Bringing out the drama in the dance
Growing up, Savitha Sastry knew that dance was third on her list of priorities. In second place was Carnatic music, but her studies were indisputably in the top spot. Though her father worked in a bank, he had known difficult times when all he could afford to eat for a day were two biscuits and a cup of tea. The eldest of five children, he felt responsible for his siblings when they lost their parents. Now, he wanted nothing more than for his daughter to do well academically. As for her mother, Bharatha natyam still had a whiff of the disreputable about it. As a protected young girl, she had not been allowed to dance herself or even watch a performance from the balcony of an auditorium.
Savitha shared none of their qualms – she simply loved to dance. (There’s a story about how, at age five, she paid her maid 25 paisa to stage a Bollywood dance with her.) Her father’s job required that they move around a lot, and so though Savitha was born in Hyderabad, she lived in both Chennai and Mumbai. Despite their lifestyle, Savitha began her training in dance at age six at the Raja Rajeshwari Dance Academy in Mumbai and made her debut before an audience of over a thousand at age nine. Then she would practise for nearly an hour a day – now it’s more like four or five.
When we meet Savitha in Colombo before the local premiere of ‘Yudh,’ she’s already been on the road for a while. Colombo comes at the tail-end of two back to back tours that have taken Savitha across multiple venues in India and the U.S (she has previously performed in Australia, Ireland, England and Switzerland as well). However, her most recent stop was at a studio in Kerala where she was working on a new production. It’s at one of the last stages in a process that usually begins with a story written by her husband, A.K. Srikant. The final production, dubbed solo Bharatha natyam dance theatre, involves English voice overs, a specially composed music track, multiples changes in costume and clever lighting but Savitha who both directs and choreographs each piece must first see the entire performance in her head.
As in her previous production ‘Soul Cages’, Savitha relished the chance to challenge conventional narratives in ‘Yudh’. The plot revolves around the tragic kidnapping of a little girl named Pavitra and the incident is viewed through three perspectives, those of humans, God and Satan. “Each perspective offers a logical end in itself,” says Savitha. Keenly aware of Bharatha natyam’s origins in the performances of the devadasis, Savitha is impatient with attempts to whitewash the art and label it sacred. A performance shouldn’t be just about pining for Siva or archaic tales of killing demons, says Savitha, who nevertheless strives to perform without compromising on what she considers the technical precision, fluidity and grace that characterises Bharatha natyam.
Contrary to what you’d expect, for her the focus is on story telling rather than on the aesthetics of the dance. “Satan and God, these are such larger than life characters that I play,” she says of ‘Yudh’. “Then to play the human at the end of it, who is caught between the two worlds, I think it’s the story that takes it forward and makes it so engrossing for me to dance it.”
This level of connection to her piece is something of a luxury, Savitha confesses, explaining that it’s not always the case with a conventional Bharatha natyam recital. What she has begun to bank on is that this holds equally true for her audience. Looking back, Savitha remembers her years in the U.S for the time she spent working in neuroscience but also for the enthusiasm the Indian diaspora displayed for the traditional art forms. She herself taught classes and often travelled between India and the U.S to perform before returning to India and dedicating herself full time to a life in dancing.
Acknowledging that performers like her were now competing with films and music videos, Savitha challenged herself to change the equation and to generate shows that would trump a movie on T.V.
“The leap came in bits and pieces,” says Savitha of her transition. With ‘Soul Cages’ and ‘Yudh’ under her belt, it’s one that’s now near complete. That it’s been a success can be inferred from the rave reviews that follow in Savitha’s wake. For her part, she dreams only of novel and innovative ways of revitalising a dance form she loves. That along the way new audiences will discover Bharatha natyam for themselves is just the bonus.
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