'Vulgarity is a perspective' - Hari Krishnan

Hari Krishnan, photo by Stephen De las Heras

Hari Krishnan is the artistic director of Toronto-based inDANCE and a Professor of Dance in the department of dance at Wesleyan University. Krishnan is a disciple of KP Kittappa Pillai and R Muttukannammal, specialising in devadasi (courtesan) dance and contemporary abstractions of Bharatanatyam. Here, he chats about his understanding of caste politics in dance, his works Uma and Frog Princess, and his notion of  'Queering Bharatanatyam'. 

You work extensively with the devadasi repertoire. I have seen The King's Salon. Given that it is so embedded in, and connected to the woman's body, how do you interpret the repertoire?

As a male dancer? The advantage of working with the devadasi community as opposed to the middle-class Tam Bram community is the completely different set of value systems embedded (in the communities). There is a more progressive way of looking at art, identity and the human body. Throughout my documentation, analysis and training with the devadasis - many women from several devadasi families of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh - they were welcoming and generous in the way they took me in and gave me information. But most importantly...I won't say it is androgyny – but the fact that I was a seeker and an eternal student coming in with an immense amount of respect, humility and a context of who they were in society, in what their identity is. Gender was very much a non-issue with me, in the way I worked with them. 

So, the pieces I learnt from them, and (in) my documentation – (in) the way they performed for me in terms of video archives – they performed the most erotic compositions in such a sophisticated way. That is what I want to stress. The mistaken assumption is that devadasis were vulgar. Vulgarity is a very recent phenomenon in the early part of the 20th century, by caste politics. Vulgarity is a perspective. The ability to be so extraordinary in such an ordinary way is where I see great human possibility, and it is in that humanity that I connect to devadasi dance immediately. 

'Dance has been polarised...all bogus binaries' - Navtej Johar

Balagopal and he, as boys in Kalakshetra, had not been encouraged to dance the solo Bharata Natyam repertoire. "We were considered mainly Kathakali artists, who were taught Bharata Natyam so as to dance in the dramas. While I had done minor items in class which were male oriented, there were no suitable songs for boys. Only Rupamu joochi, a varnam in praise of Shiva. We did that varnam, dropping the line suma shara mulachewhere the nayika complains of being struck by the flower-arrows of Cupid. The padams were Natanam adinar, about the vigorous dance of Shiva, or the Ashtapadi Vadasiyadi, where Krishna cajoles an angry Radha. Balan and I learnt items such as the tillana on our own initiative, which did not go down well with some of the teachers. But because we were doing every possible role in the dance-dramas, the technical grounding was very strong. We could learn anything later on."

- From Master of Arts: A Life in Dance by Tulsi Badrinath

A response and further conversation with Navtej Johar

What was the style of dancing that were considered appropriate for men in Kalakshetra? Was there any difference in the training for men?

Navtej Johar

There wasn't really any different style at all. I think it changes from generation to generation, but in our generation there was absolutely none. It’s just that there were a few items, so to speak, which they thought were more suitable for men. It wasn't that men were encouraged to do only those things. That was the only thing, I would say. There were a couple of varnams that were more suitable for men, and now I can see why. Other than that, as far as technique was concerned, absolutely no difference. 

Not even the Kathakali training…

Not at all. Not at all. I was completely untouched by Kathakali. I was very close to Jannu Anna (Janardhanan Sir) and I learnt a lot from him, but I never …