Solo Studio Improvizations

I draw choreographic inspiration from these sculptural Alasa-Kanyas. In Kaulachandra Ramachandra’s Silpa Prakasa, there are sixteen Alasa-Kanyas described in various moods and in doing various actions. Using Vida Midgelow’s structured improvisation routine called Creative Articulations Process as a structural template, I deconstruct these Alasa-Kanyas to generate prompts for generating new material for my piece, Alasa-Kanya: Sculpture in Odissi. Together with contemporary dancer Imani Asha Gaston who is training in Odissi with me, I gather embodied impressions of these Alasa-Kanyas in pictures.

Alasa, meaning the indolent, prevails as the most persistent of all sixteen Kanyas in my Odissi practice. She embodies the generic female persona in the Odissi canon, who is the epitome of Shringara or beauty. While all the figures portray Shringara in some way, Alasa establishes beauty in the Odishan movement context as asymmetry and imbalance. Both her legs are along the oblique of the Alasa-Yantra or the rectangular ground plan on which all the Alasa-Kanyas have been sculpted. The most interesting feature of Alasa endures in its absolute impossibility in execution. I stretch my arms over my head in Spandita, arms faced downwards. I push my hips to the right creating a bow-like shape with my body. I lose balance even when I try multiple times to execute the sculptural pose. It baffles me to note that the very first of sixteen Alasa-Kanyas foregrounds a certain imbalance and skewness in the body. From my practice, I gain the most important understanding of Alasa which is that it emulates motion and not stasis. While it is impossible to sustain balance in such a crooked pose, it is possible to momentarily achieve the configuration in motion. This experience completely altered my encounter with the Alasa-Kanyas because I had always and only thought of them as static positions. This brings me to my first score for the choreography, Never Stop.

Torana, meaning leaning on a doorway, brings home an important revelation about posturing in Odissi that uses the spiraling torso in order to orient three dimensional configurations to two dimensions. Torana leans on the doorway usually in anticipation of her lover’s arrival or in conversation with her friend, the parrot perched on top of the doorway. Unlike Alasa, Torana is a static posture as one of the two legs root firmly under her hips while the other leg crosses the grounded one along the oblique line in the Alasa-Yantra. She holds one hand in Spandita, palms turned downwards, while the other is free to adopt any particular orientation as well as gesture from the vocabulary of the Mudra, single-handed and double-handed gestures, since it is not specified. If I had an actual door to lean on, I would have turned to the right because according to the Silpa Prakasa, Torana faces the right direction. Props do not usually accompany a traditional Odissi performance because the dancer enlivens the contextual information that is necessary for the audience through gestural communication. Torana completely turns to the right resting her back on one of the two door panels. However, in Odissi choreography that requires the dancer to never turn away from the audience, Torana adopts a spiraling maneuver. She presents herself in the Odissi dancing body as the quintessential spiral of Odissi with her lower body twisting to the side and the upper body facing the front. The three dimensionality of Torana’s sideways facing pose reconfigures as a two dimensional frontal demeanor. Navigation between dimensions shapes a large section of this study especially as movement adapts to different mediums and their associated technologies. From my fieldwork in the Rajarani temple in Bhubaneswar, I have seen both frontal as well as sideways facing versions of the Torana. My second choreographic score, Spiral Between 2D and 3D, emanating from this study reflects this cruising between dimensions.

The neutral spine paired with Tri Bhanga posture gives a unique status to our next Alasa-Kanya called Mugdha, meaning innocent. She has a neutral spine with her face turned to the right side. Her right hand is in Nagasira or serpent-head gesture, tops of her fingers rest on her chin. The left hand runs horizontally along her waist. Her feet remains in Tri Bhanga with the right foot slightly in front of the left in a T-shaped position. While taking on the pose, my torso invariably wants to push to the right as that is the usual training that my body is accustomed to in the right Tri Bhanga position. Keeping the spine in a neutral position with the T foot position requires a moment of reflection because my upper body automatically deflects to the right. Debunking the habitual practice, Mugdha sets forth the multiple configurations of the spinal column in one single posture. Spinal manipulations directs the Odissi bodies to achieve their spirals, twists, and curls. The S-shaped curve of the Tri Bhanga requires an arcing spinal column. In this case, bringing the spine to an upright position, although seems uneventful, depends on resisting its automatic tendency to push to one side or the other. Mugdha generates another score, that is, Neutral Tri Bhanga.

Manini, the offended or resentful girl, precipitates an elongated C-curve in the body that starts from the hips and ends with the fingertips of the hands. Manini slants her head to the left touching her lower lip with her left hand. She raises her right arm over her head maintaining an elongated arc from her right shoulder to her fingertips. She straightens her left leg and bends the right leg from her knee. She left shank finds support from the back wall. Never having involved a wall in my dance practice, I feel particularly drawn to the notion of a support and the concomitant changes such an addition might lead to. I experiment with the Manini along the wall. I am careful to wear socks such that I do not leave my footprints on the wall. The push into and off the wall from the bottom of my right foot brings an elongation in my body that is otherwise impossible without the support. The support sharpens the right torso deflection while rounding the spine as a bow shaped curve tilted to the right. A right torso deflection ensures a linear diagonal pathway between the left hip and the right shoulder. Here, the pathway bends as the body makes a long C-curve starting all the way from the left hip, travelling through the right shoulder into the right elbow, wrist, and the fingers. Manini induces the questions of how to actively deploy support in order to generate new and alter existing movement. Find Support comes from this particular motif of the Alasa-Kanyas.

Dalamalika or garlanding herself with a branch bears similarities with the previous Alasa-Kanya namely Manini in ways that they allow their environment to initiate changes in their body. Dalamalika pulls a tree branch towards herself when she stands under its shade with one leg raised to the hip level and the other firmly rooted onto the earth. I feel the lack of dancing on the earth and simply have to imagine the force exerted by the hands in order to pull a branch downwards. For one it requires a considerable amount of actual force in real-life than its simulation in motion. For example, in trying out the move with an actual branch at the Park of Roses in Columbus, I find the pull in my biceps supported by a strong elbow and an even stronger wrist. This is contrary to my movement experience where I deflect my wrist outward instead of maintaining it in inline with the elbow. The functionality of Dalamalika questions its aesthetic portrayal. This Alasa-Kanya is also interesting for one other reason that has to do with the bending of the knees. Straight knees rarely make their way to an Odissi recital. The dancer always bends their knees, either both the knees such as in Chauka and Tri Bhanga or one knee such as in Ardha Bhanga. Sama Bhanga or an upright standing position does not make it to most of the choreography especially with a balance. Dalamalika raises her left knee while the other leg continues to remain straight, a feature that I have never really seen in the concertized versions of Odissi. This Alasa-Kanya raises two separate issues for our choreographic experience as encompassed in Straight Legs and Strong Biceps.

Padmagandha meaning smelling the lotus uses the ability to smell to generate slight changes in movements as well as body alignments. She presents another example of the straight leg as seen in the previous Alasa-Kanya. As per the instructions in the Silpa Prakasa, the left leg is “straight like a rod” while the right leg is slanting and the right heel touches the wall (49). In Odissi, we show the act of smelling through gestures. However, we never activate the faculty of receiving odors. Padmagandha smells the fragrance of the lotus flower and the experience soothes her into a relaxed position resting against a wall with one heel. Smelling the air around me in the studio, I lean against the wall. My heel activates as I play with the force with which it pushes the wall. I notice the changes in the alignment of my joints, knees, hips, ribs, and neck. I could not find a lotus to recreate the exact image although I figured that Padmagandha works to develop the sense of smell that a rose can suffice. The heel is quite an interesting feature here because I have usually deployed in footwork where it always works with or against gravity. Instead of the floor, the heel had the wall to push into and against this time. From my experience, I note the inhalation of the smell led to the billowing up of the body and the heels pushes off of the wall. With the exhalation of the breath cycle, the body slights shrinks and the heel melts into the wall giving in to its solid core. The connection between sensations and movements becomes clear to me as I reach an equilibrium with a slight bend in the left side of my torso on which my left elbow rests, the left fingers holding a red rose. I ask my cast to work on Activate Senses to Bring Movement Changes.

Darpana meaning holding a mirror stands for the process of dressing up and embodying inner as well as outer beauty. The process of dressing up needs a visual recognition of an embodied encounter. For example, while showing the act of wearing ear-rings, I look into an imaginary mirror while one hand holds the ear lobe and the other hand reaches behind the ear to secure the ear-ring. The connection between the touch and the sight of beauty makes Darpana the most used Alasa-Kanya in Odissi movement. Shringar as beauty plays an important role in various pure dance as well as expressional dance pieces where the dancer shows the act of dressing up, such as doing the hair, wearing ornaments, wearing the Sari, and drawing the Kumkum or the red dot between the eye-brows. Before emulating the Darpana as mentioned in the Silpa Prakasa, I listed at least twenty other ways of showing her. I raise one hand over my head to place the left palm on the front of my hair while the other hand holds a portable glass mirror, the one I have in my make-up kit. In a recital, I would have showed the mirror with Pataka, a gesture where all the fingers stay close and upright, the palm stretches and bends over the inner wrist. I had never had my other palm rest on the front of my head. This brings me to Darapana’s choreographic contribution through the sense of touch. In traditional movement, we barely explore that concept. Having Darpana’s permission, I want to find ways of having the different parts of the body touch each other. I even experiment with the amount of force generated between the constituents of such an encounter. Without really sexualizing, I bring the notion of touch to the fore although I wish to remind my students of the underlying sensuous nature of the Alasa-Kanyas. Darpana wears a beautiful drapery around her hip to complement her embodiment of Shringara. I take caution to conflate the Alasa-Kanyas with the act of beautification because that is exactly how they find representation in movement. However, since beauty is such a central component of Darpana, I borrow my next instruction from it. Dress It Up Through Touch!

Vinyasa or having her mind fixed in meditation presents an impossible task of keeping a one-legged balance while losing oneself in the process. Vinyasa turns to the right, her hands held in Nyasa Mudra. She bends her tall and ring fingers together and places her two hands on top of one another as if she is repeating the names of god. She keeps her left leg straight and bends her right knee balancing on the standing leg. I try to lose myself when I repeat the Vinyasa in my studio. She has a pensive mood concentrating on her connection with the divine. In my own rituals of connecting with the divine, I repeat the name of the gods as I count with my hands. However, I never bring that experience to the studio until now when I have to do the same in a single-legged balance. Activating my hips, I switch my weight to my left heel firmly grounding the leg and sending energy downwards as well as upwards towards the knee and the thigh. I find it extremely hard to concentrate on the process of Japa-Nyasa, repeating god’s name, in the balance. However, the elongated and energetic alignment in my left leg stabilized my body. I also work on my focus determined by my sight as well as my head position. I keep my chin upright, thus maintaining a straight line from the base of my neck all through the back of my body to the sides of my thighs until my left heel. I repeat this experience with my cast as I direct them to Stack Up.

Ketakibharana meaning wearing a Ketaki blossom where Ketaki is the name of a flower bulges her hips extensively to one side giving me permission to experiment with the degree of deflections of the hips. Ketakibharana wears a Ketaki on her hain bun. She places the flower with her right hand as turns her face to the left. Her hips bulge while her legs stay cross-legged supporting her bent posture. In my practice, I never initiate movement from the hips. According to Srjan’s education, the hips adjust to torso initiations. Hips are not supposed to initiate any changes to the body. Given this restriction, I first deflect my torso to the left, bend my knees, and then pushed my hips to the left. As another iteration, I push my hips to the left, bend the knees, and raise my hands to place the imaginary Ketaki. In the first version, my weight mainly rested on the heel while the second posture was harder on my knees. It seems to me that there could be a scientific reason of protecting the knees behind the principle of non-initiation at the hips. So instead of placing all my weight on my left leg, the principle condition of the Tri Bhanga, I divvy up my weight between the left flat in the front and the right toe at the back. Ketakibharana has time and again featured in my dance where my right hand shows the bun while the left refers to the Ketaki. In all of those earlier experiences, I had the overarching experience of an extremely bulging torso instead of deflected hips. This process of reconstructing the sculptural Alasa-Kanya is useful in terms of delineating the central work of the hips. My dancers underwent training in the basic postures and footwork in Odissi from me before we began the process of choreography. I encouraged them to learn to isolate the hips from the rest of the upper body. However, I clarified the purpose of this piece as a mode of research and asked them to Hip Away in just this one score.

The next Alasa-Kanya is Matrmurti or the image of the mother holding a human child in her arms. Matrmurti rests the baby against her chest, her right hand around the back and the left around the bottom of the child. She keeps her body erect and maintains symmetry between the right and the left halves of her body when looked at vertically. I find this Alasa-Kanya curious at best because of her character that is mainly to attract, lure, and epitomize beauty. In that frame of reference, Matrmurti portrays the beauty in motherhood. Maharis often conceived children but the kids were outside the social fabric of conjugal familial relationships. This is primarily the main reason behind the lack of recognition by the Indian national government of Guru Pankaj Charan Das, one of the preeminent Gurus of Odissi. Das was born in the Mahari fold under Ratnaprabha Mahari. Although he adhered to the rhetoric of the cultural revivalists that perceived the fall of the Mahari due to lack of economic patronage and political instability, his success was limited by the stigma associated with his social standing (Interview Sarat Das). Rife with issues regarding propriety and acceptance, the Matrmurti allows for the dancers to move With Or Without Propriety.

The following Alasa-Kanya enables a linear exploration of movement in the Odissi body that allows for the rotation of joints. Camara or holding a flywhisk is an Alasa-Kanya who waves at the gods and goddesses as one of the many servers appointed by them. Camara holds the flywhisk with her left hand and her garment at the hip crease with her right hand. She has parallel feet with symmetrical sides of the body. As I work my through the different Alasa-Kanyas, I am able to make connections between my Odissi training and sculpture. During my training, no one discussed the genealogy of each movement and while some movements were discovered by their respective choreographers, a lot of them revolve around setting the Alasa-Kanyas into motion. I have experienced the Camara in pure dances without the contextual information about the Alasa-Kanya holding a flywhisk. This movement pairs up with a flat/ toe footwork and can be performed in space or even to navigate between one spot to the other. This move seamlessly punctuates the piece marking a transition from one set of material to another with considerable shift in thematic content or abstract form. In one of these experiences, I remember having my left fingertips on my left shoulder when the elbow stayed parallel to my body. Camara does this a little differently because she keeps her left arm at a perpendicular angle to her body. Rotating my shoulder socket while maintaining the connection between the left fingertips and the left shoulder, I experience a new possibility of movement in my body that navigates between the parallel and the perpendicular orientations around the shoulder socket. I ask the dancers to play with this motif, Parallel or Perpendicular, in different joints of their body.

Gunthana meaning concealing oneself gives an aura of stealth as well as boldness. Gunthana hides herself by turning her back to her audience, her attitude is one of virility and strength. One hand over her head covering it with a veil and the other hand in front of her body touching her lips, Gunthana is the only Alasa-Kanya with her back turned completely obscuring the face. Both her characteristics, obscuring face and virile posture, have been discouraged by my Gurus. Strength is important for the lower body while the upper body should be soft, lyrical, and graceful creating a gendered dichotomy of masculine strength and feminine coyness. Gunthana does not fit that stereotype as she “is standing firmly in a virile attitude” with her back in the Tri Bhanga (51). She boldly makes her statement of disengagement. Raising the right foot onto a line of creepers, she maintains her weight completely on the standing leg. The broad opening of her thighs with her pelvic floor displayed to the audience, Gunthana is far from coy. Bringing her into my studio practice connects her to the Dalamalika as described before. Dalamalika has strong arms while Gunthana has strong legs. Virility as well as stealth characterize her movement experience and I bring that motif to the fore with Embolden Stealth.

Nartaki or the heavenly dancer brings us to the central core of this choreography, which sets out to discover the role of the twist in Odissi. Nartaki embodies celestial dancing where beautiful maidens dance for the gods and goddesses in the heaven. She twists her upper body to the right as her lower body points to the front, legs crossed in Chanda or a knot. A special mention of a dancer as one of the sixteen Alasa-Kanyas caught me by surprise as I consider all of them in movement. At the center of this particular Alasa-Kanya, is the twist running all the way from her left shoulder to her right hip along a deep spiral of the spinal column. Fingers interlaced in Chanda Palli, interlocked fingers, Nartaki equates movement in Odissi to the twist. The twist, however, has been on the margins without its articulation in the vocabulary. In this investigation of centers and margins of Odissi, the conflation of the Nartaki with the twisting torso creates a revelation. I place the twist at the very center of this investigation as I play with its degrees of rotations, angles of deflection, and spatial coverage. I ask my student to simply Twist.

Sukasarika or playing with a parrot reveals the capacity of the Alasa-Kanyas to communicate. With one hand holding the parrot and the other one resting on her breast, Sukasarika finds a friend in the parrot. Her head tilts to the side as she shares her intimate stories with her bosom friend. She rests her body on the wall by securing support with the left leg. Although both Manini and Sukasarika have the left leg leaning against the wall, the latter maintains a completely slanted orientation. Sukasarika remains off-balance but for the left foot on the wall. Her hips bulge slightly onto the right as she keeps her balance during the conversations. She brings another important feature to the table that focuses on the ability of the dancing body to seamlessly communicate during technically demanding choreography. In my encounter with the Sukasarika, I realized the tremendous strength required in my legs to hold me steady during the pose while maintaining a calm disposition in order to be willing to share personal information. My body faces a slight twist from the bulging right hip to the left shoulder in place. This twist is topped with a slant head and the focus glues to the right hand. The head tilts, leg slants, hip bulges, and torso twists come in my way as I communicate through expressions with an imaginary bird held in my hand as the Kapitha where tips of thumb and forefinger touch and the rest of the fingers curl to the palm. So I make a score to recreate this experience, Communicate While Twisting.

Nupurapadika with ankle-bells requires the most flexibility among all the Alasa-Kanyas. She rotates her right leg along the hips and bends her knees to place her right shank on the left thigh. Her main intention is to reach the ankle-belles on her left foot, either putting them on or taking them off. She does not think much of this little chore as her mind is fixated on a flower that she holds close to her face possibly to smell its fragrance. Nupurapadika is a popular Alasa-Kanya and features in multiple canonical choreographies of Odissi. However, whenever I perform the Nupurapadika motif, I keep my gaze onto the anklet and the act of placing or replacing it. From this experience, that focus seems unwarranted and needs a redirection towards another potentially sensuous object. This normalizes the ankle-bells as one of the most important accessory of the dancer such that its object status is almost reduced to its corporeal retainer. The ankle-bells of the contemporary proscenium Indian classical dancer often reminds the contemporary South Asian Dance Studies scholar regarding the presence of the subaltern temple-dancer. The Mahari is almost conflated with her Nupura that I want to differentiate with in my piece. I want to disassociate the Mahari from objects, such as the ornaments, the hair dress, the silk costume, and the ankle-bells. I prompt my dancers, Do Not Ring the Bells.

Mardala, meaning the drummer is the last Alasa-Kanya to feature in the Silpa Prakasa. True to its naming, she drums while she dances. Her drumming evidences the presence of female musicians including percussionists in the history of Odissi. As represented in the figure, Mardala grounds strongly on the earth to keep her movement going in rhythmic accuracy. She sets the tone of AK as I attribute the musical accompaniment of the piece to her through my vocal rendition. The entirety of AK moves to my metronomic rhythmic accompaniment on the microphone. The Mardala shouts at her cast: Dance To My Rhythm.