Sacred Feminine

Guest Post by Lata Pada

"I stand here a woman who has traversed life in many avatars daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, dancer, teacher and mentor. I ask myself what is the common thread that weaves each of these roles in my life – it has been the abiding feminine spirit, restless and ever seeking," says Lata Pada, the renowned danseuse, and the artistic director of Sampradaya Dance Creations, in her introduction to Meena Chopra’s book She – The Restless Streak

Your worship Mayor Bonnie Crombie, distinguished guests, artists and friends. I am very honoured to be invited to speak today and illustrate how the poems of Meena pay homage to a woman, in all her myriad moods and facets.

Lata Pada performing an abhinaya to Meena Chopra's poetry
at the launch of She - the Restless Streak
at Mississauga Central Library
Photo: Sheila Tucker

As I read She- The Restless Streak, I found Meena’s poems replete with imagery, nuance, allegory and subtext. Each poem has touched upon a central motif - that of a woman. The release of her new book of poetry – She– The Restless Streak– is a deeper journey in that feminine mystique, mysterious and unpredictable, into the abstract and the tangible, complementary and contradictory.

I find the poems are an exploration of the feminine energy, that those of us from India know as Shakti, she who has the power to annihilate evil while also protective of her devotees, her restless creative energy juxtaposed against her meditative and still presence. Shakti is the divine mother that creates, nurtures and nourishes, protective and fierce about her creations, unhesitating about destroying evil.

Meena’s poems have resonated for me at a deeper level. Each of her poems epitomizes what I would like to call the ‘sacred feminine’ – a principle that reaffirms our connection to the divine, the Goddess, the earth and each other. The poems take us on several inner journeys, that are deeply personal and yet universal.

Today, I stand here a woman who has traversed life in many avatars daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, dancer, teacher and mentor. I ask myself what is the common thread that weaves each of these roles in my life – it has been the abiding feminine spirit, restless and ever seeking. That spirit has been my constant companion and has been part of artistic voice which has found expression in many of my dance productions.

In the arts of India, the female divine has been an intrinsic part of every artistic expression, represented over centuries in temple carvings, paintings and murals, poems and devotional outpourings of the saint-poets and in dance of every genre.

As prakriti – nature, she imprints every creation with her divine energy, moving unceasingly, restless to complete the natural cycles of the sun, the wind and waters to restore order, so the new day can begin. Meena has captured it so beautifully in her poem Kaleidoscope where she describes the ever restless, changing nature through the dawn of day, surging, shifting towards establishing cosmic order.

The female Divine has always been an intrinsic part of life in India, the Indian tradition, where Shakti and Shiva, the female and the male, are seen as essential to the balance of the universe. Artistic traditions such as painting, literature, dance and music honoured this principle of ardhanarishwara, the union of the male and female, as a necessary part of every aspect of nature.

As a dancer, I have found inspiration in the many facets of the feminine in Indian writing, but always searching and restless as how to reconcile the tensions between western and eastern sensibilities, and to explore universal meaning for themes of the goddess, divinity and woman.

Revealed By Fire was the result of this quest. 16 years after the devastation of the Air India bombing in June 1985 in which my husband and two daughters were victims, I felt compelled to create an autobiographical work that was my personal journey through tragedy and survival. 

While my world as wife and mother had been cruelly wrenched from me, I came to understand that my identity as a woman had survived, an identity that no outside force could destroy. No force, even fire like the archetypal Sita of the Ramayana. 

Instinctively, I turned to Sita, where her agni-pariksha- a test of fire, resonated for me; a motif of my re-birth and renewal. Sita emerged unscathed - strong and luminous.

Fire became a metaphor, both for its destructive and regenerative energy. I surrendered to my strong instinct; I did not question the need for this work, I only needed to imagine how to create it. In Revealed By Fire, I returned to wholeness, a new peace and equanimity.

Preparing for my theatre debut has been terrifying & exciting: Lata Pada

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Guest Post: Lata Pada

Globally renowned danseuse Lata Pada, the artistic director of Sampradaya Dance Creations, is making her first foray in theatre this week, when she debuts in Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man. In this first person piece, Lata, who has the rare distinction of being honoured with both the Order of Canada and the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, describes the thrill of acting on stage 

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When Jasmine and Nitin first asked if I would consider auditioning for the role of Rathna in Sawitri Theatre’s DANCE LIKE A MAN, I was impulsive and readily agreed. After all, I could completely relate to the role of Rathna and the ‘world of the play’ certainly resonated for me. I thought this would be a piece of cake!  But little did I know what I had committed to.

Preparing for my theatre debut in Rathna’s role in DANCE LIKE A MAN has been both terrifying and exciting!  You might ask why a seasoned dancer like me would feel this way. After all, I have been on stage for the past forty years and should have grown accustomed to quelling my nervousness, taking a deep breath and holding my own in dance performances for a range of audiences – intimate salon type to large outdoor stages with thousands of spectators.  Why should a new but similar medium of theatrical expression challenge me?  Ah, that is the crux of the matter.

Dance and theatre share many techniques and devices. In bharatanatyam, I have been trained to be a soloist, interpreting the many characters in the poetry and lyrics we portray. We are trained to understand the spirit of the character, embody the emotions and gestures that are specific to the situation or role, hold the ‘sthaayi’ or dominant mood that the poetry suggests.  Essential to our training is projecting the delicate and nuanced expressions to large audiences without caricaturizing the role. Not different from theatre one would say.

Working with Mahesh Dattani and Christina Collins has been such an uncharted journey, filled with new learning and surprises, about myself and my co-actors. For the first week, Mahesh worked with us in Chekhov's ‘archetypal sensations’ like falling, floating, balancing and internalizing and veiling  ‘intent’ such as push, pull, smash, lift, reach, penetrate, gather, throw and tear.

What a powerful way of embodying the characters we were playing! For me a dancer, whose gestures and emotions are our tools of expressions, learning to literally ‘tie my hands behind my back’ and work with the intent alone was frustrating, but had to be done.

Decades of training with my dance gurus have polished the art of improvisation and exploring the ‘sanchari’s in the composition. Knowing that I had a responsibility towards not ‘tripping up’ my co-actors with forgetting a line or phrase felt like a huge weight to carry.

But I surprised myself.  Gradually my confidence grew, I learnt to ‘lighten up’ and be in the moment.  A huge thank you to Mahesh, Christina, Anand, Sid and Navneet for your generosity and support in holding my hand through this exhilarating new journey. I've had so much fun and learnt so much. Thank you Jasmine and Nitin for believing in me; I will do my best not to let you down. 

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Dance Like A Man – Three performances. On Thursday, October 16, Friday, October 17 and Saturday October 18 - 8 pm, at Meadowvale Theatre, Mississauga, 6315 Montevideo Road, Mississauga, ON, L5N 4G7. 

Directorial Vision – Mahesh Dattani; Co-Director – Christina Collins; Set & Lighting Design - Joe Pagnan; Music – Deepak Sant; Stage Manager – Heather Bellingham

Cast Lata Pada, Anand Rajaram, Sid Sawant, Navneet Kaur

Tickets: $50, $30 & $20. Go to http://sawitridlam.bpt.me 

FB http://www.facebook.com/sawitritheatregroup

Website www.sawitri.ca

Mahesh and I

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Guest Post by Jasmine Sawant

(First published in Desi News October 2014)

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It was shortly after SAWITRI was born, that I met Mahesh Dattani through Where There’s A Will. As I was reading the play, I laughed so much that I nearly fell off the couch! And then, when I was done, I sat silent for a long, long while. This man had effortlessly described the father-son relationship that I had witnessed in my community; the Gujarati community. Maybe it existed in other communities as well, but there it was, out in the open. Someone had taken the time to write about the patriarchal stranglehold. Intelligently, dramatically, incisively and poignantly, someone who had perhaps, suffered as did his ‘Ajit’ in the play, had penned down the pain.  And then there was the treatment of the women. The way the character of Hasmukh Mehta treated his wife and his mistress was funny, wacky, but deep down there was a systemic manipulation and marginalization of the women of his household. It was a cleverly constructed play that resonated strongly with us on many levels.

SAWITRI Theatre Group wanted to produce the play right away. We even got Mahesh’s permission; I still have that email. But our theatre group was new. We had just started. We thought it would be good to collaborate with an established like-minded theatre company. We saw it as mutually beneficial. We knew we were bringing passion, talent, a different perspective and a new market segment to the table. But the start up is usually considered an upstart, an interloper! We needed to prove ourselves to be taken seriously, and it was the usual chicken or egg syndrome. Ten years later, when we finally produced Where There’s A Will in 2012, it was the realization of a long standing dream!

Whether one is in Mumbai or in Mississauga, there’s always a ‘mainstream’ to deal with. Its composition may differ, but there’s this ‘push out’ from ‘mainstream’. Feeling strongly about marginalization, producing Mahesh Dattani’s Seven Steps Around the Fire was next. If we felt so pushed out, then how much more difficult it would the for the LGBT community here. In India, the ‘hijras’ suffer social discrimination, social deprivation, poverty and mental torture. Their birth is seen as a curse of the Gods. Being transgendered should not mean they cease to be human without potential or human sensibility. The legal acceptance of the LGBT community in Canada has not automatically ensured their social acceptance, and the South Asian community in the Greater Toronto Area is no exception. We hope that this project has led to a better understanding, or a gradual acceptance of this community here.

Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like A Man, is like the grand finale to the theme of marginalization. It deals with the marginalization of the male dancer in South Asian society. Once again, it’s a family setting, the home is the ‘battleground’ in this inter-generational conflict of gender discrimination and patriarchal manipulation. It is a brilliant study of human relationships and weaknesses; the age-old battle between father and son, between tradition and youthful rebellion. In the world of classical Indian dance, especially bharatanatyam, there is a curious reversal of gender discrimination. It is the male dancer that is being sidelined. There is a wide-spread perception that dance is a frivolous indulgence and not a job for a man, that it is effeminate and suitable only for the female body. Dance is also perceived as a form of entertainment and not an art form, and the biggest roadblock to Indian male dancers is the silent issue of sexuality. A dancing man is automatically presumed to be homosexual! As the number of second and third generation South Asians increase, examining this South Asian mind-set and finding acceptable solutions becomes increasingly important.

Dance Like A Man is a richly layered play and it boasts an exciting cast. Lata Pada, Artistic Director of Sampradaya Dance Creations plays the role of the older ‘Ratna’. This marks Lata’s stage acting debut. Anand Rajaram plays the role of the older Jairaj. Today, Anand is indisputably one of the finest South Asian actors we have here. Emerging actors, Sid Sawant, as Viswas and Navneet Kaur, as Lata complete the cast. SAWITRI Theatre is proud to be presenting the Canadian premiere of one of Mahesh’s most successful and celebrated plays. And to have Mahesh here during four weeks of rehearsal and production is going to enhance the creative vibrancy of the piece.

Interestingly, the other two Dattani plays were also Canadian premieres. Why Mahesh Dattani? India has many excellent plays and some phenomenal playwrights, but none who write in English. They write in their mother tongue, and some flavours are definitely lost when you translate. I also attribute this affinity towards his works to how closely I probably identify with him in regards to the two worlds that exist within us. These worlds invariably collide, but eventually compromise and work out a co-existence. Both of us are an urban phenomenon. We are raised in one language at home, Gujarati in my case, and his too. But we spend our entire life learning, thinking, feeling expressing and dreaming in English. There is often a feeling that we are neither here nor there, and yet at the same time we straddle two worlds and create a new identity.

Additional information:

Dance Like A Man – Three performances. On Thursday, October 16, Friday, October 17 and Saturday October 18 - 8 pm, at Meadowvale Theatre, Mississauga.

Directorial Vision – Mahesh Dattani; Co-Director – Christina Collins; Set & Lighting Design - Joe Pagnan; Music – Deepak Sant; Stage Manager – Heather Bellingham

CAST: Lata Pada, Anand Rajaram, Sid Sawant, Navneet Kaur

Meadowvale Theatre, 6315 Montevideo Road, Mississauga, ON, L5N 4G7

Tickets: $50, $30 & $20. Go to http://sawitridlam.bpt.me  

FB http://www.facebook.com/sawitritheatregroup

Website www.sawitri.ca

Moments in Dance

Dance is about a series of movements. Photography is about a moment. And art is born when moment meets movement.  

Avinash Pasricha, the renowned Delhi-based photographer has an oeuvre of over 30,000 photographs – a historic personal archive – of India’s most iconic performing artists.

Ali Adil Khan, art connoisseur nonpareil, and Asma Arshad Mahmood, artist and art promoter par excellence, have curated a small but significant piece of that oeuvre.  Ali Adil’s South Asian Art Gallery and Asma’s Promenade Gallery have come together to host an exhibition of Pasricha’s photographs titled Moments in Dance.

Effortlessly breaking the shackles of form and frame, the photographs on exhibit are alive to the poetry of splendour of motion and resplendence of rhythm. The exhibit is an ensemble of some of the most venerated names of Indian dance – right from Vyjayanthimala to Kelucharan Mohapatra, and Saswati Sen and Birju Maharaj, to name just a few.

Ali Adil and Asma introduced Pasricha’s work and then invited Akhilesh Mishra, India’s Consul General in Toronto to speak, who emphasized the universality of art. Renowned danseuse, choreographer and legendary performing artist Lata Pada then gave intricate insights into Pasricha’s work, revealing that he has an equally large and elaborate oeuvre of photographs of Indian classical singers, and an exquisite collection of photographs of MS Subbulakshmi.

In a short introduction to the exhibition Ali Adil writes, “Twenty-seven matt bromide prints of the legendary Indian dancers, vocalists and musicians are exhibited in various rhythmic forms, postures and moods. These prints have been selected from Pasricha’s large personal collection of rare ad enduring images of India’s greatest performing artists.”

Pasricha was the photo editor of SPAN magazine (published by the USIS) for over three decades, till he retired in 1997.

The exhibition runs from May 27 to June 10. 

The gallery’s Facebook page is:  https://www.facebook.com/PromenadeGallery 

The group page is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/promenadeart/?fref=ts