Poets and dancers have the commonality of exploring an idea in probably the most imaginative process than in any other field of arts. Literature as fantasised by dancers takes an altogether a new meaning when the dance vocabulary is added to it. Dr Ananda Shankar Jayant’s latest offering Taal Patra — Hymns from the hills based on poet Annamacharya’s work explores the beautiful imagery that is so vividly described in his poems.
This is Ananda’s fifth production on the work of a poet. “Two years ago we celebrated the 600th birth anniversary of Annamacharya and since then it was on my mind to choreograph some of his compositions. His sheer lyrical beauty and enormity of the compositions inspired me to work on some of them,” says Ananda. Annamacharya is said to have composed as many as 32,000 sankeertanas in praise of Lord Venkateswara. Around 12,000 of them etched on copper plates were discovered at Tirumala.
Ananda’s endeavour to work on Annamacharya’s poetry transformed into action when she heard some of the composition by Satthiraju Venu Madhav, a Carnatic musician who released a book and an album Annamayya Padamandakini which was tuned and sung by him.
“I have been working on the compositions by some of the legendary poets for quite some time now. And in many ways I wanted to move beyond the modern poetry of today and go back in time to explore history,” says Ananda.
She connected to Annamacharya’s poetry instantly and felt that they were very different in their descriptions from the other poets of those times. “I was born and raised as a Telugu and had heard so much about his work. But after reading some of his poems, I felt they were highly philosophical and romantic at the same time. The balance he achieved was phenomenal,” says Ananda. Annamacharya who was a 15th century poet wrote in a style extremely different from today.
“Some of the words and nuances in literature are not present in today’s modern day works and I had to go to Telugu scholars. To understand the context and expressions was a challenge in many ways,” says Ananda.
And revisiting the works of a poet in the 15th century is often left to the interpretation and imagination of the person working on them. “Much of it is about what you are trying to interpret and the perspective you bring forth to the audience,” says Ananda. Many of Annamacharya’s poems are extremely erotic and resonate with vibrancy in life. “There is an instance where he is describing the twists and turns of some movements and one actually feels he could be describing the vocabulary of dance,” says Ananda.
Having learnt Bharatnatyam and Carnatic music from Kalakshetra under the tutelage of the legendary Rukmini Arundale, Ananda says that just being in the environs of Kalakshetra makes one feel sensitive to the aesthetics of dance. “One is living there all the time and it is a highly evolving environment with focus on subtlety in aesthetics. The culture is extraordinary where you imbibe the finer details of dance, theory, music, stage setting, lighting et al,” says Ananda. She describes as her body of work as a healthy mix of traditional and contemporary work. Ananda’s earlier productions include Sri Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum, Buddham Saranam Gachchami and Thyagaraja Ramayanam, which looked at myth and chronicle. What about me delved into gender issues while Jonathan Livingston Seagull touched a philosophical tenet. Her solo work Gitopadesa Navarasa — Expressions of Life focussed on the nritta — pure dance where she tried to focus on Navarasa without any background of a mythological story. “I wanted people to develop their own thoughts through the portrayal of rasas which are often derivatives of some stories,” says Ananda. Navarasa was one of her most celebrated productions and went on to strike an immediate connect with the audience.
Panchatantra is another contemporary dance production where the body becomes of the language of communication in every aspect as most of the tales revolved around animals.
“I always try my best to communicate some story whether it is personal, mythological or modern in the most effective and simple way,” says Ananda.