The Hindu/Footloose/ Indian Dance: Secular and Religious

The relationship between Religion and Secularism is a complex one. Attached to both terms are several connotations and implications, even within the world of dance. To my surprise, I found that the two co-exist in dance very uncomfortably in the minds of many people who feel the need to expel one or the other. To me, they are not in conflict.

Indian classical dance can be of equal value to a religious and secular person. But first, the term ‘secular’ must be explained, particularly in the Indian context. Professor Rajeev Bhargava, a political theorist, has done extensive work on ‘Indian secularism’ and has highlighted its difference from western models of secularism. It is imperative to explain this because western models of secularism are imprinted in Indian minds.

For the West, secular means non-religious. To ‘secularize’ something is often understood to mean removing the ‘religious’ from it. Politically, western secularism implies total non-interference of the state in the sphere of religion. Therefore, the US government does not interfere even when a man threatens to publicly burn the Quran. Western secularism could even be accused of being anti-religious. The French state banned the headscarf in the name of ‘secularism’.  If we apply these western conceptions of secularism to India and to dance, then sure – the religious and secular cannot co-exist in Indian dance.

But in India, this glaring contradiction between the religious and secular does not exist politically or culturally. The secular is not against religion as such but opposes relations of domination within it.  The Secular state in India is meant to practice what Bhargava calls ‘principled distance’. This means that the state doesn’t endorse any one religion, but at the same time, it interferes with regard to religion to prevent domination and suppression between and within religious groups. For e.g, the Constitution (which proclaims India to be a secular state) abolished Untouchability, a religiously sanctioned social evil. Equally, it may help religions by providing subsidies to educational institutions run by religious groups. This is the essence of Indian secularism. All religions are respected equally but ' respect' means  removing those aspects in every religion that permit or sanction any oppression. Nothing in this suggests hostility to religion. The two coexist happily.

Indian dance too is religious and secular at once. An ancient Tamil padam, ‘Muhattai Kaatiye Deham’ illustrates this. Here, a devotee pleads with Shiva to allow him at least a glimpse. Does he not reveal himself because the devotee lacks knowledge of the Vedas, he asks (implying that he is of a lower caste). He complains that when he comes with his tattered clothes to the temple, he cannot get near enough to the idol to see Him. The devotee dares to ask if Shiva's reluctance is due to some inherent blemish in Him? This is a beautiful religious piece about devotion, but equally it questions oppression within religion, invoking restrictions on dalit entry into temples. This religious piece embodies Indian secularism since critical respect towards religion is crucial to Indian secularity.

The legendary Balasaraswati herself believed that dancing spiritually based compositions of love had the same quality as dancing secularly based compositions that make no reference to the divine (see Douglas M.Knight Jr.). Indian classical dance doesn’t require us to make a choice between the religious and secular. It can be both. Then, this apparent conflict must arise in the minds only of those who either fail to grasp what secularism means or who fail to recognize the magnitude of what Indian classical dance is capable of.

The Hindu/Footloose/ Speaking of Shiva

During Mahashivaratri this year, social networking websites were flooded with dancers hailing it as the day for dancers. This celebratory mood was understandable. According to myth, Shiva is the cosmic dancer. However, in order to explore whether Shiva has always been at the pinnacle of importance in dance, it is interesting to trace Nataraja's history in that context.

Nataraja has played an important role in the South Indian religious tradition for centuries. He is seen in stone sculptures of Badami, and the beautiful bronze sculpture of Nataraja of the Chola era is famous today. Yet, according to Matthew Harp Allen, “Nataraja had never before been asked to play a role quite like the one reserved for him in the 20-century revival”, when Nataraja was accorded a central role.

In the performances of the Devadasis before the 1930s, Shiva in the form of ‘Nataraja’ was not the primary subject or deity of dance. Records suggest that in the early part of the century, dance was more concerned with sringhara prabandhas – songs involving aspects of romantic love. These were songs taken from Jayadeva’s 12th century Sanskrit text Geeta Govinda and other compositions written

between the 17th and 19th centuries. The protagonists of these stories were Krishna or Murugan - two youthful, playful and romantic characters in Hindu mythology. On the other hand, Shiva is generally considered to be more severe than Krishna or Murugan, according to Kalanidhi Narayan. Shiva’s dance, for many, represented the cosmic destruction of all impurities.

There is only one set of poems that paint Nataraja as a lover. These originated in Chidambaram and, according to Allen, were written in light of Shiva being the local, neighbourhood god, and not a “transcendent cosmic deity”. Other poems of the Devadasi era that mention Shiva neither cast him as a cosmic dancer, nor as a lover. These poems come under the genre of ninda stuti. Here, the god is teased by the devotee. In an 18th century Tamil composition, the poet mocks Shiva, saying “You always have one leg raised; Why such lameness, Lord?” The poem goes on to say, ‘That time you kicked Yama, the god of death…did you sprain your leg and have to raise it, limping?’

As Allen points out, it was during the ‘revival’ of dance in the 1930s that Nataraja becomes “both a patron deity for dance and a subject for portrayal in dance”. After dance moved out of temples, the Nataraja idol, over all other gods, began to be placed in the corner of the stage. Additionally, the number of compositions dedicated to and about Nataraja increased radically during the period of this ‘revival’. Old poems about Shiva and Nataraja that were previously performed as vocal recitals were brought into the realm of dance by choreographers in the 1930s and 40s. In fact, according to some, it is during this time, that ‘Natanam Adi Nar’, a currently celebrated kirtanam dedicated to Nataraja, became popular. It is said that Rukmini Devi always ended her recitals with ‘Natanam...’. Equally important in making Nataraja a central figure in Dance was Ananda Coomaraswamy, who wrote ‘The Dance of Shiva’. According to Allen, it has been the most influential publication in the 20th century popularization of Nataraja. 

Nataraja continues to be popular in the 21st century and stands today as an extremely important figure in the world of Indian dance, but clearly this was not always so. In fact, if Indian dance forms have existed at least since the first mention of Devadasis (around the 11th century) then Nataraja’s importance and centrality is incredibly recent. In that light, is it entirely appropriate to call Mahashivaratri the day for dancers in India? Indeed, can and should dance belong to any one particular god?

For the Hindu/Friday review/Stretching beyond Idea

Dance has been broadly defined as movements of the body, a form of expression and social interaction. It is defined in terms of technique. It can be ritualistic and ceremonial.  We dance to express and release emotions, and to explore the body in ways that are different to everyday experience, sometimes by taking the body to extreme limits. Dancers also reinterpret the perception of time and space - time is sometimes determined by music and rhythm, whereas space is defined by the path followed by the dancer and the space the body occupies.

My previous article proposed that dance has a tremendously broad and inclusive definition. In fact, it must have multiple and fluid definitions in order to include new and evolving forms of movement under its umbrella. It is equally important, however, to recognize that what we call dance, although broad and inclusive, is not limitless. Certainly, not everything we do is dance. So, on what basis do we classify something as dance, and something else as not dance? I argue that we can do this on the basis of intention.

Any form of sport also requires stretching the limits of the body to extreme levels. Sportsmen also express themselves freely on the playing field. Yet, it is universally agreed that sports and dance are two distinct categories. I believe the distinguishing factor is intention. In a sport, the emphasis and intention is on the competitive display of skills rather than enjoyment in the movement of the body. This is not to say that dance is not a display of skills, and that watching sports cannot evoke enjoyment in the movement of a sportsman. But I believe that the primary intention of the sportsman and dancer in the above example determine the category of movement to which they belong.

Another example can be a procession or a march. Again, movements here are choreographed and stylized, and powerful emotions of solidarity are expressed. But here again, the primary intention is the mobilization of people, not bodily movement or emotion. Certainly, the focus is not on the enjoyment of movement, or the awareness of how the body moves when marching.

Finally, the leap of a gazelle is sometimes more beautiful and graceful than a dancer’s movement. Here again, intention matters. When a gazelle leaps, it is performing an involuntary genetic movement, and its intention is to escape danger.  The leap is not intended to be an aesthetic self expression through the body.

Thus, one can argue that in order for movement to be considered as dance, the dancer must distinguish it as such and certainly must intend it to be dance. As is the case with the above examples, where a sportsman intends to display his skills to win a match, a person involved in a procession intends to mobilize people for a cause, and a gazelle leaps involuntarily in order to escape death, a dancer must intend to dance.

An American choreographer once choreographed a duet where two men simply stood still on stage or four minutes. It was undoubtedly a form of expression, perhaps even social interaction. It lacked dynamic movement, though. The experimental choreographer, however, intended it to be dance. Therefore, the spectators were aware that it was dance. 

A recent performance by choreographer Jerome Bel involved dialogue, two men sitting across from each other, talking about dance. Some would argue that the performance was theatre, not dance. The performers did dance, though for minimal amounts of time. Mostly, they talked. But the piece was undoubtedly about dance, and the power felt when both dancers depicted death through their respective dance forms was undeniable. This was the intention – to make people think about and experience the different dance forms. This intention allowed the performance to be called ‘dance’. 

To conclude, I contend that in addition to the exploration of the body movement that stretches beyond everyday activity, and the communication and release of emotions and self-expression, one must also consider intention when distinguishing dance from other patterns of movement.

From the Hindu/Column: Footloose/ What's in a name?

When it comes to explaining what dance is, several definitions are available. It refers to the movement

of the body, a form of expression. It is also a mode of social interaction. Dance can be defined in terms of technique, but also as ceremonial, competitive, combative and narrative. The definition of dance, like dancing itself, is not static. If one is to be inclusive in one's approach to dance, then its definition has to be fluid. It must evolve along with its cultural, social and political surroundings. It must be open-ended in order to include new creations and evolutions.

There was probably only a very brief time when dance meant only certain and very specific things, probably when the idea of dance was only just being conceived. Indian classical dance has certainly had a strict code of what can be called dance and what lies outside the periphery of how we define dance.

Even in the ‘West', before the modernist dance movements began, only ballet was considered to be dance. But new dance forms have been coming into being continually in India and the West. 

When the Devadasis performed dance, the definition of dance was pretty expansive. It included body movement, expression, narratives, social interaction as well as ceremony. With the onset of Colonialism and western notions of femininity and sexuality, dance in India came to be redefined again. What the Devadasis and Indians had considered to be dance was now considered an overtly sexual activity, not fit to be given the status of being a dance form. A dance form that was a ceremonial expression of love was reduced to being defined as crude and erotic. As for the Indian, it became a cause for shame. In the West however, rebellion against a singular definition of dance had begun with Isadora Duncan's resistance to classical ballet.

Post-colonial nationalism in India saw the Tanjore Quartet format find a stable and comfortable place in

India – a format that defined dance in terms of technique, very broadly similar to what Rudolph Laban

did with dance in the West. Dance in India also came to be defined more in terms of devotion and spirituality, rather than sensuality or “shringara”. In the western world, Martha Graham played a historic role in expanding the definition of dance by radically opposing the theory of movement on which

classical ballet rested. In the previous century, the definitions of what dance is have expanded considerably.

In India, Uday Shankar became world renowned as a pioneer in Indian modern dance, adapting western theatrical techniques to Indian classical dance, and utilising Indian folk and tribal dances. Folk traditions such as Chhau have now become reputed dance forms and combative martial arts like Kalaripayattu are used to create Indian movement vocabularies. Genres of Indian dance have developed that use western styles of contemporary dance, sometimes exclusively. And more and more genres have become recognised worldwide as respectable dance forms. These include African dances and dance forms from Latin America. All these genres define dance differently in terms of the body, movement and sentiment. A singular and exclusive definition of dance becomes very difficult then. While some dancers, students,

teachers, critics and spectators continue to search for a singular and exclusive definition of dance, it in turn continues to elude them.

Perhaps dance was never meant to have a single definition. How is one to singularly define something that is constantly growing and evolving? Maybe its beauty lies in the fact that its dynamism repels a static definition written in stone. Perhaps it redefines itself constantly in order to remain relevant and important. This requires it to have multiple, inclusive and fluid definitions. It is, after all, multiple and fluid definitions of dance that will allow for more and more dance to be created, accepted and appreciated in a world that is constantly renegotiating what we call ‘dance'.

Aranyani Bhargav, performer-teacher-researcher, will henceforth write this fortnightly column, Footloose. Feedback can be mailed to aranyanibhargav@gmail.com

The 'Western' gaze - my response to Donovan Roebert

During a post-performance discussion, I was asked by a member of the audience whether I had to change the way I perform when I do so abroad. I found myself saying that I am changing the way I perform within India. The reason for this, I realized, was that the Indian rasika is hugely overestimated. And indeed, the western rasika seems to be underestimated. The statement mentioned in Donovan Roebert's article betrays this underestimation. In fact, it is more than that. It is an ill-informed and biased prejudice and moreover, hugely overlooks some problems with the members of audiences of Indian origin.

The 'western' audiences I have encountered have been immensely intelligent and well informed. Although sometimes unfamiliar with every intricate detail of the mythology (something I would attribute to many Indian audiences as well), they seem to watch Indian classical dance with deep curiosity, interest and an open mind. I find that they are also keen to understand it, and try to get everything they possibly can out of the performance. Perhaps this is because it is unfamiliar to them, and because they don't get to see it as often as we do, but these are some of the reasons for why they make such an engaged and attentive audience. I have personally never encountered the western audiences perceiving me as a doll or a babe.

In fact, this accusation made by the dancer in Donovan Roebert's article forced me to remember experiencing this 'babe/doll' scenario with a certain Indian audience. An admittedly extreme and perhaps one-off scenario, I saw it unfold was when I was performing at the Nehru Centre in London. It was a cultural evening organized by the Oxford India Society and hosted by the Nehru Centre. The performance consisted of three short performances of Indian classical dance, and a longer performance by the Oxford India Society dancers who performed Bollywood songs like 'Maar Daala' from the Bollywood blockbuster 'Devdas' and A.R.Rahman's 'Jai Ho' from the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. The audience was mixed, but was largely Indian. I noticed the Indian audiences looking bored, resigned and sleepy during the classical section, and watched them explode into cheers and claps as soon as the Bollywood numbers came on. The bad choreography made the poorly trained dancers jiggle and wobble much more than necessary. As I watched with horror from the wings, the Indian members of the audience were almost drooling watching these undergraduate girls shake their leg (and other parts of their bodies), even as the 'western' audiences looked on uncomfortably.

The reason I mention the above example is not to counter the sweeping generalized statement of the dancer mentioned in Donovan's article, with a sweeping generalized statement of my own. I am certainly not implying that all Indian audiences are the ones that objectify and doll-ify the female dancing body. I merely allude to the fact that the 'kamasutra babe' phenomenon is not one we can foist onto the 'western' audiences. This babe/doll phenomenon exists much closer to home.

There was a time when dance criticism was plagued by the 'male gaze' - the dancer's physical beauty (her big eyes, her full body, her face) was the main focus of the dance review. Luckily this is no longer the case, largely. But today, we face other problems of objectification - whether it is due to the perfect attributes dancers are expected to live up to set by the Natyashastra or whether it is the size zero phenomenon, the way dancers view themselves and each other is a factor that encourages this 'objectification' of the female dancing body. When a dancer refuses to dance alongside another because the latter is thinner and younger (this happens a lot), you know that a part of the problem lies therein. Finally, outside the realm of classical Indian dance, we have a form of dance that has maximum exposure globally - Bollywood, which celebrates the objectification of the female form with all its titilating 'item numbers'.

Of course, by saying all this, I am not attempting to diminish or belittle the vast number of informed, intelligent and incredibly perceptive rasiks and rasikas in India. There are plenty of those around, but to point fingers at the 'west' without looking at ourselves is a grave mistake, I believe.

I also wished to point out that there are enough members of the 'western audience', at least in my experience, that are genuinely interested, inspired and moved by the depth and richness transmitted through Indian classical dance. Very often, it is the 'western' rasika who pushes me to think by asking intelligent questions and it is the 'western' rasika that amazes me with their observations, despite their unfamiliarity with the form and its cultural history. And it does sometimes seem that an Indian spectator is bored or seems to presume to know everything there is to know about the form, and often becomes argumentative instead of receptive.

To conclude, to say that Indian classical dance can be understood and rasa can be experienced only by an Indian is unfair and untrue. And to say that the 'west' can only see Indian dance as an exotic female babe prancing about is a terrible accusation. If this was indeed true, and if many dancers share the same thoughts as the dancer in Donovan's article, I'd like to ask them why they are empanelled with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, why their resumes shine with performances all over the 'west' and why they crave international recognition.

Indian Dance and the 'Western' Rasika by Donovan Roebert

‘It is always the westerner who keeps harping on our glorious tradition. That is because the West would like to see us as Oriental Barbie dolls while admiring our classical arts. Dance, especially, is prone to this Asian Kama Sutra babe phenomenon. The classical can exist but contemporary India is bursting free with ideas and expression…and that is not contained in the classical form. (sic).’

The above is a comment recently made by a well-known Bharatanatyam/ contemporary dancer, much of whose work, incidently, I admire. The comment itself is disappointing. It raises a number of questions about the negatively perceived relation (or misrelation) between the ‘western’ rasika and the Indian classical dance forms, and implies a certain ‘western’ crassness of approach to the dancer, and to the Shringara Rasa.

To confine myself only to Indian classical dance (leaving out the broader ‘glorious tradition’), three central questions seem to be asked here: Is the ‘western’ rasika capable of appreciating the dance on its own terms, and for what it inherently is? Does the ‘western’ rasika have a right to assess and comment on its nature and value? and: Does the ‘western’ rasika view the dancer only as a ‘doll’ or ‘babe’?

In this case these questions are compelled out of an unfortunate cultural prejudice, a sort of dismissal of any ‘western’ interference, or even only a point of view, on the dance. The easiest way to deal with this bias is to assert at once that the dance and the dancer are as liable to be misperceived by an Indian as by a ‘western’ rasika. Both would be equally incapable of correct assessments if they lacked adequate insight into the philosophical and technical elements of the dance, as well as of its history.

But there’s also a more subtle aspect to consider. I once heard a dancer from Chennai doubting out loud whether the ‘westerner’ is humanly equipped to experience rasa at the deepest level, that of the transmission of the tejas. Some Indian dancers, it seems, view ‘westerners’ as deficient in this regard, as though there were a specifically Indian ‘spiritual’ or aesthetic gene that ‘westerners’ are born without.

To tackle the most annoying question first – the assertion that the ‘westerner’ is disposed to view the dancer as an ‘Oriental Barbie doll’ or a ‘Kama Sutra babe’ –  it would be helpful to remind ourselves that the Natyashastra itself prescribes certain standards of physical beauty for the aspirant shishya. Second, there are prescriptive details of costume and make-up intended to heighten the aesthetic-erotic effect. The performing female dancer, clearly, is intended to represent a prescribed, classical ideal of feminine beauty; an ideal that is universally recognisable.

The dancer, that is, ought to transcend the projection of her own individual beauty in order to place before the rasika (whether male or female) an ideal that is immediate and universal, and which invokes an inward response to a notion of beauty separate from individuality. The quality of eroticism also becomes transformed and idealised in this process. One might say that it is returned to its essence, as an energy of bhakti. This is, of course, a simplification which will have to suffice for my purposes here.

Is the ‘westerner’, then, capable of entertaining this sort of transcendent or essentialised experience? My answer would have to be, ‘Yes, very obviously, because the experience is not an exclusively tribal or cultural one, but one that is connected with our common humanity.’

Every human being can, through cultivation of the necessary insights, learn to make the connection between the aesthetic-erotic experience and the ‘spiritual’ one. And this is certainly not foreign to ‘western’ culture. The highest products of ‘western’ art have always been viewed in this way, from the earliest epochs of Greek, Norse, Celtic and other mythologico-artistic expressions. The Grecian Dionysian and Eleusinian rites, as well as the choral odes which form an integral part of classical Greek tragedy (whose purpose, as drama-natya, was religious) are full of the notion of ‘tejas’, achieved through the combination of music, song and dance.

As for understanding classical Indian dance in terms of its grammar and the elements of structure, geometry, flux etc., these are not supra-intellectual exercises. Anyone from any culture can study and understand them. Even the more esoteric aspects, whether seen and experienced as ‘spiritual’ or merely mythological qualities, don’t stand outside of the common human experience.

This being the case, it seems hard to argue against the view that ‘western’ rasikas (or, more plainly ‘educated audiences’) are as qualified and have as much right to assess, evaluate, and indeed fully appreciate Indian classical dance as Indian rasikas do. They have at least as real a right as Indian commentators have to comment on and appreciate ‘western’ art forms and culture. This sort of exchange seems to me fundamentally valid, useful, good and necessary.

In a more general way, I would have to say frankly that I find it impossible to discover a clear dividing line, an absolute hiatus, between Indian and ‘western’ culture as a whole. Anyone who cares to study these matters in sufficient depth and detail would, I think, have to agree that there are far more similarities than differences in these two cultural spheres.

As for the last point, that ‘free ideas and expression are not contained in the classical form’ – with this I would have to disagree vehemently. The most cursory philosophical insight will make it clear that there’s nothing either completely ‘new’ or completely ‘free.’ Every new phenomenon arises as an innovation derived from a pre-existing condition, every novelty has its roots in the classical seed. This can easily be demonstrated by tracing it back to its source.

As a clarification for my regularly placing the epithet ‘western’ between quotation marks, I must point out that there are really no such things as ‘western’ culture or ‘westerners’. This label is convenenient, but often as artificial and misleading as it is prone to be put to mischievous uses. The ‘West’ is made up of hundreds of tribes and cultures, with as many differences and similarities between them as there are between them and the varieties of Indian culture. I think it may be useful to bear this in mind before entering on glib inter-cultural judgements.

Lastly, I’d like to express my sincere appreciation to all the Indian classical dancers who have brought so much joy to so many of us ‘westerners’ through the performance of their beautiful art.

****

Donovan Roebert is the founder and coordinator of the South African Friends of Tibet. Born in East London, South Africa, he is a painter whose works are sold internationally. He is also a devoted practitioner of Mahayana Buddhism and is an author. Amongst his publications are - Samdhong Rinpoche Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibertan Buddhism and Today's World; The Gospel for Buddhists and the Dharma for Christians (Wipf & Stock 2009), Lama Charlie's Big Bang and Whimper (Contact Publishing 2010) and The Odissi Girl (Rupa Publications, Delhi, 2011)

Judging Dance

Pre-script: This article talks about the general trend noticed, but I would like to acknowledge that very rarely, there has been some good writing on dance and some in depth reviews. Having said that, that its rare to find good writing on dance is what compelled me to write this piece.

Dance journalism in India leaves much to be desired. Dance is rarely spoken or written about in the media, and when it is, it is usually uneducated, badly researched, and uninterested journalism. The rare writings on dance mostly take the form of reviews/critiques of performances. Dancers across India use these critiques to legitimize their work. But really, dance criticism in India is a dying art. Only a handful of critics validate or discredit the work of thousands of dancers. These reviews have come under criticism in the past (see Sadanand Menon's newspaper article in 1984 on Dance criticism titled 'Those Large Liquid Eyes') and largely today's reviews also leave many questioning the validity and legitimacy of the critics themselves.

Why do many reviews leave so many dancers feeling dissatisfied, cheated or misunderstood? The main reason, I feel, is that the relationship between the critic and the dancer is not of mutual understanding and learning as it should be. A dance critic must critique work in order to constructively guide a dancer, to improve the dancer. A dancer must feel like he or she learnt something from the review. Critique should constructively criticize, not demoralize and vex dancers. But there is such a dearth of critics that they are easily placed on a pedestal and become unquestionable. Thus critiques are like ultimatums - a dancer has to accept the reviews regardless of prejudice or bias, if any - and has no way of questioning the critic or explaining him or herself. The lack of communication and dialogue in a democratic atmosphere fuels the mistrust.

But why does this mistrust exist?

First of all, critics often get facts wrong. This often tells of badly conducted research. Recently, a newspaper article on Mandeep Raikhy's 'Inhabited Geometry' claimed that its choreographer was Desmond Roberts, who was in fact the photographer of the photograph enclosed in the article. Earlier this year, another review got the dancer's history and nationality wrong - an Indian dancer was written off as a German because he had worked in Austria for a while. In yet another article, a Bharatanatyam dancer was said to have studied at Kalakshetra in Chennai, when in fact she had trained in the Kalakshetra style of dancing in Delhi. Poor research and lack of attention, I imagine, lead to the dancers feeling nervous about trusting the words of the critic.

Secondly, critics often lift descriptions of dance pieces from programme notes and pass them off as reviews. This makes one feel that the critic is lazy to critique anything and is trying to fill up space on the newspaper page. Descriptive, rather than analytical pieces of writing betray a reluctance to scrutinize and appreciate the work. A recent review in the Hindu described a dance performance minute by minute, expending precious space on the description of the event, and a mere two lines talking about the performance and its dancers. Who was there at the performance and how many people were present is surely not more important than what the dance performance entailed.

Third, critics make sweeping statements which often contradict themselves. A review a few months ago mentioned that the 'charismatic' dancer 'lacked energy and emotion' and then went on to say that she performed an abhinaya piece 'in a captivating manner'. A classical dance performance lacking energy and emotion is a dramatic accusation which requires further explanation - in what way did the performance lack energy, specially since the critic also thought that the dancer was 'charismatic'? Moreover, if the performance lacked emotion, then how does the critic explain the captivating abhinaya? These sweeping statements have no value because they explain nothing, and serve no purpose. They are useless whimsical words that are of no help to the dancer at all! It is the same as when a critic says the dancer was full of 'grace and poise'. Even a lion resting under an acacia tree in the Masai mara can be full of 'grace and poise'. And it doesn't take a skilled critic to see that. I would want to know what was graceful about the performance and what made the dancer so poised.

There are several other reasons for why dance criticism in India is in a bit of a state of crisis, but even the reasons above are proof enough. Dance criticism needs an overhaul, without which one might lose faith in it entirely! This is so dangerous, because dance criticism is a lively and integral part of the dance world. A good system of critique keeps dancers on their toes. It also informs the larger world about works by dancers and choreographers. Furthermore, it opens up the possibility for a dialogue between the performers and spectators - something that brings the art and artist closer to the people. All this is so important. We need this overhaul now so that we can have faith in our critics. We need to have faith in our critics so that we take them seriously. Critics and critique need to be taken seriously in an intelligent and responsive dance community.

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Please do check out 'DanceCritique Anon', an initiative of Pratyayin and NrityaYoga to start a dance criticism forum where audience members anonymously critique the work of dancers and choreographers. DanceCritique Anon currently has a facebook page -  DanceCritique Anon - and will soon have a website.