Motion Capture Session One
Motion Capture Session II
Motion Capture Session III
For the capture process, I strip down my jewelry and my head décor. Wearing black overalls, I stick optical markers all over my body to reflect light onto a twelve camera Vicon system. The cameras capture my moves while I move with considerable difficulty because the markers in my toes or on my ankles keep coming into the way of my movements. The capture process is almost surreal and reminds me of the dark inner chambers of the Jagannath temple. Unlike the Rajguru, the head-priest who used to be the liaison between the temple and the royal household, I have the technicians behind a camera console in a dark room. They call the shots asking me to rehearse, start, stop, raise my arms in the T-pose, break out into movement, and eventually stop. They demarcate my movements and I am restricted to move within the delineated space. Going to the other side of the markers will cause the system to stop recognizing me and might crash. This injunction almost sounds familiar to the closely monitored movements of the Mahari. They were not allowed to enter the Garba-Griha (inner sanctum) and although only the Bhitara Gaunis (the singers for the evening ritual) could reach the threshold of the Garba-Griha and the Natamandira (dancing hall), most Maharis could not step outside their allotted space within the Natamandira. My moving space seems bigger than that of the Mahari but I still have supervised access to the motion capture space that has most sections off-limits to my mobility. Why technology? Asks many as they feel I use the technologically maneuvered optical system of capturing movement to further distance dance from the living, breathing, cultural, and devotional body of the Mahari.
Generally, I do not dance in tights and tank tops. I dance in Salwar Kameez or Saris. I want the feel of fabric around me. I need to feel the touch of cloth between my fingers, on my shoulders or near my thighs. I search for the extra volume of textile as I hold my right hand in Katakamukha (tips of forefinger, tall finger, and thumb join while the ringfinger and the little finger stay upright) placing near the thigh hoping to grab onto a piece of cloth. I have nothing to hold. The pants hug tight on my thighs making the action seem as if I am pulling my pants with my pinch of Katakamukha. It is forbidden! Because it disorients the placement of the remaining markers on the right leg, for example the one above and below the knee and the one on my hamstrings.
The capturing process needs me to modify the dance significantly such that I cater to the technologies of capture. I twist and twirl and nudge and grudge, but finally give in its dictates. However, I find these moments of disruption during the capturing process as generative of a movement impulse. Instead of giving in passively to these technologies of disruption, I believe that the Mahari punctuates my Odissi practice through these interruptions. She finds ways to sever my linear progression through choreographed material in Odissi by appearing in these sartorial glitches. Movement in Odissi requires a loss of self in the transcendental Jagannath. The Mahari breaks that transcendence by grounding me in the now, making her presence felt, and aborts my attempt to distance her in my ‘well-practised’ Odissi curves.
I give myself a task of penetrating my movement with the sculptural Alasa-Kanyas at every instant where I face resistance with the capturing process. The markers come in my way as I try to grip one of my wrists with the other hand or as I move to place my hand on my waist. Vita, my motion capture adviser in ACCAD, asks me to rehearse because that is the norm where dancers get used to the costuming conventions of the capture process and modify accordingly. I refuse to rehearse because I do not want to eliminate the spontaneity in encountering trouble, a glitch due to this new technological manipulation of movement. I start moving my body to a routine that has become second nature. I am on the verge of losing myself when I lock the front of my left leg to the back of the right knee. I feel a sharp pinch due to the marker sticking out on my toes. My posture cannot perform my oft-repeated tried and tested locked Bandhani (the name of the foot bind) as the Mahari finds her way to pinch into my skin.
The marker on my ankle pierces my hips as I try to balance my hips on my toes in the seated position. She is laughing at my futile attempts to transcend myself bringing me back into the moment. I remember my score and push my torso to the left taking a moment of sculptural respite in the Alasa-Kanyas. Movement in Odissi going in and out of the Alasa-Kanyas modulate the excessive bends to accommodate the movement while maintaining balance. But the Mahari refuses to stick to this disciplinary dictum and gently nudges my torso to the side opposite to the standing leg almost on the verge of my loss of stability. While in this example, I do not recreate one of the sixteen specific Alasa-Kanyas by simply adhering to her main postural logic of excessive Tri Bhanga, in another instance of the Bandhani, this time on the left side with the right leg binding behind the left knee, I find myself taking on the Sukasarika, Alasa-Kanya who is talking to a bird. Creating a score for the Mahari to intervene in my choice-making, I make space for her to punctuate the technology of motion capture abstraction through the technology of sculpture.
One can argue that I am overreading my spontaneous choices as the voice of the Mahari. To them, I shall humbly say that there is nothing spontaneous about choice since it is orchestrated by one’s cultural upbringing. The humanist tradition following Descartes apparently frees the human spirit to create, expand, and break barriers. Well, these are all the qualities that eventually led to the western colonial legacy bestowed upon Odissi that in turn erases the Mahari voice. It is payback time by the Mahari who returns in unexpected venues and through unexpected forms.