They Reach Across - Two performers who are redefining the classical art

Akram Khan is neatly packaged in black and is faintly alarmed that we want to photograph him as he is. “It’s what I wear to rehearse in,” he protests mildly, even as we sush his inhibitions and train the camera on him. The black, finely tuned torso fairly vibrates with energy, yet outwardly, there is nothing about this performer-choreographer to tell you that he is just about to burst with rhythm and story.
Yet he does and on stage he is simply riveting. It’s not just ‘dance’, it’s something more. You see it in the young man even before you watch him perform. Bangladeshi in origin and trained in Kathak by Pratap Pawer of the Academy of Indian Dance in the UK, Akram remembers being pushed into the art by his mother at the young age of seven. “I remember how much our home was steeped in classical music and the arts,” he says softly, “My mother wished to pursue dance and she was firm that I learn Kathak.” Reluctance soon turned to fascination and Akram has never looked back. To him, as Western as he may be, there is a humming cord that connects him back to the region of his roots. “Chennai seems so much like Dhaka,” he observes, “It’s just that there are not as many rickshaws here.”
As Asian as he is in sensibility, he does not find Kathak restrictive in its classical form. He finds equal freedom in his tightly choreographed solo, Loose in Flight, which he performed at the Museum Theatre as part of The Other Festival.
Do the young throng his performances, or is his audience mostly those among the older generation? “I don’t know as yet how it is here,” he confesses, “But in London, it’s the younger generation who come to see my performances. And they are young Westerners too.” The lightly coiled up body in black, still and attentive to what is being discussed, is the same that bursts into flight on stage. Akram’s vibrant talent is something that will travel beyond the mere classical.
So too, will the theatre of Pondicherry-based Veenapani Chawla, choreographer who runs the theatre group Adishakthi. This year, her Ganapathi, on the elephant-headed God, relied heavily on the rhythmic beats of drums. The group, that brings together different kinds of folk and martial arts, primarily from Kerala and Orissa, into what can be loosely termed as ‘performing theatre’ has made its mark in Chennai.
“Our myths are packed with meaning,” says Veenapani talking of the making of Ganapathi, “They have resonances that do have contemporary meaning.” That these contemporary interpretations do make meaning for the young is something that does not surprise her. “We had a series of workshops in Bombay. We had 70 people in that workshop,” she exclaims, “Young people from colleges, such idealism and such a desire for theatre....” She talks of the idealism that is coming alive among the young... “more now that ever before, more now among the college students.”
Even as the world changes like never before, classical art is buffeted by metamorphing interests. But Veenapani is unfazed by the process of change. “It is the older generation who may not be able to read it correctly,” she says, talking about who may empathise with her production, “This generation has the healthiest attitude. They want everything.”
When change is an integral part of life, art too moves with it, whatever its medium. Like the myth of Ganapathi, it’s creation, growth and destruction in the cyclic sense. Art needs to reinvent to grow.