Refrelction

My semester has come to an end, or rather is coming to an end. I have two days left until my performance, and I feel ready. I've had class today, I have class tomorrow, and I am rehearsing with musicians tonight. We do not have our costumes made yet, and I still have to purchase bangles, but other wise, I am ready.

I have really loved studying Bharata Natyum and I cannot wait to study it this next semester. I will learn more forms and shlokas and will be able to study on my own. I hope that by the end of next semester that I will know all of the foot and hand gestures.

This semester flew by. I can so vividly remember the first days of class when I did not know any of the foot works or could not remember the hand gestures. Now when I dance, I feel really graceful and beautiful. I cannot wait to put on my costume and my ornaments and show everyone everything that I know. 

Ornaments Galore!

Today was the first time I practiced with all of my ornaments, at least all of the ones on my head and on my face. I wore three fake nose rings, ear chains, earrings, and two head pieces. At first I thought that all of these things would fall out with my first step. Mala Ji tied them around my head and secured them with bobby pins. I also started wearing my ankle bells.

Something about wearing all of the ornaments and bells makes the performance seem very really and very soon, which it is. I love feeling like an authentic Bharata Natyum dancer; I have never been allowed to wear jewelry while dancing and these pieces make me feel like I am meant to be doing this style of dance. It is very official and very traditional.

I also really love wearing the bells around my ankles. Even though they add extra weight to my ankles, they have made me step harder and more precisely. I think that I really like making noises with my feet. Tap was always my favorite kind of dance and I think my love of rhythm has followed me to India.

Alex and I have finally finished all of our routines and shlokas. We will be performing the pushpangalee, a ganesh shloka, a shloka for the gurus, the alaripoo and an adaboo combination along with two additional shlokas about the hand motions. The pushpanjalee is the presentation of flowers to the stage. All Bharata Natyum dances start with this piece. We are then performing shlokas asking for Ganesh to remove the obstacles that we could face dancing. We then thank the gurus, Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva. We then perform the Alaripoo; this is a pure dance combination. The name literally means the budding of flowers. After, I will perform a shloka on Shiva and Parvati. The next piece is the Adaboo combination. The full name is Nishtiya which means a strand of pearls; the pearls are the various smaller combinations of footwork, which are called adaboos, and they get tied together, like a necklace.

I like the combinations although sometimes they are hard to remember because there is no change in melody or rhythm of the music. In western dance classes routines are done to songs that have words and have changing patterns. The movements are prompted by words or by rhythms which makes it easier to remember. It is much harder to remember a routine when the beat is the same and the scales are sung over and over.

Doing the full routine in my ornaments made me feel like a star. I cannot wait to perform inform of my classmates so that they can see what I have been working for.    

Shopping

I love shopping in India. It is a very personal and long process and sometimes very confusing. For our performance, Alex and I met our teacher to go sari shopping. Alex and I both needed saris. His will be cut into the men’s costume.

After finding Mala Ji, which was a challenge in and of itself, we wound through the gullies until we reached a little sari shop. From there, one of the workers took us to a warehouse in other gullies. The warehouse was probably a 20ft by 20 ft square room with walls lined with fabric, saris and dotis.

Mala Ji explained that we needed cotton/synthetic saris that are solid color, and with a South Indian style contrast border. A boy, probably no older than 10, went to work pulling out sari after sari. Mala Ji made remarks like if the colors were not bright enough, the pattern too ugly, or the colors wrong or non-traditional. I ended up getting a navy, dark red and gold sari. I will bring it to a tailor with Mala Ji and it will be made into a costume. It was pretty inexpensive as far as saris go. I had to restrain myself from buying one extra for me. I was so close to it, but decided instead to save the money for a vacation to South India, where I will buy my sari.

I will still have to go and buy bells and bangles for my costume. I also will need to practice in all of my ornaments and flowers. I have had those for a while. Mala Ji bought them in South India when visiting her daughter. They are so sparkly, and even though I have no idea how to wear any of them, I have still played dress up a few times.

Watching performances

One of the most helpful things that I have done in my Bharata Natyum training is watching performances. Back in September I saw a Sanskrit play that had Bharata Natyum dancers and last week, our school had a small performance of both a Bharata Natyum dancer and a Kathak dancer.

Watching a professional up close was really inspiring and helpful. She performed many of the pieces that I will be performing. I was able to watch her footwork, her hand gestures and her facial expressions. She also performed the shlokas that I will be performing.

I know the footwork, but the hand gestures and facial expressions can be hard for me. I have never had to make my eyes and neck move along with my feet and arms. Watching the dancer was very helpful for me. She had very precise gestures, both with her face and her arms. She connected all of her movements very fluidly in a way that I have not mastered.

After seeing her perform, I was able to practice my head, neck and eye movements with more clarity of what they should look like. I stood in front of a mirror for ten or fifteen minutes working on my neck and eye movements. I realized that my neck was moving too jerkily and my eyes were not precise. I was also blinking far too often.

Mala Ji said that my expressions have been getting better. My neck is no longer out of control and I am hitting the proper angles with my eyes. I still need to work on keeping my arms high and full of energy. My arms tend to get tired from being so still, but I am working on that too. Just today, I was doing pushups to strengthen my arms, and squats and lunges to strengthen my legs, not just for dance, but also for life.

I am very happy that my gestures and eye movements are becoming clearer because we are putting them together in the form of reciting shlokas. We just learned the shlokas for the gods, Ganesh and then a specific one for Shiva and Parvaty. I really like doing the movements; in the Ganesh I have to mimic rocking a baby or in the Shiva and Parvaty shloka I get to stand like the Nataraj.

I was told that I will be learning many more shlokas and gestures next semester. I hope that by then I have the basics down pat. It will be so skilled at my eye movements. I will be able to convey so much emotion while talking to my friends, it will be great