A jeweled red dot on her forehead. A large, gold ring in her nose. Most of her fingers, as well as feet and toes, are painted brick red, while her eyes are outlined in black to appear larger. Brass bells adorn her slim ankles and her long hair is ornamented with white flowers and Indian temple jewelry.
The bharathanatyam dancer’s embellished head quickly tilts sideways, appearing as though it were detached from the rest of her body. She holds her hands, as if playing a flute, and stomps her bare feet, knees remarkably bent, to a vigorous tune. Her bright yellow costume, embroidered in gold, opens like a fan when she kneels.
She is telling a story about a famous Hindu deity, Krishna.
It is a difficult and complex dance, though she moves without mistake. Indian classical dances are very old, dating back some 2,000 years to a time before India was invaded by the Moguls in the 12th Century and, later, by England, in the 1800s. Despite nearly dying out during the years of subjugation, bharathanatyam and the other classical dances have rebounded since the British quit India after World War II and they are currently flourishing, both in India and in Chicago.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of India’s independence from England. Chicago’s Indian community, one of the largest in North America, has been in the midst of celebrating. Saturday night it will be the dancers’ turn to add to the festivities when a suburban bharatanatyam dance academy performs in full costume at Taft High School in Chicago.
The Kalapadma Bharatanatyam Dance Academy, which is located in Morton Grove, is run by Ruth Varghese, a bharatanatyam dance guru who leases space from the American Legion. She trains students in the traditional way, sitting on a blanket on the cold concrete floor for hours, pounding the beat on a board as students take turns rehearsing both solo and in groups. She rarely stops to eat or drink, though she occasionally gets up to talk to anxious parents about a child’s performance.
Varghese feels that her homeland’s independence has helped the ancient art form.
“Freedom has really helped classical dance to regain that lost glory,” says Varghese, a petite, dark-haired woman who has returned to dancing only two months after childbirth. “Now, everyone wants to learn it. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. That is the positive part. . . . But some loss is taking place. It is becoming very commercialized.”
An ancient history
Varghese and her husband Santosh opened a Chicago area branch of the Kalapadma bharatanatyam Dance Academy (translation: “the lotus of art”) four years ago with only four students. The school now has more than 100 Chicago-area students, some as young as 5 and others in their 30s.
Licensed by Khairagarh University in India, Kalapadma is authorized to teach, test and award degrees to students who show mastery in the complex bharatanatyam style. To qualify, aspiring dancers must complete the academy’s basic requirement of at least 50 footwork steps, 28 single-hand gestures, 23 double-hand gestures, 8 eye, 9 head and 4 neck movements before advancing to more difficult moves like learning to raise one eyebrow at a time or isolating a cheek muscle in the pose of an angry god. They must also learn and recite verses, or “shlokas,” from the ancient Sanskrit language rarely heard today.
Such dances have become popular in the United States only in the past 15 years, according to Santosh. However, professional bharatanatyam dancers are widely sought after as artists and entertainers throughout India, especially in the southernmost states of Tamil Nadu, particularly in the city of Madras, and Kerala.
Although it was originally conceived of by an ancient holy man, Bharatmuni, as a temple dance in honor of the more than 3,000 Hindu deities, classical dancers — typically, educated females — were later exploited by the notoriously decadent Mongolian invaders from the northwest. Some, it is said, even were turned to high-class prostitution. When the British East India Company arrived and the many Christian English became entrenched there, the dancers were seen as morally corrupt.
“The (Moguls) didn’t appreciate it because they didn’t understand Hindi,” Santosh explains. “It became a kind of seductive thing: You dance for me. I’m the king! And, during the Victorian era, it was very hush-hush. To (the English), dancing was not very appropriate. Plus, (British women) were afraid of losing their husbands because the girls were so different. The British made an outright effort to ban Indian classical dancing. So no good or high-class people would patronize this art . . . such a deep art, such a rich art.”
Fortunately for the dancers, a controversial Indian Brahmin woman, Rukmini Devi Arundale, who married an Englishman, Sir George Arundale, and met the famous Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova during the latter’s travels, became interested in bharatanatyam and worked to return it to its original, highly spiritual, less suggestive, art form.
Pavlova, who visited temples in southern India and was publicized as a patron of what was once called “oriental dance,” even choreographed ballets based on Hinduism, such as “The Hindu Wedding.” In turn, she is credited with inspiring ballet moves in such drama-based classical dance styles as kathakali.
Today there are seven recognized styles of Indian classical dance. All rely on stories from the Hindu holy books, the Veda and Natya Shastra, as the basis for their dance composition and drama. Not everyone, though, who studies bharatanatyam is Hindu or even Indian. The academy’s students, both male and female, are a mixed group of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and even an Assyrian Orthodox.
Demi Peterson, 31, of Evanston, is one of the academy’s non-Indian students. She began a love affair with dance at the age of 10, and, after studying ballet, tap and Middle Eastern dance, longed for more challenges, turning her attention further East.
“I became interested in bharatanatyam after I saw a movie with . . . an extremely talented dancer. I don’t see how anyone can look at bharatanatyam and not be entranced,” Peterson says. “It gives me chills. I find it very electrifying!”
One of the academy’s first students, Cristy Rahman, 12, is a devout Muslim whose family is originally from neighboring Bangladesh. She said she became interested in bharatanatyam after watching her cousins overseas train in the kathak dance style, another dramatic and popular dance form.
“It’s a very interesting kind of dance, once you understand it,” Rahman says. “Each dance has a different story about it, and I really enjoy that. In the beginning, the stories, gods and goddesses were hard to understand, but my teacher took me to different programs and that made it easier for me to learn. Getting dressed up is a big part of it; and the dresses are really beautiful.”
`Like painting in the air’
Ruth and many of her students have performed at the Chicago Junior League, the Chicago Cultural Center, the United Nations, the Daley Center, an Illinois surgical association program, dance competitions and many religious and cultural events in the area.
Ruth’s own dance training is considered unique in artists’ circles.
She began studying bharatanatyam with her father, a dance guru who began the first Kalapadma school in the northern city of Bhopal, at the tender age of 2 1/2. Her upbringing in northern India, a considerable distance from India’s bharatanatyam meccas, expanded her view of dance, she says. And, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in dance from Bhopal University in 1976, Ruth studied at the most prestigious bharatanatyam school in the country, Kalakshetra, in Madras. After that, the young dancer decided to study a complementary dance style, odissi, to give herself greater range as an artist.
However, she missed the challenge of bharatanatyam, so she resumed her studies, and in 1979, was awarded the prestigious title of “singar mani” (excellent dancer) in a Bombay competition. While growing up, she competed many times representing her father’s academy, winning three gold medals. Ruth completed her master’s degree in fine arts, dance and painting, married a Christian Indian, and moved to Chicago to open a new branch of her father’s original dream.
Varghese is very passionate about dance.
“For me, dance is like painting in the air,” she says. “We use the stage as a canvas. The brush is like the dancer’s graceful movements, dipped in the rich colors of gestures and expressions.”
Sibyl Njaravelil Philip, 14, finds the complexities of bharatanatyam one of its most appealing features. She began her dance studies in Florida, before her family moved north. “I started dancing when I was 4 years old,” she says, “I like it because instead of just telling a story, we’re showing it.”
Neepa Patel, 14, of Glenview, agrees. “It’s a great form of self-expression. It’s pretty rigorous, and takes a lot of commitment. If you don’t practice it, you just won’t get it.”
Remembering a struggle
Saturday’s performances in the Taft High School Auditorium, 6545 W. Hurlbut Ave., which begin at 6 p.m., will feature, in addition to traditional bharatanatyamdances, several numbers in honor of India’s independence.. One four-minute number, “The Desire of a Flower” (“Pushp Ki Abhilasha”) is based on a poem written by an Indian freedom fighter, who was said to have been jailed during Gandhi’s famous non-violent resistance. Looking out of his jail cell, the poet was inspired by a flower that he believed cried out to be used not as decoration but thrown in the path of Indian martyrs, marching for freedom. Another number, “Vande Mataram,” recounts a popular slogan used during the struggle for independence. It is based on the story that Indians who were scheduled for execution went to their deaths crying loudly “for the motherland” in Hindi.
