Light and its many forms in Classical Arts
Words by Niranjana Krishnakumar
Illustration by Rachana Rachaprolu
A gratifying coalesce of decibels and luxes compliment Performing Arts, taking human life a step away from creative naiveté, one performance at a time. It is almost as if light gives the artform a palpable effect. One can go on romanticising the role of light in performances. We decided to have a conversation to understand the artists’ perception. We managed to light up dialogues with four artists based in Tamilnadu. They spoke to us on how they perceive, imbibe and manifest light in their daily lives and performances. Here is an excerpt from the conversations:
Meenakshi Srinivasan
Trained in classical music from the age of seven, with Gurus like Bala Murali Krishna, Vazhivoor Ramaiya Pillai and the likes, Meenakshi Srinivasan is a shining star in the Light Music industry today. She has performed on prestigious stages alongside stalwarts including S.P. Balasubramanian, P.Suseela and Shankar Mahadevan.
When asked about what light means to her, she drew a parallel - light to her is what knowledge is to human life. While she comprehends light as something transferable from the Guru to the Sishya, it becomes the medium. And in the eyes of the Sishya, it becomes the destination.
Quite akin to the Greek concept of Arete, her belief is that everyone possesses an inner light that can be utilised to educate people and reach their full potential. It almost bestows a luminous touch on this sacred process of transfer of knowledge.
As she continues to enlighten us, Ms. Meenakshi went on to quip about the 21st Century Guru- Sishya relationship. Seekers of knowledge today are receiving it from multiple sources - some of which are not necessarily human anymore. It is a wonderful addition to the world of classical knowledge-sharing as it reaches millions at the same time.
On the same note, she also alludes to the example of Lord Shiva, calling him the ultimate Guru and source of light for classical artists. He was the source of light and knowledge for Thyagaraja to create his kirthis and Deekshithar to work on his compositions. She also went on to compare light with the inner strength that a Guru owns and how as it is passed on to the Sishya - slowly permeating through lessons, their life gets lighted as well.
Shritha Bhaskar
We met the beautiful Shritha Baskar in a pleasantly lit make-up room at R.R.Sabha. As she was getting ready to take up the spotlight with her scintillating performance, we caught her for a short interview.
“Light has always signified the rooting out of ignorance and negativity from one’s life.” she begins, comparing this with how Kathak has been the biggest source of light in her life. Shritha embarked on the journey of learning Kathak as a 5 year old girl from her Guru Kataki Hazra. Little did she know that 15 years down the line, she would be running her own Dance Academy with hundreds of students.
“All classical dance forms have a strong relationship with light. We start our shows by performing a Vandana- by lighting a lamp. Light remarks beginning” Shritha says.
She goes on to talk about her institution, Taraana Academy of Dance, and how she got really lucky to find the perfect location for the same. And by perfect, she means that the studio is really bright with natural light a beautiful garden behind matching her taste just right and saving multiple recces.
This Mahabharath loving, social media famous Kathak Dancer had an epiphanic moment in her life when Pandit Birju Maharaj suggested she takes up Dance as her career, right when she had reached a plateau in that sphere due to her college education. And this she says, decluttered her mind and set her on a pathway full of light that she travels through till today, transferring the same gnyaan to her students at the same time.
Priyashree Rao
“An artist is not greater than the art” avers Dr. Priyashree Rao, Bharathanatyam Dancer and … , Trichy. Being a sincere student of Bharathanatyam from her early school days, she excitedly talks about how a Television Documentary about Kalakshetra Foundation nudged her to pursue Dance as her career.
Dr. Priyashree had a clear, insightful response when asked about the bearing of light on Bharathanatyam, as she addressed the question from two fronts. First, she talks about how, on stage, good lighting shapes up a great performance, bringing out the facial expressions of the performers the best way. And how poor lighting can mar the performance, creating an illuminating jargon.
Second, she talks about how light and shadows are shown in tandem with each other, symbolising different scenarios, character definitions and plot twists in the story. For instance, how a merger of light and shadows are employed to show the alter ego of a character, to build a twilight setting. And how just shadows are used to depict a person’s fear, past delinquencies catching up with present life happenings and light is used to portray the rising of the sun or different phases of the moon, to name a few.
When we asked Dr. Priyashree to personify light she named two people from very different spheres- Smt. Rukmani Devi Arundale and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. She is grateful to Rukmani Devi for launching the Kalakshetra Foundation, contributing to the sustenance and prospering of Bharathanatyam and creating a synergising effect of the Danceform engaging with the day to day lifestyle practices of people. Likewise, she thinks MS Dhoni is another human form of light, for he made it big with limited resources and proved to be a paragon of self motivation.
Dr. Priyashree resorts to dance for comfort and even at times of illness. She recollects how a viral fever put her inside a tunnel of darkness and the only light she was trying to make it to her student’s arangetram performance that was scheduled later.
The interplay between Dance and music, lyrics and music, lyrics and its meaning are what she thinks have brought out the light from within herself.