Her lines are crisp, her walk divine and her dance is an expression of liquidity blending with the music thus bringing about the perfect harmony of expressions. The body, which becomes an instrument of communication of one’s mind, looks for the various systemic patterns that convey the rationale or the purpose of an idea. Alarmel Valli is a name synonymous with bringing the much-needed process of thinking and innovation in classical dance in the present times. Known to be unconventional in her process of choreography, Valli very much remains rooted to the structure of classical dancing but interprets it in a contemporary way. One of the thoughtful dancers of today she chooses the right words for the expression she wants to convey with much deliberation and care.
“Tradition, for me, is a continuous process of growth and evolution - that is rooted in the past, shapes the present and reaches out to the future. The forms I inherited from my dance and music gurus are but the foundations on which I build structures, both in time and space, drawing from my own contemporary experience of dance, music, literature and life,” says Valli. She attributes her creativity largely to the inspiration that she draws from literature, music and poetry.
Her performance at the NCPA this weekend, Only until the light fades will showcase diverse colors of love, from poems, ancient, medieval and modern, in Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and English - poems which underscore the fact that love reinvents itself through the ages, yet remains timeless. In the words of poet, Arundhathi Subramaniam, who has collaborated with Alarmel Valli on the concept for this production… “The production reminds us that alchemy of the classical art lies in turning the ‘then and there’ into the’ here and now’; in turning a codified idiom of gesture into the authentic language of the self.” Alarmel Valli believes that much depends on the way in which a poem is interpreted by the dancer. Interpretations are often a window to the mind of a dancer. She explains, “When you interpret a theme in dance, it is refracted through your own ‘modern’ perceptions and understanding of life, infused with your awareness. It therefore becomes ‘contemporary’, albeit, couched in an age old, classical dance idiom.”
Alarmel Valli’s choreography of Sangam poetry over the last two decades remains one of the most significant works of the contemporary era in classical dance. For this performance, she has choreographed, for the first time, an English poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam. Alarmel Valli says of this experience, “Arundhathi’s poetry is rich in metaphor, lyrical and cadenced, with arresting tonal shifts — it translates beautifully into dance. But the challenge was to give the poem a fabric of melody, to evoke the cadences of the language and also to find the right movement syntax to translate the metaphors… I try not only to interpret the poem through dance, but I also simultaneously weave my own dance poem around the words. The dance therefore becomes a poem, embroidered around a poem. And when the music is imaginatively composed, there is a harmonious coming together of the poetry of word, movement and melody.”
Her creative process is always rustling up with her imagination spreading beyond the three dimensional axis of things. “I am glad I learnt dance in an age devoid of cassette –recorders, televisions or DVDs. In a performing art where the visual impact is so strong, it is all too easy to slip into the imitation mode, without your even knowing it. On the other hand, I grew up in an era when there was a mellow quality to life — when there was time to listen to silence, time to read for hours at a stretch,” enthuses Alarmel Valli.
Her gurus and mother have been her principle source of inspiration. The time she spent with them learning and absorbing values is something she cherishes. “There was no spoon-feeding, no detailed analysis, no elaborate lessons on theory. Yet, I absorbed the most valuable knowledge, through the process of osmosis, as it were. In those early years — the pre info-technology era — students had to rely entirely on memory, observation, on concentration and introspection. This process freed the imagination and enriched creative growth.” says Alarmel Valli. “Technology can be a boon, but one has to guard against it becoming a crutch,” she explains.
She speaks of the evolution of an increasingly “global”, homogenous style of Bharatnatyam. “Personally speaking, I cherish the uniqueness of the different banis, or styles. Today, there seems to be an increasing tendency for dancers to focus on the overt and the sensational.
But Bharatanatyam has a special allure and grace, a rich and intense musicality, a subtle lyricism, which give it its distinct beauty. If these delicate nuances are erased in the pursuit of sensationalism, it would be a pity,” says Valli.