Shivaangee Agrawal

While not being able to fully answer these questions, I felt there was a level of integrity brought about by our commitment to the non-visual experience of dance, simply for ourselves and for the richness of our individual practices. When we stopped trying to 'do this for them' and started 'doing this for us', and being led by our personal investment in challenging the dominance of the visual, things began to feel more authentic, less contrived and more full of possibility.

In our post-blacklivesmatter 2021 arts landscape in the UK, you could be forgiven for thinking that many institutions have changed, that marginalised identities are being given more space, that anti-racism is becoming centre-stage. And yet, when I try to voice a whiteness-related concern with an institution, most often they reply with a link to their webpage on anti-racism and diversity. Whose job has actually got easier?

“The unpredictability of what will happen is what makes something alive. It is not about trying to recreate aesthetics or trying to make what people expect you to be making.”

“When we were choreographing this production, we didn't know exactly what we were going to do, and it was on the way to the core of this work that we found out what we wanted to present.”

A series of guides that speak to the freelance dance artist living and working in the UK. Shivaangee interviewed practitioners and compiled these features, on topics ranging from managing bodies to managing money.

Ashwini explained that she wanted to find ‘the truth behind the mythology’; to dig deeper into the stories she had been told as a child and as a dancer, to find her personal connection to them. It was indeed refreshing to know that such an unpretentious curiosity, grounded in the classical form, could be supported by the Arts Council.

This immersion allowed for an engagement with dance that was synchronous across our physical, emotional, musical and intellectual selves - a synchrony that is otherwise hard to come by in the disjointed nature of freelance urban life. 

I am a practitioner of a dance form that not many white people have heard of, let alone are able to pronounce, so half the conversations I have are reduced to me trying to explain what I do. These conversations inaccurately render Bharatanatyam a minority practice, and I a minority artist, trying endlessly to relate what I do to an elusive notion of ‘mainstream dance’.

Mythili Prakash is one of the Four By Four nominated choreographers of Dance Umbrella 2019. I speak to her about the work she will be premiering, ‘Here and Now’.

The most satisfying moment for me in her talk was when Tara articulated our collective challenge.

A treat to see the distinctly different destinations that choreographic trajectories can take, especially when those journeys start off with shared classical vocabularies. 

I associated something this Islamic with kathak rather than bharatanatyam. It didn’t take long however for this connotation to unravel; the Sultanate courts of the Mughal Carnatic in the 18th century had a significant influence on the artistic activities of the time, and the Nawabs of Arcot were huge patrons for dance and music in southern India.

Jaivant Patel gave audiences in Wolverhampton a rare treat on Saturday 15th June; an evening that was special both for its programming of classical work, and its focus on male performers.

Chennai is undoubtedly the motherland of bharatanatyam, a rich source of tradition, knowledge and technical expertise. Hosts to the most tightly curated bharatanatyam festivals in the world, Chennai is also a gatekeeper of tradition and thus becomes a benchmark for quality bharatanatyam. The UK in comparison has but a fledgling bharatanatyam industry, where practitioners focus on making work that can sit alongside that of mainstream dance choreographers and win over audiences that know nothing of their form.

What stops me from perceiving my practice and my form in a radically different way, from trying things that may raise eyebrows? Is it even possible to be both a classical dancer and a radical one? 

In an age where body positivity is flourishing and the societal pressures (for women, especially) to look a certain way are increasingly acknowledged and refuted, dance still seems to be one arena where perfect beauty continues to be idolised.

My ballet teacher refused to show any sequence more than once, demanding that we try and rebuild the movement purely from what the body might have subconsciously picked up from observation. This seemed ludicrous to me.

What does it mean to practise bharatanatyam? At the intersection of a sport, an art form, theatre, an inherited culture and a musical tradition, bharatanatyam contains an inherent plurality that doesn't make clear the best approach to practising.

I don't own the bharatanatyam that I dance - it's something that I was given a share of by my teachers, and something that's gradually been handed over to me bit by bit, sometimes generously, sometimes cautiously. Until I own it, the teacher owns it, and India always owns it.

And I can’t deny it; there’s a part of me that feels deeply satisfied to see the tables turned; to see contemporary dancers challenged by the demands of a Bharatanatyam choreographer.

The relatively simple technical sequence that opened their performance was marked by very clean footwork, effortless leaps, and expert rhythmic control. But the show was about much more than technical proficiency, and after this first jathi, things quickly became more complicated and risky.

Swati came into her element during the varnam, and the rest of the evening followed with ease. Confident stillnesses were followed by explosive travelling sequences. Fast, clear footwork was followed by the graceful shaping of the upper body. The intensity of the Ardanarisvaram piece was followed by a humorous javali where Swati was extremely convincing as a young and frivolous protagonist, dismayed at the gossip that ridiculed her.

I’m inspired to write about the time that Rama Vaidyanathan staged a tense psychological drama that revealed the potential for the age-old metaphor of Radha and Krishna to be definitively modern and relevant.

I wrote on my conservatory-come-studio window, with my red chalk pen: "Get experience with companies / choreographers."

Encountering reality in all its ungratifying glory is the cornerstone to staying sane; for being able to process ‘negative’ emotions and attend to trails of thought long enough to untangle complexity.

This theme of flame epitomised Mythili’s aesthetic, which is pleasurably familiar in its classicism but excitingly new in its sensibility.

The intensity of contact time at Dance India 2017 allowed a rare 360-degree intimacy, revealing more about their creative processes, personalities, approaches and journeys than I had imagined I could know.

How can one feel free when every corner of movement is tied down with rules that define what is beautiful, what is acceptable?