Ruminations from Rustom

Some points that came up in a brief conversation with Rustom Bharucha on the steps of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan after the morning session on 21 December. The trio of lec-dems from three schools of Bharatanatyam – Thanjavur, Vazhuvoor, Kalakshetra – and Rustom was very taken with especially the second presentation. It was slow, but solid, and – in his words – there was very clearly a man on stage.

Several presenters in the conference – and also some others we have spoken to – have referred to dance as genderless. This may be true when one is talking about how a practitioner approaches his or her art: but does the same hold true when one looks at the audience where societal notions of what is masculine and what is feminine must necessarily affect the perception of the body on stage? No performing art can avoid being presented directly before an audience – there is no via media, the artist HAS to be present, the body HAS to be present. And Rustom felt it was about time performers started thinking about these issues.

This observation took him back to his intervention at the end of the papers presented by Ann David and Sandra Chatterjee the previous day. The papers had been built around the work of Ram Gopal and Uday Shankar respectively, and Rustom pointed out that Ram Gopal’s sexuality had not been touched on at all. Was it possible not to address questions of gender and sexuality in a conference built around the idea and image of a male dancer – especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on Section 377?

In a city like Chennai, classical traditions and the community of artists and audiences are still strong. There is a somewhat safe circuit – albeit small and increasingly threatened – within which younger performers can exist. The system takes care of you in a sense, perhaps protects you from having to deal head on with these ‘external’ considerations.

Also – another thing that seemed conspicuous by its absence was any mention of caste. The conference is situated in Mylapore, in the city of Chennai. The city has a history of inter-caste tensions, politics and caste-related social movements. Bharatanatyam has both a non-Brahmin and a Brahminised history, and Mylapore is closely associated with the latter. The curation of performances does somewhat address the question of caste in the variety on display, but how come there is no acknowledgement of this crucial question in the actual conference programme?