by Leigh Witchel
The soundest bridges between two worlds are the artists with one foot in each. Shantala Shivalingappa was born in what is now Chennai, India and raised in Paris. Adept at the Kuchipudi style of Indian dance, she has also worked with Peter Brook and Pina Bausch. Her knowledge of Indian dance as well as her experience in Western theater, gives her work the ability to cast a wide net.
Shivalingappa and four skilled musicians brought “Akasha” to New York City. First created in 2013, the show was structured like most solo recitals of classical Indian dance. The décor was slightly more elaborate, but most touring Indian concerts are barebones – set pieces placed on the stage. Shivalingappa used a series of lamps suspended above the stage in the imitation of a temple arch.
The opening piece, “Om Namo Ji Adya” was an offering to the god Ganesha, but only minimally narrative. That worked well for a Western audience: start with a virtuoso opening to hook people in. Shivalingappa joined the musicians virtually, singing on a recorded track. On stage, she stood there at first, the fingers of her left hand vibrating, then stamped into the floor. Her body was curved around its axis to both sides in an S. The opening dance was all about that curve.
The second piece, “Krishnam Kalaya” was a portrait of the god Krishna as a child. Shivalingappa entered leaping, and quickly shuffled her feet. The abstracted S posture of the first piece became character embodiment when she affected it as the stance of the child Krishna playing his flute.
The musicians were pivotal to the production, not just as accompanists, but on their own. They provided a thumping bass and the piece ended with the two drummers hammering as the lights dimmed. Shivanlingappa’s body is a strongly trained instrument as well, and she showed it off, jumping and plunging into deep bends with control. The musicians played interludes, both for our pleasure and to let Shivalingappa catch her breath.
The next work, “Jaya Jaya Durge” was dedicated to the goddess Durga, destroyer of evil. A part was danced, in traditional Kuchipudi fashion, on a brass plate. What was as notable was the consonance with the musicians. They chanted bols, the rapid-fire syllabification that accompanies complex rhythms. After a slow introduction, Shivalingappa rotated with each syllable. Then the phrases got longer by adding syllables to the back of the phrase like an agglomerative language.
“Kirtanam” dramatized a spat between the deities Alamelu Manga and her husband Venkateshwara because of his lack of attention and wandering eye. That situation is a staple in Indian dance, if you’ve seen any, you’ve probably seen a similar fight between Krishna and Radha: a lover’s quarrel that’s an opportunity for a tour de force performance as an angry woman.
Playing Alamelu Manga, Shivalingappa knelt down, pounding her hand against her knee in frustration, and then got up as Venkateshwara to comfort her. She rejected his hand when he offered it, and the quarrel was distilled into the back-and-forth movement. The deftness lay in Shivalingappa playing both roles with barely a beat to flip back and forth between the two, and without looking as if she had multiple personality disorder. Finally, all done by a single dancer, Venkateshwara won Alamelu Manga over and pulled her off.
Bhairava was an ode to Shiva: “If He stops dancing the world dissolves.” This was the showstopper for the musicians: Ramesh Jetty, the vocalist who composed “Jaya Jaya Durge” and “Bhairava,” Jayaram Kikkeri Suryanarayana on flute, and percussionists Haribabu Balan Puttama and Ramakrishnan Neelamani. They introduced the section with long, complex drumming that built up to a thunderous finale. After, all four of them joined in a droning chant, making the theater sound like a celestial realm of rumbling and disembodied voices. Those were the footfalls of Shiva.
In an outfit of gold, black and green, Shivalingappa appeared in silhouette at the back – her back to us, once again posed in the great curve. The pose now was the stance of her apotheosis. She used her upraised hand to personify the drumming. Moving from leg to leg, she turned and moved towards us. Nicolas Boudier’s lighting design added drama throughout the evening, and suddenly her arms pushed from darkness into sidelight.
She stamped, pulling her arms as if drawing a bow. Shivalingappa’s features are smaller, so unlike other Indian virtuosos, it wasn’t all about wide eyes and fiery glances. The ferocity was in her body. Western influences were hinted at; Shivalingappa used leaps in attitude and other jumps that aren’t as common in Indian dance.
She continued, leaping side to side, her arms scooping up and over, gathering the heavens. You could see the exertion in this dance; it had almost the same cosmic power as the solo of the Chosen One in “The Rite of Spring.” Finally, the musicians’ reverberations of the percussion grew as she retreated into darkness, and she knelt down as the drums built into a roar.
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Akasha” – Shantala Shivalingappa
The Joyce Theater, New York, NY
October 8, 2019
Cover: Shantala Shivalingappa in “Akasha.” Photo © Christopher Duggan.
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