'Vulgarity is a perspective' - Hari Krishnan

Hari Krishnan, photo by Stephen De las Heras

Hari Krishnan is the artistic director of Toronto-based inDANCE and a Professor of Dance in the department of dance at Wesleyan University. Krishnan is a disciple of KP Kittappa Pillai and R Muttukannammal, specialising in devadasi (courtesan) dance and contemporary abstractions of Bharatanatyam. Here, he chats about his understanding of caste politics in dance, his works Uma and Frog Princess, and his notion of  'Queering Bharatanatyam'. 

You work extensively with the devadasi repertoire. I have seen The King's Salon. Given that it is so embedded in, and connected to the woman's body, how do you interpret the repertoire?

As a male dancer? The advantage of working with the devadasi community as opposed to the middle-class Tam Bram community is the completely different set of value systems embedded (in the communities). There is a more progressive way of looking at art, identity and the human body. Throughout my documentation, analysis and training with the devadasis - many women from several devadasi families of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh - they were welcoming and generous in the way they took me in and gave me information. But most importantly...I won't say it is androgyny – but the fact that I was a seeker and an eternal student coming in with an immense amount of respect, humility and a context of who they were in society, in what their identity is. Gender was very much a non-issue with me, in the way I worked with them. 

So, the pieces I learnt from them, and (in) my documentation – (in) the way they performed for me in terms of video archives – they performed the most erotic compositions in such a sophisticated way. That is what I want to stress. The mistaken assumption is that devadasis were vulgar. Vulgarity is a very recent phenomenon in the early part of the 20th century, by caste politics. Vulgarity is a perspective. The ability to be so extraordinary in such an ordinary way is where I see great human possibility, and it is in that humanity that I connect to devadasi dance immediately. 

I use the word 'devadasi' dance very loosely; I would rather call them 'courtesans'. The 'devadasi' is a very difficult word to decode because it has so many layers of meaning and historicity. It has so many references in terms of which part of India you are in. So I refer to them as the courtesan community – it has much more clarity for me. 

You have touched upon caste – how do you address it here?

I think caste is a complex issue in India. We cannot pussyfoot around the fact that caste is an issue. I think I am very entrenched in the idea of caste politics. It is part of my worldview of Indian dance and my worldview of my scholarly and artistic work. I am very aware of the discrimination, imbalance,  and lack of democracy in the caste question. For instance; how Bharatanatyam is reinscribed on the body of a middle-class woman versus the body of a woman from the Isai Vellalar community. That marginalisation is very much a part of my immediate interest in studying with this community of women who have been very unfairly marginalised. 

Caste continues to be a big issue. You see the way caste has been renegotiated. It is very easy to be on the bandwagon and be trendy about Section 377. It is very trendy to say that there is no gender and no class, but these are blasé, almost childish ways of looking at the world. That is not the reality we live in. It is much more complex. I think a conference like Purush helps sift through that complexity. For example, can I talk about my piece, Uma?

Sure.

Uma is making its Indian premiere this evening. It came out of my enquiry of caste, identity and gender politics. These came together in a very interesting way. In 2006, I was commissioned by a gender transformations festival which wanted me to do a work. They invited masters from across the world – specialists in female or male impersonation. And I represented India. I was clear from the beginning that  I was interested in subverting popular cliches and stereotypes. I like to turn something on its head – that is why my company is called Indance. The logo is upside down. It is (about) turning Indian dance on its head.

I choreographed Uma on a beautiful dancer, Mesma (Belsare). The piece was about meditations and various vignettes of woman as lover, woman as wife – domestic wife, woman as goddess, and how these three are constantly negotiated and renegotiated in our daily, lived lives. This greatly followed the example of who the devadasi is, by way of what I learnt from them and in how I see them through my lens. I wanted to create a contemporary abstraction using Bharatanatyam as my entry point. I said – how wonderful to put that together with the rich tradition of stree vesham we already had in South India, of female impersonation. 

So, why not choreograph this on a male dancer who does female impersonation? That was the second layer of subversion. I used very traditional devadasi compositions – an old javali and a single line from the Telugu version of mohamana, the varnam. I have used a line in praise of a king. Immediately, when it becomes secular, I have an open-ended access point. If you make it spiritual, mythology-based, I am trapped. It has already set the structure; it has created it for me. But if it is secular, the human experience can take me wherever I want to go. 

Since I am from North America, the audience I show my work to is predominantly white. I live  downtown and have a more cosmopolitan dance audience. English narration is a must, in terms of them  understanding the Indian poetry. It aids a sense of appreciation; it makes it more accessible. So that was the mandate. I had a famous Canadian actress do an English voice-over that intercepted the Indian poetry. So, it was, in a sense, a contemporary tribute to my understanding of gender and sexuality through the eyes of my work with the devadasi and my appreciation of the nuanced, highly complex art of stree vesham. I blended that with my own naughty, subversive interest – how I like to tease out and problematise cliche and stereotype.

Mesma has done the first version of Uma in 2006. Since then, it has played in New York, again with Mesma.  In 2010, I worked with a wonderful UK-based dancer, Kali Chandrasegaram. 6'2”, muscled, but does beautiful drag – you wouldn't believe it. When my company turned 10, I wanted to remount Uma. At that time, Mesma was unable to work with me, so I invited Kali. When I first showed Kali the piece in 2007, he fell in love with the work. He was crying, and he said, “Someday, I want to dance this work.”

So, when I got the opportunity in 2010, I said, “Kali, you're going to dance Uma.” He screamed; it was  an absolute pleasure. We worked on it in London and Toronto. The work was performed in Toronto and later, in the UK. Kali's transformation was unbelievable.

When I work with dancers, I like them to put their own life experiences into the piece. I can be the choreographer, but with something like devadasi dance, there is an immense amount of improvisation. You have to be very sympathetic to the poetry and to your own life experiences. Mesma and Kali both brought their life experiences into this choreography. When Purush happened, I was invited to present Uma. I was thinking – how can I make it accessible for an Indian context? 

Srikanth Natarajan, local Bharatanatyam dancer, is originally from Chennai, though he now lives in Kerala. He comes from the family of Bhagavata Mela Natakam (performers), so he is already predisposed to stree vesham. I have seen him perform and really enjoyed his work. So I selected Srikanth to do this work and I had a wonderful time. I hope the audience laps him up!

But, to problematise the idea of subversion further, for the English narration, I picked Apsara Reddy. Apsara, who is a good friend, is a transgender woman and a famous TV personality. I immediately thought of her because that makes the work more political and significant from a socio-political perspective. So Apsara will be the voice of Uma this evening (Dec 22, 2013).

I am working with some amazing musicans. My two vocalists are from Canada – Vaaraki Wijayaraj who is here for the Season, and Subhiksha Rangarajan who is from Madras and now lives in Toronto, and goes by 'Su.sha'. They are both young vocalists but they are excellent. So I have a Canada-India connection there. This becomes much more meaningful for me and hopefully for the audience. 

In an interview, you speak of 'Queering Bharatanatyam'. Though we have bandied the term 'sexuality' about a lot, we haven't really addressed the queer in terms of dance...

Absolutely. I interpret 'queering' as the idea of being lost in the world of hybridity. I see that as a starting point. We are complex creatures. We don't think in absolutes. We are not traditional from 9 – 5, and contemporary after 5. We wear multiple hats – this is a classic thing of you wearing this top, and these socks, and these tights. It is such an amazing way of classifying hybridity. How do we negotiate our day-to-day life experiences? How does that affect our core as human beings? The displacement of identity feeds into that narrative for me. 

But, 'queering' – I'm not just relegating it to gay-lesbian-transgender, it is not the LGBT queering. Queering with a capital 'Q', in terms of complexifying it, interrogating it. That is where I see great possibilities. It is a wonderful way to talk about our real, lived life experiences and our experience of art. This is what Rustom talked about – the need for art and life to continuously mirror each other. That is completely identical to my work with the devadasi community. They perform the javalis and the padams and salam darus, but they live those items too. That is who they were. That is why I said in my preamble – they were unapologetic and unabashed when they spoke of sexuality and identity. 

I really connect with that. It makes tradition much more accessible for me – it is my entry point. This rethinking of popular imagination (is necessary). Looking at history in its popular textbook narrative, as a kind of unbroken continuum, doesn't work at all! There are multiple ruptures that have taken place – historical ruptures; social structures have broken down. (There is) the idea of the woman's body being commodified – from the male gaze, but from multiple points of view. Also, that  of the reinscription of Bharatanatyam as a nouveau style, reinscribed on the Brahmin middle-class woman. (These ideas) have changed the dance, but they could not throw the baby out with the bath-water. They kept the baby and they threw out the bath-water – the devadasi and her dance. But the baby was remodified, dolled up into a new incarnation. 

I think that is the reality, but when one addresses the issue of historicity, one shouldn't make blanket assumptions. (I am all for) the idea of nuanced, subtle arguments - not thinking in absolutes. I am very fearful of a monolithic way of looking at art, identity and gender. I think it is important to think about gender and identity in much more complex ways. Only then, art can be more meaningful for the artist, and you can translate that meaningfulness, usefulness and productivity to the audience.

A final question – tell us more about the Frog Princess (a solo that saw Krishnan nominated for a Bessie Award as 'Outstanding Performer') ...

Frog Princess is a piece called Mandodari Shabdam. It was written by a great Kuchipudi master named CR Acharyalu. He composed this in the fifties; he is no more now. It is one of the most popular representations of the Kuchipudi art form. It was composed about 63 years ago. When I was reworking Mandodari Shabdam (the choreography and music), I was very intrigued by the idea of going back and forth between the frog - amphibian life, and human life. I saw a connection in terms of rupturing that. It was a species-bending perspective. The second layer is the frog transforming into princess Mandodari and looking at the demon king Ravana. They engage in seduction - male and female (energies) going back and forth - perfect! Gender-bending and species-bending. I started with the piece the way I had been taught it and then I played with ideas of gender even more, pushing my own contemporary ideas and philosophy. 

On a historical level, it is interesting that Mandodari Shabdam is a very recent composition. But when you think about the historicity of Kuchipudi, Mandodari Shabdam becomes a canon, giving the impression that it is hundreds of years old. Not true. This is how I like to rethink how classical dance is always being reinvented. The idea that classical dance is two thousand years old is absolutely not true. I talk about the idea of rupture. This mirrors my own philosophy of Bharatanatyam being only a 200-year-old form. It is very recent. 

What continues to problematise caste politics is the way Bharatanatyam is performed by a non-Brahmin and a Brahmin. I'm going to say it out there - it (their performance) is very different, in terms of devadasi identity and Tam Bram identity - the value systems, the social structure, the fearlessness and the fearfulness, the understanding of domesticity and independence, liberation and entrapment, in different ways. I am using binaries here, but I feel that we must complicate those binaries. 

Mandodari Shabdam is a piece that mirrors all these different layers of heavy thought - of my own politics, research, my understanding of art and craft, and my understanding of identity. As a person, I am very naughty and mischievous. I take great pleasure in being able to laugh at myself, in not taking  myself seriously. There is a mischievous twang already embedded in Mandodari Shabdam. So I just play with that even more. 

The costuming has gone through multiple layers of transformation. I have danced it in full Bharatanatyam costume. I have danced it in a starker black outfit - more contemporary. The New York Times critic, Alastair Macaulay, pinpointed that in his review of my work, remarking that the black costume was representative of western modern dancers. He alluded to the fact that it (the dancing) became more accessible. Recently, in California this November, I danced the piece in a black shirt, jeans and black sneakers. Very casual, re-adapting the idea of postmodernism in Western modern dance, where they had something called the 'pedestrian aesthetic'. Everyday street clothes, everyday movements. I used that as my template to re-address issues like - do you still recognise this as Indian classical dance, if I dance it in plainclothes? What is Indian about it then? As I evolve, this piece continues to evolve with me.

Finally, I just want to encourage dancers, especially the younger generation, to re-look at dance critically, and not accept everything as the biblical truth. There is no holy grail. It is essential to understand history from a critical point of view. One should not apply value judgements - this is good/ bad dancing, good/ bad choreography. Why is it good? Why is it bad? One should be informed by one's own training, an understanding of the subject matter and one's reading of history. I always like to tell people - context. It is very easy to get lost without that. Then we give in to thinking in binaries and absolutes. And binary thinking is also what spreads mediocrity.