For the first time ever, like a dream come true, I have finally seen a performance by Kalakshetra here in Singapore last month. But at the end of it, I was like: is that it? I mean I was very impressed by the dancers' impeccably precise execution of all dance sequences, tirmanam and all, the way their arms are raised to equal angles with equal spacing between their bodies during a nattadavu, the perfect circles they form now and then, absolutely no sloppiness like what you may be used to in watching amateur performances. It was also a joy watching six to eight male dancers on stage in one go, with their veshti beautifully wrapped around in two or three tiers; I mean if you cull all the male dancers from whichever group you can find here you can count them off in one hand, maybe two if you include non-professionals. And the effective lighting design gives the Kalakshetra dancers an extra aura, the amber light giving a lovely warmth to the girls with their heavy garlands, the blue background matching the blue veshti of the guys so divinely as fitting for a dance drama devoted to Krishna. But still, something seems missing despite the picture-perfect beauty of Dasaru Kanda Krishna, a work set to music of Purandaradasa, depicting several scenes of Krishna's life...

I must say the show affords beautiful tableaus on stage, like how a few gopis would be plucking on one side and a few others talking and laughing on the other side, and then you have one gopi bursting into the scene breaking up a couple other gopis and making one U-turn to reach another group, all the action orchestrated with well-calculated timing. When they do the usual elephant and crocodile story which otherwise can be enacted by a solo dancer, they end with an elaborate tableau of a dancer as elephant, a dancer doing the crocodile with open jaws, then the divine manifestation by another dancers, and extra dancers would be flanking on two sides, raising their arms with palms up towards the centrepiece. It's like they have the manpower and they will use it to match western ballet in grandeur (sans those fake houses or fake forests which western productions would invest heavily on, we Indian dancers don't believe in such things). But ultimately, you realise that the songs are just a loose collection of compositions with the theme of Krishna rather than an opera with the dramatic structure like in western classical music, and what it means is that after a joyous stick dance somewhere in the middle, you don't have anything like an action-packed final showdown for climactic scene, it's just one nice song after another. I read that this dance drama was performed for the ISKCON and I imagine such gentle subtlety might be perfect in that context, but I think people like me just have not reached that tranquil or transcendental state of mind to meditate on the messages behind the dance instead of watching how human bodies can move. In fact I'm reminded somewhat now of those colourful illustrations in the Bhagavad Gita painted by western devotees - it's most exquisite, even awe-inspiring, but somehow so distant from me. I don't know how to say it but, it's all too clean, maybe?

Kalakshetra's current director Leela Samson (a most splendid dancer herself, I heard from an alumnus who was under her), who incidentally choreographed this production, has said, and I quote, that "the Kalakshetra style is a way of rendering an adavu, the insistence on touching the toes in a particular way, taking the bend to its fullness, stretching the arm to its completeness, the emphasis points, the manner in which you take a turn...". Well the result is very evident on stage of course. But it should be pointed out that when Rukmini Devi founded Kalakshetra at the Theosophical Society 7 decades ago, when she devised a sequence of adavus to be practised with clarity and smoothness, she was actually taking the cue from ballet exercises. In fact the story worth repeating is that Rukmini was prompted by the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova to discover her own Indian tradition in dance. So this dance form which we like to trace all the way back to Bharata Muni, as if it has never changed in 2,000 years, is in fact catalysed by foreign ideas in the form as we know it today. Makes one think how it would be like if we attempt now to make Bharatanatyam movements a bit less clean instead, say by imagining how the devadasis used to do it?

I'm not trying to provoke here, just thinking of alternative possibilities. It's like if the organisers did not bring this production here this time, they could also have brought Kalakshetra's recent adaptation of Man in the Iron Mask, the old French thriller novel by Alexandre Dumas, that could really have been a scream. But guess they just want to play it safe, especially when there is so much prestige surrounding this occasion of Kalakshetra performing in Singapore, so many distinguished guests in the community coming, so many companies, banks, airlines, foundations and all supporting this show (you will never see so much corporate support for local productions, guess the rationale is that it's pointless to support groups that are still struggling, you don't get any mileage doing that), you feel as if there has never been Indian classical dance in Singapore all these years and they are showing it now to a privileged and fortunate lot. You see so many well-heeled patrons coming in their best suits or best dresses (makes me wonder how dancers in Kalakshetra have, in contrast, eschewed ties, shoes and socks in their cottage-style campus), arriving ceremoniously early to rub shoulders with others or fashionably late to just catch the show, hardly anyone having time even to stop by that little music stall set up by someone coming all the way from India for this festival (if you thought the CD prices would be daylight robbery, what pity, I must inform you all too late now that it would have been your steal actually). So, in short, the programme just had to be something that makes for a pleasant outing rather than make a stir.

All said, I think the Kalakshetra style is apparently something that has to be held up high like a monument with fine, exquisite carvings meant to last through the sands of time, as a means of preserving a heritage that might be too intangible otherwise. But if all that Bharatanatyam dancers like us works towards is that kind of precision without some casual human touch or some new themes, it may just become a form of decorative art, something like wallpaper. Our audience should learn to appreciate more contemporary works too, and by that I don't just mean performances that incorporate some multimedia or some modern theme while basically doing an entire margam repertoire from alarippu to thillana. Even within the past few weeks I have seen some recitals moving out of the classical dance format, like one using electronic music and interacting with special lighting effects, or one where the dancer speaks simultaneously and also interacts with the audience. We can move out of the confinement of a fixed mentality and keep a tradition alive by giving it some space to breathe as well, no?