act at the banks
of the ponds where she would start her cleansing act by pouring water (dirty
water!) over her choreographed body in movement. From there she would like to
move towards the old building and come out to the stage through a room which is
currently used as studios by a couple of student artists. But Madhubanti is
adamant on one thing: When she finishes her cleansing act, she does not want
the audience to see her frontal body but the gaze should be falling from the
right end of the lawn where she anticipates the public would gather. She wants
the collective gaze fall on her the right side of her face.
Here is a problem, with no instructions given to the
audience (as she does not intend to give any instructions) and the audience
with a free will (as I said in the last article about the audience with
individual ‘I’s) may not move the way the performer wants. Then there is the
second problem. The girls (art students) who are working in the hexagonal room
adjacent to the stage are not ready to give ‘their studio’ to Madhubanti for a
few hours. I see it as a sheer case of non-cooperation, lack of sympathy and
arrogance. But that is the challenge of the curator-performer. Madhubanti
immediately re-works her strategy. Priyanka Kundu is already preparing her
‘Object—Icon’ project in the main central hexagonal hall of the old building.
Priyanka being a great friend of Madhubanti agrees to ‘enter into a temporary
collaboration’ with Madhubanti in realizing the ‘Nazariya’ project. Somehow,
Madhubanti would incorporate the magical ambience created by Priyanka in her
curatorial project. Her search for alternatives continues for a few more days
and we see a small whirlwind of a Madhubanti moving in the campus making
negotiations with different people in different levels. She keeps coming back
to the board room to individual and group consultations.
Then happen the magical turn of events. As I have mentioned
before, this is the Garba time. The faculty Garba is very famous in Baroda.
Former students who are now nearly seventy years old, driven by nostalgia flock
back to the faculty like migratory birds during these days and a huge interest
has been developed around this Garba of veterans and contemporaries in the
city. After the Indian festivals have been radically politicised during the
last few years and the reporting of unfortunate incidents, the faculty Garba
now takes place in a fortified space and the attending of it needs special
passes, registrations and so on. So the workers now erect temporary
fortifications using bamboos and clothes. Suddenly it becomes a blessing in
disguise for Madhubanti. She could now manipulate her audience easily as they
cannot surround the building from all sides. She just needs to make an illusion
that the performance is going to be in the foyer of the old building. She gets into
action and with three spaces available to her as different from the original
plan, Madhubanti’s curatorial surprise is intact and she initially thinks of
three repeated performances and finally decides to have only one focused
performance on 21st morning. As the ‘cleansing’ act at the pond is
now rendered obsolete, I suggest her to add the same component in another
pre-recorded performance and Madhubanti being a contemporary choreographer and
dancer understands the possibility of immediately.
Now, Madhubanti has the following components in her
curatorial project, Nazariya: a live performance by her and a live music as
background score not really as accompaniment music as in the traditional sadir.
A video element in one of the side halls where we see in a hollow vacant hall,
Madhubanti is seen in a choreographed act of cleansing in extremely tight
contemporary dance clothes. A possible wide range of public/audience. Priyanka Kundu’s curated space. The
corridors. The portico. It’s time to start the performance. As the live music
is at the portico (right at the entrance of the building that directly leads to
Priyanka’s space) the audience gathers there and many of them including the
chief guests take their seats in the available spaces. A new element comes into
play. Another painting student comes in the costume of a traditional pujari and
does some pujas and gives holy water from brass pots to the audience. The live
music is on. With these two components working well a traditional temple
atmosphere is automatically created. Everyone is anticipating the appearance of
the performer/curator/dancer from somewhere but nobody knows from where.
Suddenly, when all attention is on the music and the pujari performer,
Madhubanti appears in her red Bharatnatyam costumes at the main walkway of the
faculty as if she manifested there from nowhere. I could see her initial idea
working perfectly. With no knowledge of her next move, the audience remains
where it is and turns their gaze at her side. Lo! The collective gaze falls
exactly on her right side! She moves further in slow, rhythmic and lascivious
fashion with her eyes drilled into the horizon. Each time her gaze shifts it
grills into a person or into a space.
Now the members of the audience are in trouble. They do not know
whether to move along with her or remain seated to let her finish her whatever
and come to the foyer space where the ‘real’ action would take place, as they
think. Madhubanti now enters the building through the steps on the side and she
holds a male member of the audience and looks into his eyes; he shudders
visibly. Madhubanti imposes (in a way implicates) the collective accusations
against a performing body (the Devdasi body) generated by the society on to the
hapless young man; I find the shuddering of his body as the shuddering of the
society when it comes in direct confrontation with a powerful performing body
of the Devdasi. From there Madhubanti enters the room where the video element
in played. She just lingers there for a few seconds with a host of enthusiastic
youngsters following her silently, with their mobile phone cameras on. Then she
crosses another threshold into Priyanka’s magical space. The transcending of
the spaces is very important here (both as a choreographic need and a deliberate
curatorial decision); Madhubanti starts her performance in a non-space (a walk
way), then she climbs the steps (as if to a stage), then she comes in ‘touch’
with the male gazer (the patron) and she crosses over to a new vacant hall
where a self cleansing is virtually performed in the video and her crossing of
the space becomes a sort of washing herself in the mythical Ganges. Then the
other threshold to be crossed to the divine space (Dev/God’s space-Priyanka’s
space) and from there she emerges to the portico. The music goes on without
dominating or distracting the attention from the performance. Madhubanti wafts
through the corridors (the liminal space between life and performace) and
finally comes down to the earth, the portico. She bows before the pujari/priest
and he blesses her (which would bring her scathing criticism during the
de-briefing). She continues her dance; not really a Bharatnatyam dance but
carefully crafted as well as spontaneous movements which would evoke different
emotional responses among the audience and at the same time possibility of the
body in performance).
Madhubanti enthrals the audience with her every enigmatic
presence and she walks off into infinity or obscurity, depending on the mind of
the viewer but I would say she walks into glory as it would prove that this
curatorial effort has given her a lot of confidence that she would perform
another ‘curated’ performance in the same space within days, this time curated
by another fellow student and cub curator, Chandni Guha Roy. Madhubanti’s idea
as a curator-performer is well conveyed in this project. She could push her
idea of the allegedly polluted body of the performer/dancer and also the idea
of cleansing without distributing pamphlets or curatorial notes. The biggest
criticism however that she gets after the project presentation is regarding her
re-assertion of the male dominance by accepting the blessings of the priest.
But according to her, it is an act of ‘quotation’ not an act of real ‘writing’.
This particular part of the act is a scripture that is meant to generate a
point at its religious or social connotations. It is a quotation taken out of
the dominant discourse of the Devdasi system. It is not really a celebration of
the male gaze or male patron of the system. Besides, the point according to
Madhubanti is the framing the very act of criminalizing the Devdasi system. It
amounts to criminalizing anything fine, tender and aesthetical. Reducing the
dancing body into a sexual body is the problem of the erstwhile discourse. But
in the changed scenario, decriminalization of the performing female body or the
female body in any performance should be done, demands Madhubanti.
Curatorial lessons learnt: One, when a curator doubles
herself as a performer, the responsibility increases than a curator curating
the works of other artists. Two, especially when a curator-performer wants to
incorporate a series of spaces with disparate meanings and connotations, larger
negotiations with the space as well as performance are needed. Three, unexpected
unavailability of spaces could redefine the performance/project for advantageous
ends and results, so trust in your ability to move the space than the space’s
innate meanings. Four, if the performance is really powerful and curiosity
could be generated around it, the audience would respond to the curatorial work
the way curator wants. Catching the public with different ‘I’s for temporary
negotiations is the success of such projects.
No comments:
Post a Comment