Shoba Sharma's Naatya Dance Ensemble - P.A.W. Print

"What you see here is more of pure dance technique and the beauty of the dance idiom itself," said Shoba Sharma, Artistic Director of the Naatya Academy of Indian Classical Dance, discussing her company's interpretation of the cosmic dance Natyam Bharata.

A performance by Sharma's Naatya Dance Ensemble, titled Pancha Maha Bhootam, occurred on May 22 and 23 at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia. Bharata Natyam was executed through impeccable timing, the chiming of anklebells via rhymic foot stomps and an artful allegiance to the centuries-old dance tradition accompanied by beats of the tabla drum.

As the story of the Bharata Natyam form goes-- Sharma will have you know, Indra and other gods requested Lord Brahma to create a sacred art form. To complement the first four books of the Veda (the oldest and most authoritative Hindu sacred texts, composed in Sanskrit), Lord Brahma took words from the Rig-Veda (the collection of Hindu sacred hymns to various deities), music from Samaveda (a collection of mantras and tunes for use with the Ri-Veda), Abhinaya (formulas) from Yajurveda (a collection of sacrificial formulas) and Rasa (life-sustaining plasma) from Athara Veda (knowledge given by the sage Athara) and composed a new and fifth Veda called Natya Veda. Lord Brahma gave the veda to his son Bharat who codified it and wrote the Natya Shastra. Bharat taught this veda to his one hundred sons and to the Apsara-s (female spirits of nature) and Gandharva-s (the Aspara-s mates, spirits of the air, forests and mountains). Witnessing this dance art, Lord Shiva Nataraja requested Bharata to teach this art correctly to his gana-s or servants. The form is meticulously described in the Natya-sastra, the great treatise of Sanskrit dramaturgy composed before the 3rd century CE.

Pennsylvania is no stranger to Sharma. A board member of the International Institute for Theater Research, Sharma has performed at the Kimmel Center, the Merriam Theatre, the Philadelphia Free Library the University of Pennsylvania and Harrisburg Community College. Her achievements include fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council of Arts Dance Fellowships and the Dance Advance Grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Sharma has also danced at Lincoln Center and the World Music Institute.

"The aim would be to present Bharata Natyam… to the larger western community," Sharma said, regarding the classical dance style, which is most prevalent in the southern part of India, and performed all over the country.

"Pancha Maha Bhootam is very different from what we have presented before in the Philadelphia area," Sharma said. "We are not getting into rapid-fire storytelling and interpretation. Instead the emphasis is the meaning of the word."

Pancha Maha Bhootam translates to Five Great Elements. "Pancha" means five, "Ma" means great, and in this context Bhootam, means elements. "We are not getting into extensive storytelling. It is very, very simple lines of lyrics. So in this way, we are hoping that the audience can reach out and identify with the beauty of the idiom much more."

The extensive use of hand gestures and facial expressions of the Bharata Natyam dance form, Sharma explained, succeeds not only in storytelling but in interpreting the primordial elements or environmental characters of the stories. The dancers used their arms, hands, legs and fabric to tell the story. The troupe even found means of depicting the "inspiration" of air and the "spiritual nature" of ethers; items Sharma emphasizes are quite difficult to illustrate through movement.

"Bha" is short for "Bhava," which stands for expression. "Ra" derives from "Raga," which stands for melody. "Ta" is short for "Tala" which translates to rhythm. "Natya"is a word, encompassing dance as well as the inspiration, subject matter and execution of the form.

As a student, Sharma received a Government of India Scholarship to study with the Dhananjayan's in Madras (now Chennai). She has performed at the Music Academy of India, Krishna Gana Sabha and NCPA.

"I got involved in dance because my family back in India has been very, very deeply committed to cultural learning in addition to academic learning," said Sharma, who began studying dance at four, then giving small performances at six. "By the time I turned about eight or nine, I began giving full, evening-length concerts."

The Bharata Natyam dancer is trained to be a soloist. "We perform an entire, three-hour performance by ourselves," said Sharma, characterizing her intense training. While the form's background is historically, predominantly Hindu in origin, Sharma explained that the dance transcends an aesthetic limitation to religious ritual, embracing mostly Indian culture, "[which] is a conglomerate of so many different faiths and religions."

"It [Bharata Natyam] does have a place in religious worship but the way it is performed now has become a full-fledged theatre art form. Now, it is really something that is going to help you reach down deep into your own spirit," Sharma continued.

Sharma founded the Naatya Academy, a non-profit group based in Berwyn, in 1991. Since then, the ensemble has performed at numerous Indian Community Events within the Delaware Valley, including the Triveni Purandaradasa Festival, as well as various cross-cultural awareness programs.

Rivaling the ostentation of western ballet, Bharata Natya, relying on mantra and songs from the Vedas, usually enjoys a pageantry that is equally as regal when it is performed in India. In contrast, American audiences gradually adapt to what they witness, although ballanotation includes an unfamiliar complexity of movements- hands, limbs, costumes slashing very quickly. Sharma said, "We from India are familiar with the stories. Of course, the ones who know the dance form can understand it that much better. However, people from the western community have a difficult time. They find it fascinating, then they're like what?... because [the dance] is going too quickly." To bridge the mechanical complexities with mainstream expectations, Sharma focused on fine-tuning the execution. High artistic quality-strange to audiences or not, is a universal language.. Sharma hired C.V. Chandrasekhar to choreograph, Pancha Maha Bhootam.

"He's actually one of the top choreographers and teachers in India," Sharma said. Chandrasekhar is an alumnus of the renowned Kalakshetra Dance Academy and is the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Bharatanatyam, India's highest honour in dance. The Naatya Dance Ensemble has invited Chandrasekhar to return this summer, to choreograph Pumejad, a piece whose story is taken from the Ramayana and whose title translates to "daughter of the earth." Sharma said, "It is about Princess Seetha. Like you have the Illiad and the Odysesse, in India you have Mahabharatha and the Ramayana."

A departure from the austerity of the Natya Shastra, which emphasized the mythological and religious aspect of the form, Sharma concentrated on pure dance technique. "Here was a fantastic opportunity to focus on predominately the pure dance idiom. Technique within the dance form. " The dramatic component, which Sharma contends speaks for half of the dance's tradition, is relegated aesthetically to the sideline. The fusion of these two components, drama and technique, "is what takes us that many years to prepare ourselves to be performers, whereas this piece is highlighting pure dance types of things." Even the costumes, while still very traditional, tend to be more neutral in coloring, when compared with the vibrant hues in more orthodox depictions, which might distract from the physical presentation of the dance. "This is very, very beautiful because you're watching the sheer dance," Sharma said.

Although Sharma, whose company has performed in over seventy sites around the world, professes herself to be a pure traditionalist, her current stylistic outriding, while appreciated by modernists, could be a pariah in India. "In a place like India, my goal would be to produce perfection that would be in line with what would be expected of a professional in India… I can't speak for every type of Indian member who would come. However, I can speak for the smaller group of people who have already seen us perform [this show] at a Hindu temple. The response was tremendous. People were just blown away."

Information on the upcoming performance of Pumejad and the Naatya Academy of Indian Classical Dance can be obtained at www.naatya.org or by calling the academy at (610) 725-9298. The academy's e-mail address is info@naatya.org.

"I'm very interested in reaching out to the mainstream Philadelphia audience," Sharma said. "That is one of the principal reasons why we are trying to bring this right downtown, in the Philadelphia area."