Pop Goes The Mudra

Dancers collude over tradition and modernity

As Indians collide with the contours of globalisation, its reverberations are finding their way in dance halls around the globe. But with young Indians straining at the leash of tradition, the same impatience and irreverence that marks endeavours in fashion, films, business, science and the arts, is making its presence felt on the stage of dance.

Which is why, today, there are attempts at contemporary work. But because we are resistant to change, these end up as pastiches rather than deeply thought of compositions.

Dancers attempting new work for the sake of doing something new more often than not end up serving the same wine in new bottles. Only rare attempts are being made to create a modern language for dance expression in India, and there are very few dancers whose work can claim to be either original or exciting.

Like Anita Ratnam, well known bharatnatyam dancer and founder of Chennai-based Arangham, who began her experiments in 1993 and was criticised for corrupting classical dance.