Padmini
Chettur isn't feeling the love in her native India. Getting almost
no support in her homeland, the classically trained dancer has to seek
funding for her severe, stripped-down choreography from cultural institutions
in Europe, where experimental dance-making has a better chance of thriving.
But if you're more used to the mythic tales of Indian classical
dance, you too might find her work a little hard to swallow.
"One of the first and biggest problems," writes Chettur
about India's traditional arts in her programme notes, "is
the fact that the 'traditional' role of women is to be
beautiful, soft, curvaceous, seductive and not too intelligent." I
think this means she isn't keen on replicating the exotic femininity
cultivated in the heroines of Bharata Natyam, the south Indian dance
form that she had learnt from an early age.
This might explain why her 2003 Solo, and Paper Doll -
her 2005 creation reworked for its Singapore debut - avoid depicting
mythological figures in the throes of spiritual union. Nor do they
have the ornamentation, facial gestures, and lavish mime associated
with Indian classicism. Instead, everything's lean and rigorous.
Even the cryptic music by Dutch composer Maarten Visser hardly provides
a discernible melody, only isolated sounds and vocalisations.
Only the slightest hint of Bharata Natyam's codified geometry
surfaces in Solo, a three-part tribute to the body in states
of quiet conflict and harmony. A tree-sturdy Chettur begins by unfolding
from a bent-forward stance in careful strokes, unwinding from and returning
to a twisted pose until she has advanced upstage. In the second part,
she squeezes and extends herself in yogic shapes. The third section
sees her marching on the spot, pausing only to angle an arm or a hip
sideways.
During this slow and deliberate process, the patterns and pacing vary
mildly; she can start a phrase with a different limb or speed up for
short bursts of time. Sitting through this sort of cumulative repetition
can force you to notice these tiny details. When you've been
watching the same thing for a while, you long for something different
to happen, and when it does, you feel a little better for waiting it
out.
Long passages of repeated movement also appear in Paper Doll,
which premiered as a quintet but was presented on this occasion as
a quartet. Here, images of tension and accord arise from the drawn-out
encounters between four women. Their measured drill, already in progress
when you enter the theatre, segues into a chain of arm-linked bodies,
subtly pushing and pulling one another while redistributing their weight
over the legs.
Even after venturing into space individually, they occasionally string
themselves together again. Two or three join up. In a gradually shifting
line dance, each performer cups the tilted head of another in front
of her. The various ways in which these four dancers are physically
connected become a source of comfort and imperceptible strain; the
bonds break before things can come to a head.
Of course, this sort of open-ended, mostly uninflected dancing is
an acquired taste. Chettur's dances don't read like stories
or musical statements, and they throw up more questions than answers.
But their ascetic reverie grows on you after a while, showing the body
toiling patiently at its unadorned best. |
"When you’ve been watching the same thing for a while, you
long for something different to happen, and when it does, you feel
a little better for waiting it out."
Credits
Choreography: Padmini Chettur
Music: Maarten Visser
Lighting for Solo: Sumant Jayakrishnan
Design for Paper Doll: Sumant Jayakrishnan
Costumes for Paper Doll: Evoluzione
Dancers: Padmini Chettur, Preethi Athreya, Andrea
Jacob and Anoushka Kurien
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