Life lessons from dance - Bharatanatyam
Bharatanatyam
teaches us how to perform actions without entanglement both from the dancer and
the audience perspective.
Dancer
Perspective
As a
dancer, the dancer must align with a given scene (Bhavam), music (Ragam), and
rhythm (Tala), to bring out the emotions, that get expressed through facial
expressions, mudras and body movements so that dance as a whole is in sync with
the scene the dancer is trying to portray. This entire process becomes
much tougher when the dancer must switch to multiple characters within a few
seconds.
For
example, the dancer had to constantly switch to multiple characters in quick
successions. Consider the following varnams of life of Krishna portrayed
by the dancer:
- From, Devaki to Krishna to Vasudeva
to Krishna and then to Vasudeva.
- From demon Pootana to beautiful
Pootana.
- From warrior Arjuna to Krishna
- From warrior Arjuna to weakened,
despondent Arjuna
- From Krishna who calms down Arjuna,
to Arjuna
- From Viswaroopam Krishna to Arjuna
who was frightened seeing this roopa
Imagine,
if the dancer gets things mixed up. For example, if the dancer lingers
upon despondent Arjuna for some more seconds, he / she cannot perform well
portraying Krishna giving advice (Upadesa) to Arjuna.
When
the dancer performs dance very nicely, we will be able to distinguish and
appreciate the characters very well. Dance itself should bring immense joy to
the dancer when the dancer neither lingers on the previous scenes nor worries
about the upcoming scenes but continue to dance that was aligned with the scene
and the characters the dancer tried to convey to the audience at that
moment. The dancer joyfully leaves the previous scene and readily takes
upon the next scene without any entanglement.
What
all these means for our life situations from a Spirituality or connecting to
divinity standpoint? In our life, situations invoke emotions and emotions
play an important role. Sometimes, these emotions still linger for a long time
affecting the performance of an entirely new set of actions. For example,
something that went wrong at work can affect how I behave with the family long
after I come back from work.
What
does connect to the divinity means? To align with the given life
situation: my emotions, thoughts, facial expressions, and body movements must
be in complete synch like the dance performance. As I am ready to perform
the next act, like the dancer, neither the past nor the future emotions,
thoughts, facial expressions, body movements should impact the current act,
they all should align with the current life situation.
Like
the dancer, I should be able to joyfully leave the previous action and readily
take upon the next action without any entanglement. This is the complete
freedom in action. This means, as an actor (dancer), I continue to live
in the present moment amidst continuous changes around me and within me.
Truly
speaking I am not the doer, the actions continue to take place, this body moves
(dances) as per the supreme will (the real dancer).
Needless
to say, like the dancer, living in the present moment is connecting to divinity
as there is RASA – Bliss, which is nothing but SELF or BRAHMAN.
Thus,
Bharatanatyam teaches how to dance (act) as a dancer (actor performing the
role) in line with life situations.
Audience
Perspective
From
the audience perspective, we take an inward journey (Gross – Body to Subtle -
Emotions), watch the dancer’s mudras, dance movements through our eyes,
assimilate those movements as thoughts in our mind, which invoke emotions
within us.
Like
the dancer, to completely appreciate the dance, the audience must “follow” the
dance without entertaining any other thoughts. Other thoughts may appear,
they are neither followed nor suppressed. Every time we notice the
thoughts are wandering away, the attention is brought back to the dance
performance, so that all those aspects grossest to subtlest are aligned.
As
the dancer moves through various scenes and characters, they are appreciated to
the full extent, without getting entangled in any of previous scenes or
upcoming scenes. For example, we may also experience similar types of emotions
such as joy, sadness, angry, jealousy, etc. within ourselves in our daily life.
But they are all momentary for that scene. There is a deep ecstasy in
witnessing all these scenes irrespective of the emotion types including
sadness, but never carried over to the next scene. This means, living in
the present moment, which in turn means experiencing the RASA – Bliss within ONESELF.
This
also could be explained in a different manner. When the audience follows
this precisely with a pure appreciation of dance, without any strings of
attachments or aversions, the audience finds the emotions are invoked within
and not outside anymore. Thus, the audience finds that the entire dance
is happening within ONESELF, thus breaking the duality or the divisions among
the dancer, the audience, the act of watching the dance, all becomes ONE.
The absence of division enables the audience to recognize the RASA.
This is the divine cosmic dance (Aanandha Dhandava) that is happening in the
hall of consciousness (Chit Saba)
Thus,
the dancer enables us (as the audience) to take the inward journey towards the
SELF – Brahman by pure appreciation of the dance.
Neither
the dancer who performed so many emotions over multiple scenes nor the audience
who watched those scenes would take them as real. However, both the
dancer and the audience appreciated those scenes during their momentary
appearances.
Thus, Bharatanatyam teaches us both from the dancer and the
audience perspective how to connect to divinity and continuously live in the
RASA amidst continuous movements in our life situations and enjoy the freedom
in action without any entanglement.
