Indian dancing not a simple step

Press, 11 September 1980, Page 9

Indian dancing not a simple step

By

KARREN BEANLAND

Sudah Hall, who is in Christchurch this week to conduct workshops and give public performances of the ancient Indian, dance form, Bharata Natyam, sees her dancing as a “mission.” fl don’t think there have been many people in New Zealand who have . been qualified ■ and have had enough knowledge. of the dancing to be able to communicate it,” she said. ' “I have been, fortunate to .have learnt’ about it so'l think I should use it so that people wilt have some 'basis for understanding when other Eastern, groups come here.” Mrs Hall, who works in the Dunedin Public Library and runs weekly classes in Indian dancing ■ as well as doing performances, said New Zealand audiences enjoyed the dancing. But she did not think they always understood it. ‘The whole psychology behind the art is very different from the Western way of- looking at things,’’ she said. Mrs Hall started dancing when she was six. She came to : New Zealand when she was 15 and returned to India, only one unit short of a,-degree for which she was studying at the University of Otago, to study for a

diploma in tradional Indian dancing at Kalakshetra, which means “holy place of the arts”, in Madras. “I just wanted to find out if I really could dance,” she said. Her four years in Kalakshetra had been a fascinating experience. Living only to dance, with no “mundane” distractions, it had been a "total indulgence”. The Indian dance form had some similarities with Western dancing . because they both involved discipline of mind and body, Mrs Hall said. But Indian, dance required an understanding -of the history behind it whereas Western dance was so individual that it almost negated the past. The diploma course included study of Sanskrit so that the dancers could understand the writings in which the dances had originally been recorded. “You use the rules and regulations of the dance form but within that you can create and improvise,” said Mrs Hall. “The. dance carries the whole culture with it. You can -be an individual but you are a part of the larger thing.”

i Mrs Hall said that the , dance form still had relef vance to both modern Indian and Western cultures. The t gestures of the dance, which 8 is 2000 years old, could be adapted to tell modem stor- • ies. - Europeans could learn the r dance form but they had to - learn many things that came 1 naturally to Indian people. “The Asian people are i more open and express their i whole self a lot more than J Westerners do,” said Mrs 8 Hall. “Westerners still hide 1 behind a face, while in. the - dance you have to use your f face’and not hide anything.” - Mrs Hall said it was frus--5 trating being the only tradi- - tional Indian dancer in New Zealand. Performing by her- • self meant it was difficult to > introduce sufficient variety 1 and to create her own i dances. She attended classes ■ in creative dance so that she could work .with other I people. s She would like to perform i more widely in New Zealand ’ and would like to return to ; India to work in dance in its : real context. “But I feel that' I have had f my indulgence already,” Mrs Hall said.