Yesterday was a big day. My Bharatanatyam performance was broadcast on television. I have been learning for the past 15 years, so all i can think of to say is It's about time! I don't know if watching myself on television constitutes the definition of an out-of-body experience, but it definitely did feel like one. All I could think of was how much I have grown. And I also realised something else. Once a performer, always a performer. It doesn't matter how many years you've not been in practice, but put some lights and some audience in front of a performer, and their face automatically lights up, and their legs begin to move.
Dance is neither my profession nor just a hobby. It's my passion. It's one of those things that gets your adrenaline rushing through your body like there's no tomorrow. It's that which makes you physically beaten, sweat more than your deodorants can handle, your heart beat at a rate faster than you can count, your breath shallower than Hugh Hefner, and yet amazingly give you a sense of calm, peace, content and true happiness.
Why do I like Bharatanatyam? When you dance, you live in a different world. As used and misused as this phrase has been, it is, in fact, about becoming a different character. It's all about the sense of escape. For the one hour that I dance, I'm not the average person struggling through the personal pressures of creating a career and the societal pressures of creating a family. I'm the only daughter of the King whose beauty can only be described as divine, or the ardent devotee of the Lord who spends all her days in His worship. For that hour, my biggest worry is why my lover won't talk to me despite my best efforts of trying to reach out to him, and not whether i will get a good subject to pursue my post-graduation in. A gift for my loved one would mean some hand-made garlands and sandalwood paste, as opposed to emptying my father's bank accounts for the latest gadgets or jewellery. An outing with friends would mean going to the forest to collect water, and not fighting with the rickshaw-wallas to get me to the mall. Yes, it is just this false sense of escape from the true world that I really enjoy. Dance makes me schizophrenic in a socially acceptable way. It is a peaceful, albeit transient paradise. Because I know that once I step out of my dance class, a gush of thick, black smoke will hit my face from a moving bus and bring me back to reality.
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Dance is neither my profession nor just a hobby. It's my passion. It's one of those things that gets your adrenaline rushing through your body like there's no tomorrow. It's that which makes you physically beaten, sweat more than your deodorants can handle, your heart beat at a rate faster than you can count, your breath shallower than Hugh Hefner, and yet amazingly give you a sense of calm, peace, content and true happiness.
Why do I like Bharatanatyam? When you dance, you live in a different world. As used and misused as this phrase has been, it is, in fact, about becoming a different character. It's all about the sense of escape. For the one hour that I dance, I'm not the average person struggling through the personal pressures of creating a career and the societal pressures of creating a family. I'm the only daughter of the King whose beauty can only be described as divine, or the ardent devotee of the Lord who spends all her days in His worship. For that hour, my biggest worry is why my lover won't talk to me despite my best efforts of trying to reach out to him, and not whether i will get a good subject to pursue my post-graduation in. A gift for my loved one would mean some hand-made garlands and sandalwood paste, as opposed to emptying my father's bank accounts for the latest gadgets or jewellery. An outing with friends would mean going to the forest to collect water, and not fighting with the rickshaw-wallas to get me to the mall. Yes, it is just this false sense of escape from the true world that I really enjoy. Dance makes me schizophrenic in a socially acceptable way. It is a peaceful, albeit transient paradise. Because I know that once I step out of my dance class, a gush of thick, black smoke will hit my face from a moving bus and bring me back to reality.
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
So beautifully written! You just got me remember my dancing years!
ReplyDeleteKeep writing :)